Higher aspirations than victory shouldn’t be mistaken for softness. Kushti fighters are strong and they live to train and fight. Like Aussie Muay Thai fighter James Polodna, who literally lives at Montreal’s Tristar Gym and isn’t allowed company, Kushti fighters reside in their training facilities and submit themselves to a Spartan routine. They abstain from alcohol, drugs, meat, and women. They live apart from society because theirs is not a universal pursuit. Life in the akhara, the monastery-like gyms where upwards of 60 fighters live and train, is rigorous and austere. Yes, there’s glory in victory, but it’s fleeting. To Kushti wrestlers, there’s immortality in the cultivation of the essence of strength.

That strength starts with the mud. Students at akharas cart hundreds of pounds of soft earth from riverbanks and lakebeds to their gyms every few weeks. That earth is mixed with oil, turmeric, rosewater, and sometimes buttermilk to create a fragrant, pleasing surface on which training exercises and bouts take place. The wrestling pit is covered, either by a thatch or concrete roof, to keep out the sun. Training is an orchestrated chaos of arched limbs and strained faces. Holds, moves, countermoves, throws are practiced in the rich darkness.

Days are regimented. Early in the morning every fighter studies under the guru of the akhara and practices a series of moves and countermoves called Jor (literally “exerting force”). This complex vocabulary of grappling includes familiar freestyle wrestling takedowns and more exotic, and potentially dangerous, maneuvers like using your head to pivot your body out of a hold. These moves are practiced until they become rote.

After morning practice the wrestlers eat. Their diet is highly structured as well. They’re all vegetarians and so they get their protein from a thick mixture called Khurak, made from clarified butter (ghee), milk, almond paste, or chick peas. They eat great volumes of this stuff. There are tales of fighters who would go through 50 pounds of ghee and 80 pounds of almonds a week. The better part of the afternoon is spent resting and followed by another regimen of strengthening exercises. Then more Khurak. Then sleep. When fighters compete they do so at raucous village festivals called Kushthi-spardhas that thousands in India’s north and central regions attend. These competitions tend to last all day, with featured fights unregulated by time or scoring. Pinning a man is the only way to win.

In other words, there are thousand differences between Kushti and modern-day mixed martial arts (the diaper-like loincloths the fighters wear differ significantly from ad-covered MMA shorts, and American MMA gyms are rarely, if ever, dedicated to monkey gods). But the differences are actually only superficial. The ethos of restraint, the cloistering off from society, and the aspiration towards achieving something transcendent are shared by both kinds of fighter. So is the yearning for competition.

And just like MMA and other western combat sports, kushti has its own legend — its Babe Ruth, its Muhammad Ali, its Fedor Emelianenko. Joseph S. Alter, an anthropology professor at the University of Pittsburg and scholar in Indian fighting, told me about the Great Gama, a Kushti fighter from the outskirts of Amristar in the Punjab who rose through the ranks of Akhara training, became a national champion in India by the age of 19, and, at the invitation of British wrestling promoter, landed on the cold shores of England in 1910. Once there, he won the John Bull belt by defeating Stanislaus Zbyszko in bout that lasted three hours. The Great Gama became world champion.

So, when the UFC announced that it would launch The Ultimate Fighter: India in 2013, at a press conference in Mumbai on September 11, 2011, and Man Jit Singh, the CEO of the company the promotion would be partnering with, pointed to India’s “long legacy of Kushti,” and said he hoped that “our fighters from the akharas and gyms will progress and eventually become UFC champions,”the questions were obvious: Could kushti find its way into the MMA fighter’s technical vocabulary, and could India once again produce a world champion?

Prof. Alter was intrigued when I put the question to him, but he warned that there is what he called an “idiosyncratic rather than pervasive masculinity” in Indian culture that complicates the rise of Indian wrestling and could keep it from having the kind of influence on the development of MMA some might hope for. 

“Masculinity is more nuanced in the sense that there are two related dimensions,” he said. “It’s linked to self-discipline and the moral, non-violent, balanced, and considered restraint. The preservation of the essence of masculinity is what’s valued. That’s what makes a strong person.”

Photos by Mitchell Kanashkevich

(2001)

“I have no objections to historians writing Akbar The Great. But why not Pratap The Great? The valour and sacrifice that the Maharana demonstrated in the Mewar region was equally impressive and he should be accorded more respect and dignity,” he said while unveiling a statue of Pratap at the Collectorate campus in Rajasthan’s Pratapgarh district on Sunday.

“I personally consider Maharana Pratap as great,” he said eulogizing the Mewar king who was defeated by Akbar in the historic Battle of Haldighati. “History should be presented in correct light. Pratap must be introduced as great for the next generations,” Singh said.

He pointed out that Pratap’s patriotism and the sacrifices he made should be highlighted and this would work as inspiration for the country.

“The guerrilla warfare that the Maharana had waged against the Mughals became an inspiration for freedom fighters like Chandrashekhar Azad, Bhagat Singh and even Chhatrapati Shivaji and Banda Bairagi,” he said. Singh said the Maharana was not king of a particular caste or community but fought for his country and people from all walks supported him.

“Virtues of Maharana Pratap have become more relevant in today’s world,” he said. He further said that there are several accounts in Indian history that should be modified and corrected. “I congratulate the Rajasthan government for introducing a chapter on Maharana Pratap and I assure that I will take up with the HRD ministry to introduce a similar chapter in CBSE and ICSC syllabus too,” Singh said.

Singh referred to Nobel laureate VS Naipaul’s book ‘India: A Wounded Civilisation’ and said, “Naipaul has observed that he found India the only country in the world where history written by foreign historians is taught in textbooks. Indian historians should heed to Naipaul and take measures in right earnest.”

Singh assured that the Centre would encourage celebration of Pratap’s forthcoming 475th birth anniversary in a big way.

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The Kunwars had since set up an alliance with the Shah kings of Nepal from the dynasty of the Hindu monarch Prithvi Narayan Shah and held several important positions under the dynasty, helping to consolidate the Shah rule over Nepal.

While having many a great exploits fighting for the Hindu Gorkhali army of Nepal, Balbhadra Kunwar moment of glory lay in the part he played in the Gorkha-Anglo wars.

It was in the month of October 1814 that the soldiers of the British East India Army advanced towards the Hindu kingdom of Nepal. Being lead by Rollo Gillespie the major General, a horde of 3500 soldiers , armed with latest weapons and cannons, this force advanced to occupy the territories between the Ganga and Yamuna  rivers in Garwal and Kumaon.  Realizing that he could not defend the non-combatants against this assault in the valley of Dehradun the brave Gorkha General decided to take them to Nalapani fort (located due North East from Deradun).

A night before the declaration of war, the British General Gillespie had sent a letter to Balbhadra asking him to surrender and he would be made the Governor of Dehradun. In reply he tore the letter and said,

“ I shall meet your General in the battlefield “.

It was at this time that Balbadra supported by only 600 troops (including women, the young and elderly) and fight these foreign mercenaries who had come to occupy his Hindu lands.

The Hindu troops used basic rifles, stones and arrows to fight the British hordes. This was so much in contrast to the modern rifles and 11 cannons with which the British were armed.  What followed was a fierce battle between the brave Hindu Gorkha troops and the British mercenaries for the next one month.

After realizing that military might would not make these brave Hindu surrender the cowardly British decided to cut off the only supply of water to the fort at Nalpani. This causes immense trouble to the Hindus inside the vicinity of fort, especially due to the presence of small children, women and the elderly. The walls of the fort had also been battered by the fodder of the British cannons.

Many brave Hindus had lost their lives fighting for the sake of their lands. Therefore to prevent any further harm to the defenceless Babhadra Kunwar decided to take the inhabitants, combatants and non-combatants alike, to the safety Dwarka on the night of Nov 16 1814. The Brtish continued to launch attacks on them, knowing fully well that they had non-combacts with them. The proud Hindus continued to respond to these kind while couriering the defenseless and weak to safety.

Thereafter a message was sent to the British

“We had handed over to you your deed and injured soldiers on your request. We now request you to hand over our injured soldiers to us”

a request declined by the British although they claimed that they were taking care of POWs.

Seeing the condition of his people, Balbhadra decided to ask Kathmandu for more troops as reinforcement to fight the foreigners. Sadly as the Shah’s were still consolidating the Hindu Kingdom, these troops could not be provided on time and so the Commander decided to move on to Gopichand hill fort from Dwara on Nov 18, 1814.

The Hindus spent the night at Gopichand hills while the British kept on bombarding them with their cannon fire. Meanwhile his trusted lieutenant Sardar Ripumardan Thapa (sardar standing for a leader and not a Sikh should any misunderstanding ensue) sustained an injury in his right arm from an enemy shell. Sadly he couldn’t continue the ascend uphill and had to stop while the rest of the Hindus continued to climb uphill to safety.

The next day on Nov 19,1814, men sent by Balabhadra carried Ripumardana to Chamuwa for treatment. Kaji Ranadipa Simha Basnyat,  Kaji Rewanta Kunwar and Subedar Dalajit Kanwar also had arrived by this time for the assistance of Gurkhas, even though they were killed by enemy fire on the very next day.

Defiant to the last of his resources ultimately after four days of thirst, hunger, weariness and enduring severe wounds the Hindu lion Balbhadra emerged out of the camp with khurkris drawn in both his mace like hands (along with the rest of 70 surviving Hindus) and roared to the British Merceneries –“ You could have never won this battle but now I myself voluntarily abandon this fort. There is nothing inside the fort other than corpses of the children and women” Saying thus, he and his Gurkhas left for the hills.

Finally a peace treaty was signed between the British East India Company and His Royal Highness Maharaja Dhiraj Girvan Vikram Shah and  the British East India Company, known as Sugauli Treaty. While the Hindu Gurkhas might not have won this war, they still came out as victors. Victors of the spirit of Sanatana Dharma, the fire that ignites the hearts of countless Hindu men and women since ages which tells them to never give up not even in the face of extreme opposition. So enamored were the British by the bravery of brave Hindu Gurkhas that one of their poets, John Ship,  dedicated the following lines to them,

“I never saw more steadinesses Or bravery exhibited in my life. Run they would not and of death They seemed to have no fear Though their comrades were falling Thick around them, as bold For we were so near to know That every shot of ours told’.”

Bhalbhadra Kunwar did not loose his life in the Gurkha-Anglo war, he procceded to Lahore, then capital of Punjab to join ranks with the new Lahore regiment formed by Maharaja Ranjit Singh. Balbhadra Kunwar in keeping with his brave past was made the General of this new regiment, which consisted of entirely Hindu Gorkhali troops. The word Gorkhali was strictly reserved for those Hindus who served under the Hindu kings, others who had served the Muhammadan warlords were known as “Munglane” and were seen as lowly and unclean.

It was during the Sikh-Afghan war, that the brave General finally met his heroic end while fighting the afghans tribals during a bout of heavy artillery fire. It is said that he was the last man in his regiment to fall and kept fighting to his end. Thus came a comma to the great and heroic life of a great Hindu warrior (I saw comma because in Sanatana Dharma there is no fullstop). As a tribute to his gallantry the British erected a war memorial at Nalapani, where the following words bear inscribed bear testament to his life

“as a tribute of respect for our gallant adversary Balbudder Commander of the fort and his brave Gorkhas who were afterwards while in the service of Ranjit Singh shot down in their ranks to the last man by the Afghan artillery.”

Later Capt. Balbhadra Kunwar´s descendants and family members were to establish the Rana dynasty in the middle of the 1800´s led by Jung Bahador Kunwar Rana.

Today the decendants of Balbhadra live mainly in Nepal (kathmandu and pokhara, other cities too) but are also found Internationaly in the India, USA, UK, Sweden, Denmark, Australia, U.A.E among other places.

By Amit

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1857 saw one of the bloodiest revolutions in world history as hundreds of thousands perished as India bid for freedom and the greatest empire in the world tottered for a fall.

Racial prejudices and brutality exposed itself at its worst as Indians were subjected to the worst forms of apartheid in their own country with the increasing hold of the British over the political structure of India backed by its native Indian army.  Everything was set for an explosion.

And matters exploded in 1857 memorably by the first martyr for Indian freedom, Mangal Pandey. Soon Northern India was on fire as the British and their troops scurried for cover as the name of dharma and justice rang through the land.

Central in this struggle was a young widow, Lakshmi bai of Jhansi (19 November 1828 – 18 June 1858). At birth she was named Manu. The young Manu, unfortunately she lost her mother when she was only four. The entire duty of bringing up the daughter fell on her father. Along with formal education she acquired the skill in sword fighting, horse riding and shooting. Manu later became the wife of Gangadhar Rao, Maharaaj of Jhansi, in 1842. From then on she was known as Maharani Lakshmi Bai of Jhansi.

In 1851 Maharani Lakshmi Bai bore a son but her fate was cruel and she lost her child within three months. Her husband, the Maharajah of Jhansi passed away on the 21st November 1853. Although prior to this the Maharaja and Maharani adopted a boy the British government claimed they did not recognise the right of the adopted boy. Thus they tried to buy off the Rani however she stated:

“No, impossible! I shall not surrender my Jhansi!”

It did not take her long to realise how difficult it was for the small state of Jhansi to oppose the British when even the Peshwas and Kings of Delhi had bowed down to the British Demands. The Rani’s battle now was against the British who had cunningly taken her kingdom from her.

After the British took over her government her daily routine changed. Every morning from 4am to 8am were set apart for bathing, worship, meditation and prayer. From 8am to 11am she would go out for a horse ride, practise shooting, and practice swordmanship and shooting with the reins held on her teeth. Thereafter she would bathe again, feed the hungry, give alms to the poor and then have food; then rested for a while.

After that she would chant the Ramanyan. She would then exercise lightly in the evening. Later she would go through some religious books and hear religious sermons. Then she worshipped her chosen deity and had supper. All things were done methodically, according to her strict timetable. Such a dedicated and devoted women!

When the fires of freedom were spreading the Rani had no hesitation in throwing her lot in with the freedom fighters. Her brave and steady character with her son Damodar Rao was strapped tightly to her back going onto the battlefield earned her the respect of the other fighters such as Tatya Tope, Kunwar Singh, Amar Singh , Peshwa Nana Saheb and others.

She maintained a determined and gritty struggle for over a year  as the leaderless revolutionaries fought desperately in small groups and pockets all over north India facing the reinforced British and their Indian lackeys.

The tide of war washed over the subcontinent as the British were everywhere uprooted and the Indians bid to reverse the inequities thrust upon them. However without trained leadership and fighting independently from each other, united by nothing more than a desire to be free they were subdued one by one.

Despite the turning of the tide she scored some notable victories over British troops earning even the grudging respect of the British in this brutal race war.

All these disciplined and training patterns came in use during the Indian war of Independence in 1857. Many lives were lost and innocence people killed. Although India  did not gain independence the Rani did win back Jhansi and created the state to its former glory having a full treasury and army of women matching the army of men.Finally, in  1858 with the rebel leaders either killed in action or hanged Sir Hugh Rose attacked Jhansi  . The next day’s battle was the Rani’s last.

Her death was heroic, her army had declined as they were out numbered by the opposition. The British Army had encircled her and her men. There was no escape blood was flowing, darkness was approaching. The British army was pursuing her. Holding the reins of her horse in her mouth and wielding a sword in either hand she made a last attack on the British After a great struggle the Rani died muttering quotes from the Bhagvad Gita. She died as she had lived. –

A martyr to freedom, for dharma and independent womanhood. She was the very embodiment of the War Goddess Kali. Her name remains as a beacon for Dharma

MORE : Video : Maharani Lakshmi Bai’s birth place lies in neglect

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In 1542, she was married to Dalpatshah, the eldest son of king Sangramshah of Gond Dynasty. Chandel and Gond dynasties got closer as a consequence of this marriage and that was the reason Keerat Rai got the help of Gonds and his son-in-law Dalpatshah at the time of invasion of Shershah Suri in which Shershah Suri died.

She gave birth to a son in 1545 A.D. who was named Vir Narayan. Dalpatshah died in about 1550 A.D. As Vir Narayan was too young at that time, Durgavati took the reins of the Gond kingdom in her hands. Two ministers Adhar Kayastha and Man Thakur helped the Rani in looking after the administration successfully and effectively. Rani moved her capital to Chauragarh in place of Singaurgarh. It was a fort of strategic importance situated on the Satpura hill range.

After the death of Shershah, Sujat Khan captured the Malwa zone and was succeeded by his son Bajbahadur in 1556 A.D. (Bajbahadur is famous in history for his tumultus love affair with Rani Roopmati). After ascending to the throne, he attacked Rani Durgavati but the attack was repulsed with heavy losses to his army. This defeat effectively silenced Bajbahadur and the victory brought name and fame for Rani Durgavati.

In the year 1562 Akbar vanquished the Malwa ruler Baj Bahadur and annexed the Malwa with Mughul dominion. Consequently, the state boundary of Rani touched the Mughal kingdom. Rani’s contemporary Mughul Subedar was Abdul Mazid Khan, an ambitious man who vanquished Ramchandra, the ruler of Rewa. Prosperity of Rani Durgavati’s state lured him and he invaded Rani’s state after taking permission from Mughul emperor.

This plan of Mughul invasion was the result of expansionism and imperialism of Akbar. When Rani heard about the attack by Asaf Khan she decide to defend her kingdom with all her might although her minister Adhar pointed out the strength of Mughal forces. Rani maintained that it was better to die respectfully than to live a disgraceful life.

To fight a defensive battle, she went to Narrai situated between a hilly range on one side and two rivers Gaur and Narmada on the other side. It was an unequal battle with trained soldiers and modern weapons in multitude on one side and a few untrained soldiers with old weapons on the other side.

Her leading general Faujdar Arjun Daswas killed in the battle and Rani decided to lead the defence herself. As the enemy entered the valley, soldiers of Rani attacked them. Both sides lost some men but Rani was victorious in this battle. She chased the Mughul army and came out of the valley.

At this stage Rani reviewed her strategy with her counsellors. She wanted to attack the enemy in the night to enfeeble them but her lieutenants did not accept her suggestion. By next morning Asaf khan had summoned big guns. Rani rode on her elephant Sarman and came for the battle. Her son Vir Narayan also took part in this battle. He forced Mughul army to move back three times but at last he got wounded and had to retire to a safe place.

In the course of battle Rani also got injured near her ear with an arrow. Another arrow pierced her neck and she lost her consciousness. On regaining consciousness she perceived that defeat was imminent. Her Mahout advised her to leave the battlefield but she refused and took out her dagger and killed herself. Her martyrdom day (24th June 1564) is even today commomorated as “Balidan Diwas”. Rani Durgavati’s was a personality with varied facets. She was valiant, beautiful and brave and also a great leader with administrative skills. Her self-respect forced her to fight till death rather than surrender herself to her enemy.

By Rajput Chronicles

(27299)

”Shivaji was the greatest Hindu king that India had produced within the last thousand years; one who was the very incarnation of lord Siva, about whom prophecies were given out long before he was born; and his advent was eagerly expected by all the great souls and saints of Maharashtra as the deliverer of the Hindus from the hands of the Mlecchas, and as one who succeeded in the reestablishment of Dharma which had been trampled underfoot by the depredations of the devastating hordes of the Moghals”   – Swami Vivekananda

Schoolchildren in India learn a very specific blend of Indian history. This school version of history is stripped of all the vigor and pride. The story of Indian civilization spans thousands of years. However for the most part the schoolbook version dwells on the freedom struggle against British and important role played in there by the Indian National Congress. We learn each and every movement of Gandhi and Nehru, but not even a passing reference is made to hundreds of other important people and events.

My objection is not to the persons Gandhi or Nehru. They were great men. However the attention they get and the exposure their political views and ideology gets is rather disproportionate.

And thus it comes no surprise to me that rarely we talk about an epic war that significantly altered the face of Indian subcontinent. The war that can be described the mother of all wars in India. Considering the average life expectancy that time was around 30 years, this war of 27 years lasted almost the lifespan of an entire generation. The total number of battles fought was in hundreds. It occurred over vast geographical expanse spanning four biggest states of modern India- Maharashtra, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Karnataka. For time, expanse and human and material cost, this  war has no match in Indian history.

Intro

It started in 1681 with the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb’s invasion of Maratha empire. It ended in 1707 with Aurangzeb’s death. Aurangzeb threw everything he had in this war. He lost it all.

It’s tempting to jump into the stories of heroics, but what makes the study of war more interesting is the understanding of politics behind it. Every war is driven by politics. Rather war is just one of the means to do politics. This war was not an exception.

Shivaji’s tireless work for most of his life had shown fruits by the last quarter of seventeenth century. He had firmly established Marathas as power in Deccan. He built hundreds of forts in Konkan and Sahyadris and thus created a defense backbone. He also established strong naval presence and controlled most of the Western ports barring few on end of Indian peninsula. Thus tightening the grip on trade routes of Deccan sultanates, he strangled their  weapons import from Europe and horses import from Arabian traders.  These Sultanates launched several campaigns against Shivaji, but failed to stop him.

On the Northern front, several Rajput kings had accepted to be the vassals of Mughals. Aurangzeb had succeeded to the throne after brutal killing of his brothers and imprisonment of his father. With Rajput resistance mostly subsided and the southern sultanates weakened, it was only matter of time before Marathas were in his cross-hair.

[quote]‘The death of Shivaji was the mere beginning of Maratha history. He founded a Hindu principality-it had yet to grow into a Hindu Empire. This was all done after the death of Shivaji. The real epic opens as soon as Shivaji, after calling into being the great forces that had to act it up, disappears from the scene. ‘ ...Vināyak Dāmodar Sāvarkar[/quote]

Shivaji’s death

At the time of Shivaji’s death in 1680, Maratha empire spanned an area far more than the current state of Maharashtra and had taken firm roots. But it was surrounded by enemies from all sides.  Portuguese on northern Coast and Goa, British in Mumbai, Siddies in Konkan and remaining Deccan sultanates in Karnataka posed limited challenge each, but none of them was capable of taking down the Marathas alone. Mughal empire with Aurangzeb at its helm was the most formidable foe.

For the most part, Aurangzeb was a religious fanatic. He had distanced Sikhs and Rajputs because of his intolerant policies against Hindus. After his succession to the throne, he had made life living hell for Hindus in his kingdom. Taxes like Jizya tax were imposed on Hindus. No Hindu could ride in Palanquin. Hindu temples were destroyed and abundant forcible conversions took place. Aurangzeb unsuccessfully tried to impose Sharia, the Islamic law. This disillusioned Rajputs and Sikhs resulting in their giving cold shoulder to Aurangzeb in his Deccan campaign.

Thus in September of  1681, after settling his dispute with the royal house of Mewar, Aurangzeb began his journey to Deccan to kill the Maratha confederacy that was not even 50 years old. On his side, the Mughal king had enormous army numbering half a million soldiers, a number more than three times that of the Maratha army. He had plentiful support of artillery, horses, elephants. He also brought huge wealth in royal treasuries. Teaming up with Portuguese, British ,Siddis, Golkonda and Bijapur Sultanates he planned to encapsulate Marathas from all sides and to form a deadly death trap. To an outsider, it would seem no-brainer to predict the outcome of such vastly one sided war. It seemed like the perfect storm headed towards Maratha confederacy.

Enormous death and destruction followed in Deccan for what seemed like eternity. But what happened at the end would defy all imaginations and prove every logic wrong. Despite lagging in resources on all fronts, it would be the Marathas who triumphed. And at the expense of all his treasure, army, power and life, it would be the invading emperor who learned a very costly lesson, that the will of people to fight for their freedom should never be underestimated.

Timeline – Marathas under King Sambhaji (1680 to 1689):

After the death of Shivaji in 1680, a brief power struggle ensued in the royal family. Finally Sambhaji became the king. By this time Aurangzeb had finished his North missions and was pondering a final push in Deccan to conquer all of the India.

In 1681 sambhaji attacked Janjira, but his first attempt failed. In the same time one of the Aurangzeb’s generals, Hussein Ali Khan , attacked Northern Konkan. Sambhaji left janjira and attacked Hussein Ali Khan and pushed him back to Ahmednagar. By this time monsoon of 1682 had started. Both sides halted their major military operations. But Aurangzeb was not sitting idle. He tried to sign a deal with Portuguese to allow mughal ships to harbor in Goa. This would have allowed him to open another supply route to Deccan via sea. The news reached sambhaji. He attacked Portuguese territories and pushed deep inside Goa. But Voiceroy Alvor was able to defend Portuguese headquarters.

By this time massive Mughal army had started gathering on the borders of Deccan. It was clear that southern India was headed for one big conflict.Sambhaji had to leave Portuguese expedition and turn around. In late 1683, Aurangzeb moved to Ahmednagar. He divided his forces in two and put his two princes, Shah Alam and Azam Shah, in charge of each division. Shah alam was to attack South Konkan via Karnataka border while Azam Shah would attack Khandesh and northern Maratha territory. Using pincer strategy, these two divisions planned to circle Marathas from South and North and isolate them.

The beginning went quite well. Shah Alam crossed Krishna river and entered Belgaum. From there he entered Goa and started marching north via Konkan. As he pushed further,he was continuously harassed by Marathas. They ransacked his supply chains and reduced his forces to starvation. Finally Aurangzeb sent Ruhulla Khan for his rescue and brought him back to Ahmednagar. The first pincer attempt failed.

After 1684 monsoon, Aurangzeb’s another general Sahabuddin Khan directly attacked the Maratha capital, fort Raygad. Maratha commanders successfully defended Raygad. Aurangzeb sent Khan Jehan for help, but Hambeerrao Mohite, Commander-in-Chief of Maratha army, defeated him in a fierce battle at Patadi. Second division of Maratha army attacked Sahabuddin Khan at Pachad, inflicting heavy losses on Mughal army.

In early 1685, Shah Alam attacked South again via Gokak- Dharwar route. But Sambhaji’s forces harassed him continuously on the way and finally he had to give up and thus failed to close the loop second time.

In april 1685 Aurangzeb rehashed his strategy. He planned to consolidate his power in the South by taking expeditions to Goalkonda and Bijapur. Both were Shia muslim rulers and Aurangzeb was no fond of them. He broke his treaties with both empires and attacked them. Taking this opportunity Marathas launched offensive on North coast and attacked Bharuch. They were able to evade the mughal army sent their way and came back with minimum damage.

On Aurangzeb’s new Southern front, things were proceeding rather smoothly. Bijapur fell in September 1686. King Sikandar Shah was captured and imprisoned. Goalkonda agreed to pay huge ransom. But after receiving the money, Aurangzeb attacked them in blatant treachery. Soon Goalkonda fell as well. King Abu Hussein of Goalkonda was captured and met the same fate as Sikandar Shah.

Marathas had tried to win mysore through diplomacy. Kesopant Pingle, (Moropant Pingle’s brother) was running negotiations, but the fall of Bijapur to mughals turned the tides and Mysore was reluctant to join Marathas. Still Sambhaji successfully courted several Bijapur sardars to join Maratha army.

After fall of Bijapur and Goalkonda, Aurangzeb turned his attention again to his main target – Marathas. First few attempts proved unsuccessful to make a major dent. But in Dec 1688 he had his biggest jackpot. Sambhaji was captured due to treachery at Sangmeshwar. Aurangzeb gave him option of converting to Islam, which he refused. Upon refusal, Aurangzeb, blinded by his victories, gave Sambhaji the worst treatment he could ever give to anyone.Sambhaji was paraded on donkey. His tongue was cut, eyes were gorged out. His body was cut into pieces and fed to dogs.

There were many people who did not like Sambhaji and thus were sympathetic to Mughals. But this barbaric treatment made everyone angry. Maratha generals gathered on Raygad. The decision was unanimous. All peace offers were to be withdrawn. Mughals would be repelled at all costs. Rajaram succeeded as the next king. He began his reign by a valiant speech on Raygad. All Maratha generals and councilmen united under the flag of new king, and thus began the second phase of the epic war.

“Whenever Mughal horses used to refuse to go to the water to drink water, it was feared they had seen Santaji and Dhanaji” – Kafi Khan  Mughal court historian

27 Years War TimeLine – Marathas under King Rajaram (1689 to 1700)

To Aurangzeb, the Marathas seemed all but dead by end of 1689. But this would prove to be almost a fatal blunder. In March 1690, the Maratha commanders, under the leadership of Santaji Ghorpade launched the single most daring attack on mughal army. They not only attacked the army, but sacked the tent where the Aurangzeb himself slept. Luckily Aurangzeb was elsewhere but his private force and many of his bodyguards were killed.

This positive development was followed by a negative one for Marathas. Raigad fell to treachery of Suryaji Pisal. Sambhaji’s queen, Yesubai and their son, Shahu, were captured.

Mughal forces, led by Zulfikar Khan, continued this offensive further South. They attacked fort Panhala. The Maratha killedar of Panhala gallantly defended the fort and inflicted heavy losses on Mughal army. Finally Aurangzeb himself had to come. Panhala surrendered.

Maratha ministers had foreseen the next Mughal move on Vishalgad. They made Rajaram leave Vishalgad for Jinji, which would be his home for next seven years. Rajaram  travelled South under escort of Khando Ballal and his men. The queen of Bidnur,  gave them supplies and free passage.  Harji Mahadik’s division met them near Jinji and guarded them to the fort. Rajaram’s queen was escorted out of Maharashtra by Tungare brothers.  She was taken to Jinji by different route. Ballal and Mahadik tirelessly worked to gather the scattered diplomats and soldiers. Jinji became new capital of Marathas. This breathed new life in Maratha army.

Aurangzeb was frustrated with Rajaram’s successful escape. His next move was to keep most of his force in Maharashtra and dispatch a small force to keep Rajaram in check. But the two Maratha generals, Santaji ghorpade and Dhanaji Jadhav would prove more than match to him.

They first attacked and destroyed the force sent by Aurangzeb to keep check on Rajaram, thus relieving the immediate danger. Then they joined Ramchandra Bavadekar in Deccan. Bavdekar, Vithoji Bhosale and Raghuji Chavan had reorganized most of the Maratha army after defeats at Panhala and Vishalgad.

In late 1691, Bavdekar, Pralhad Niraji , Santaji ,Dhanaji and several Maratha sardars met in Maval region and reformed the strategy. Aurangzeb had taken four major forts in Sahyadrais and was sending Zulfikar khan to subdue the fort Jinji. So according to new Maratha plan, Santaji and Dhanaji would launch offensives in the East to keep rest of the Mughal forces scattered. Others would focus in Maharashtra and would attack a series of forts around Southern Maharashtra and Northern Karnataka to divide Mughal won territories in two, thereby posing significant challenge to enemy supply chains. Thanks to Shivaji’s vision of building a navy, Marathas could now extend this divide into the sea, checking any supply routes from Surat to South.

The execution began. In early 1692 Shankar Narayan and Parshuram Trimbak recaptured Rajgad and Panhala. In early 1693 Shankar Narayan and Bhosale captured Rohida. Sidhoji Gujar took Vijaydurg. Soon Parshuram Trimbak took Vishalgad. Kanhoji Angre, a young Maratha Naval officer that time, took fort Kolaba.

While this was in work, Santaji and Dhanaji were launching swift raids on Mughal armies on East front. This came as a bit of surprise to Aurangzeb. In spite of losing one King and having second king driven away, Marathas were undaunted and actually were on offensive. From Khandesh, Ahmednagar to Bijapur to Konkan and Southern Karnataka, Santaji and Dhanaji wrecked havoc. Encouraged by the success, Santaji and Dhanaji hatched new action plan to attack Mughal forces near Jinji. Dhanaji Jadhav attacked Ismail Khan and defeated him near Kokar. Santaji Ghorpade attacked Ali Mardan Khan at the base of Jinji and captured him. With flanks cleared, both joined hands and laid a second siege around the Mughal siege at Jinji.

Julfikar khan, who was orchestrating Jinji siege, left the siege on Aurangzeb’s orders and marched back. Santaji followed him to North, but was defeated by Julfikar Khan. Santaji then diverted his forces to Bijapur. Aurangzeb sent another general Kasim Khan to tackle Santaji. But Santaji attacked him with a brilliant military maneuver near Chitaldurg and forced him take refuge in Dunderi fort. The fort was quickly sieged by Santaji and the siege only ended when most of the Mughal soldiers starved and Kasim Khan committed suicide. Aurangzeb sent Himmat Khan to reinforce Kasim Khan. Himmat khan carried heavy artillery. So Santaji lured him in a trap in the forest near Dunderi. A sudden, ambush style attack on Mughals was followed by a fierce battle. The battle ended when when Himmat Khan was shot in head and died. All his forces routed and Santaji confiscated a big cache of weapons and ammunition.

By now, Aurangzeb had the grim realization that the war he began was much more serious than he thought. He consolidated his forces and rethought his strategy. He sent an ultimatum to Zulfikar khan to finish Jinji business or be stripped of the titles. Julfikar khan tightened the Siege. But Rajaram fled and was safely escorted to Deccan by Dhanaji Jadhav and  Shirke brothers. Haraji Mahadik’s son took the charge of Jinji and bravely defended Jinji against Julfikar khan and Daud khan till January of 1698. This gave Rajaram ample of time to reach Vishalgad.

Jinji fell, but it did a big damage to the Mughal empire. The losses incurred in taking Jinji far outweighed the gains. The fort had done its work. For seven years the three hills of Jinji had kept a large contigent of mughal forces occupied. It had eaten a deep hole into Mughal resources. Not only at Jinji, but the royal treasury was bleeding everywhere and was already under strain.

Marathas would soon witness an unpleasant development, all of their own making. Dhanaji Jadhav and Santaji Ghorpade had a simmering rivalry, which was kept in check by the councilman Pralhad Niraji. But after Niraji’s death, Dhanaji grew bold and attacked Santaji. Nagoji Mane, one of Dhanaji’s men, killed Santaji. The news of Santaji’s death greatly encouraged Aurangzeb and Mughal army.

But by this time Mughals were no longer the army they were feared before. Aurangzeb, against advise of several of his experienced generals, kept the war on. It was much like Alexander on the borders of Taxila.

The Marathas again consolidated and the new Maratha counter offensive began. Rajaram made Dhanaji the next commander in chief. Maratha army was divided in three divisions. Dhanaji would himself lead the first division. Parshuram Timbak lead the second and Shankar Narayan lead the third. Dhanaji Jadhav defeated a large mughal force near Pandharpur. Shankar Narayan defeated Sarja Khan in Pune. Khanderao Dabhade, who lead a division under Dhanaji, took Baglan and Nashik. Nemaji Shinde, another commander with Shankar Narayan, scored a major victory at Nandurbar.

Enraged at this defeats, Aurangzeb himself took charge and launched another counter offensive. He laid siege to Panhala and attacked the fort of Satara. The seasoned commander, Prayagji Prabhu defended Satara for a good six months, but surrendered in April of 1700, just before onset of Monsoon. This foiled Aurangzeb’s strategy to clear as many forts before monsoon as possible.

In March of 1700, another bad news followed Marathas. Rajaram took his last breath. His queen Tarabai, who was also daughter of the gallant Maratha Commander-in-Chief Hambeerrao Mohite, took charge of Maratha army. Daughter of a braveheart, Tarabai proved her true mettle for the next seven years. She carried the struggle on with equal valor. Thus began the phase 3, the last phase of the prolonged war, with Marathas under the leadership of Tarabai.

The signs of strains were showing in Mughal camp in late 1701. Asad Khan, Julfikar Khan’s father, counselled Aurangzeb to end the war and turn around. This expedition had already taken a giant toll, much larger than originally planned, on Mughal empire. And serious signs were emerging that the 200 years old Mughal empire was crumbling and was in the middle of a war that was not winnable.

Mughals were bleeding heavily from treasuries. But  Aurangzeb kept pressing the war on.  When Tarabai took charge, Aurangzeb had laid siege to the fort of Parli (Sajjangad). Parshuram Trimbak defended the fort until monsoon and retreated quietly at the break of monsoon.The mughal army was dealt heavy loss by flash floods in the rivers around. These same tactics were followed by Marathas at the next stop of Aurangzeb, Panhala. Similar tactic was followed even for Vishalgad.

By 1704, Aurangzeb had Torana and Rajgad. He had won only a handful forts in this offensive, but he had spent several precious years. It was slowly dawning to him that after 24 years of constant war, he was no closer to defeating Marathas than he was the day he began.

The final Maratha counter offensive gathered momentum in North. Tarabai proved to be a valiant leader once again. One after another Mughal provinces fell in north. They were not in position to defend as the royal treasuries had been sucked dry and no armies were left in tow. In 1705, two Maratha army factions crossed Narmada. One under leadership of Nemaji Shinde hit as deep North as Bhopal. Second under the leadership of Dabhade struck Bharoch and West. Dabhade with his eight thousand men,attacked and defeated Mahomed khan’s forces numbering almost fourteen thousand. This left entire Gujarat coast wide open for Marathas. They immediately tightened their grip on Mughal supply chains.

In Maharashtra, Aurangzeb grew despondent. He started negotiations with Marathas, but cut abruptly and marched on a small kingdom called Wakinara. Naiks at Wakinara traced their lineage to royal family of Vijaynagar empire. They were never fond of Mughals and had sided with Marathas. Dhanaji marched into Sahyadris and won almost all the major forts back in short time. Satara and Parali forts were taken by Parshuram Timbak. Shankar Narayan took Sinhgad. Dhanaji then turned around and took his forces to Wakinara. He helped the Naiks at Wakinara sustain the fight. Naiks fought very bravely. Finally Wakinara fell, but the royal family of Naiks successfully escaped with least damage.

Aurangzeb had now given up all hopes and was now planning retreat to Burhanpur. Dhanaji Jadhav again fell on him and in swift and ferocious attack and dismantled the rear guard of his imperial army. Zulfikar Khan rescued the emperor and they successfully reached Burhanpur.

Aurangzeb witnessed bitter fights among his sons in his last days. Alone, lost, depressed, bankrupt, far away from home, he died sad death on 3rd March 1707. “I hope god will forgive me one day for my disastrous sins”, were his last words.

Thus ended a prolonged and grueling period in history of India. The Mughal kingdom fragmented and disintegrated soon after. And Deccan saw rise of a new sun, the Maratha empire.

[quote]” What some call the Muslim period in Indian history, was in reality a continuous war of occupiers against resisters, in which the Muslim rulers were finally defeated in the 18th century”  Dr Koenraad Elst[/quote]

Reflection: Strategical Analysis:

In this war, Aurangzeb’s army totaled more than 500,000 in number (compared to total Maratha army in the ballpark of 150,000). With him he carried huge artillery, cavalry, muskettes, ammunition and giant wealth from royal treasuries to support this quest. This war by no means a fair game when numbers are considered.

The main features of Aurangzeb’s strategy were :-

Use of overwhelming force to demoralize the enemy –

This tactic had proved successful in Aurangzeb’s other missions. Thus he used this even in Maharashtra. On several occasions giant Mughal contigents were used to lay siege to a fort or capture a town.

Meticulously planned sieges to the forts –

Aurangzeb knew that the forts in Sahyadri formed backbone of Maratha defense. His calculation was to simply lay tight siege to the fort, demoralizing and starving the people inside and finally making them surrender the fort.

Fork or pincer movements using large columns of infantry and cavalry –

With large number of infantry and cavalry, pincer could have proved effective and almost fatal against Marathas

Marathas had one advantage on their side, geography. They milked this advantage to the last bit. Their military activities were planned considering the terrain and the weather.

The main features of Maratha strategy were :-

Combined offensive-defensive strategy –

Throughout the war, Marathas never stopped their offensive. This served two purposes. The facts that Maratha army was carrying out offensive attacks in Mughal land suddenly made them psychologically equals to Mughals launching attack in Maratha land, even though Mughals were a much bigger force. This took negative toll on Mughal morale and boosted morale of their own men. Secondly, these offensive attacks in terms of quick raids often heavily damaged enemy supply chains taking toll on Mughal army. The forts formed backbone of Maratha defense. Thanks to Shivaji, the every fort had provision of fresh water. The total forts numbered almost 300 and this large number proved major headache to Aurangzeb.

Strategic fort defense –

Marathas had one big advantage on their side. They were the expert in fort warfare. The game of defense using forts had two components.

First component was the right play of the strategic forts . In modern warfare, you have some strategic assets like aircraft carrier, presence of which needs a substantial change of plans on your enemy side.  And then there are tactical assets, like tanks and large guns, which matter from battle to battle, but can be effectively countered by your enemy without making big plan changes. Similarly there are strategic forts, like Raigad, Janjira, Panhala and Jinji. Then there are number of tactical forts like Vishalgad, Sinhgad, Rajgad, etc.

Raigad, by its very nature, is large daunting fort. Built in 11th century by decedents of Mauryan Empire, it served as anchor to various kingdoms. Its cliffs sore high more than 1200 feet from base. It has abundant fresh water supply. Raigad, like Jinji could be defended for years at a stretch. No one could claim Sahyadri and Konkan as theirs without winning Raigad.

Aurangzeb knew difficulties in winning Raigad by war. So he managed to win it by using insider traitor, Suryaji Pisal. Had Marathas kept Raigad, Aurangzeb’s task would have been much tougher. Marathas lost Raigad early and could not win in back till much later. But they played the remaining two forts, Panhala and Jinji very well. Panhala is strategic because of its location on the confluence of multiple supply chains.  Thus Marathas defended Panhala as long as they could and tried to win it back the earliest when they didn’t have it.

The second component of defensive fort warfare was matching the movements with weather.  Forts are an asset in rest of the year, but are a liability in monsoon as it costs a lot to carry food and supplies up. Also the monsoon in coasts and ghats is severe in nature and no major military movement is possible. Thus Marathas often fought till Monsoon and surrendered the fort just before Monsoon. Before surrendering they burned all the food inside. Thus making it a proposition of loss in every way. Often times Marathas surrendered the fort empty, but later soon won it back filled with food and water. These events demoralized the enemy.

Offensive attacks in terms of evasive raids –

Marathas mostly launched offensive attacks in the region when Mughal army was away. They rarely engaged Mughal army in open fields till later part of the war. If situation seemed dire, they would retreat and disperse and thus conserve most of their men and arms for another day. The rivers Bhima, Krishna , Godavari and the mountains of Sahyadri, divide entire Maharashtra region is in several North- South corridors. When Mughal army traveled South through one corridor, Marathas would travel North through another and launch attacks there. This went on changing gradually and in the end, Maratha forces started engaging Mughals head on.

A noted historian Jadunath Sarkar makes an interesting observation. In his own words, “Aurangzeb won battle after battles, but in the end he lost the war. As the war prolonged, it transformed from war of weapons to war of spirits, and Aurangzeb was never able to break Maratha spirit.”

What Marathas did was an classic example of asymmetric defensive warfare. The statement above by Mr. Sarkar hides one interesting fact about this asymmetric defense. Is it really possible to lose most of the battles and still win the war?

The answer is yes, and explanation is a statistical phenomena called “Simpson’s paradox.”. According to Simpsons paradox, several micro-trends can lead to one conclusion, however a mega-trend combining all the micro-trends can lead to an exact opposite conclusion. Explanation is as follows.

Say two forces go on war, force A with 100 soldiers and force B with 40 soldiers. Now say in every battle between A and B, the following happens.

If A loses, they lose 80% of the soldiers fighting.
If B loses, they only lose 10% of the soldiers fighting.
If A wins, they lose 50% of the solders fighting.
If B wins, they lose only 10% of the soldiers fighting.

In the case above, the ratio of (resource drain of A / resource drain of B ) is higher than (initial number of A soldiers / initial number of B soldiers). So even if A wins battle more than 50% of the time, they will lose their resources faster and, in the end, will lose the war. All B has to do is keep the morale and keep the consistency.

One of the most famous warrior in ancient Indian history seems to agree with the conclusion above. In “Bhishma- perva” of Mahabharata, pitamah Bhishma begins the war-advice to king Yudhisthira with a famous quote –

“The strength of an army is not in its numbers’

For centuries , the mountains and valleys, towns and villages of Deccan had gotten used to being a pawn in the game of power. They changed hands as kingdoms warred with each other. They paid taxes whoever was in a position to extract them. For the most part they remained in a sleepy slumber, just turning and twisting in their bed.
Once in a while they sent their sons to fight in battles without ever asking why exactly the war is being launched. Other times they fought amongst themselves. They were divided, confused and did not have high hopes about their future.
This was the condition of Deccan when Shivaji launched his first expedition of fort Torana in 1645. By the time of his death mere 35 years later, he had transformed Deccan from a sleepy terrain to a thundering volcano.

Finally, here was a man whose vision of future  was shared by a large general audience. An unmistakable characteristic of a modern concept of “nation-state”. Perhaps the most important factor that distinguishes Shivaji’s vision  is that it was “unifying”. His vision went beyond building an army of proud warriors from warrior castes. It included people from all rungs of society sharing a common political idea and ready to defend it at any cost.+++

His vision  went far beyond creating an empire for himself in Maharashtra. It included a building confederacy of states against what he thought were foreign invaders. He was trying to build an Alliance of Hindu kingdoms. He went out of his way to convince Mirza-Raje Jaisingh to leave Aurangzeb. He established relations with the dethroned royal family of Vijaynagar for whom he had tremendous respect. He attempted to unify the sparring Hindu power centers.

And  they responded. Rajputs in Rajasthan,  Nayaks in Karnataka, rulers of Mysore, the royal family of Vijaynagar were of valuable help to Shivaji and later to Marathas. It was certainly a step towards a nation getting its soul back.

While he was creating a political voice for Hindus, Muslims never faced persecution in his rule. Several Muslims served at high posts in his court and army. His personal body guard on his Agra visit was Muslim. His Naval officer, Siddi Hilal was Muslim. Thus Shivaji’s rule was not meant to challenge Islam as a personal religion, but it was a response to Political Islam.

Last but not the least, we must give due respect to one more thing. The seeds of every political revolution can be traced back to a spiritual one and this was no exception. The “Bhakti” movement in Maharashtra that began with 12th Century saint Dnyaneshwar and spearheaded by saint Tukaram (who was contemporary of Shivaji), played a role of social catalyst of immense effect. It created a forum, a pool in society where everyone was welcome.

It’s tempting for a Maharashtrian to claim the root of success of Marathas solely be in Maharashtra. But at the height of it’s peak, only 20% of Shivaji’s kingdom was part of Maharashtra. When Marathas launched northern campaigns in 18th century, it was even more less.

Soldiers in Maratha army came from diverse social and geographical backgrounds including from areas as far away as Kandahar to West and Bengal to East. Shivaji received a lot of support from various rulers and common people from all over India.

Thus limiting Marathas to Maharashtra is mostly a conclusion of a politician.  It must be noted that the roots of Maharashtra culture can be traced to both ancient Karnataka and Northern India. Shivaji himself traced his lineage to Shisodia family of Rajputs. Maharashtrians should not be ashamed to admit that their roots lie elsewhere. In fact they should feel proud that land of Maharashtra is truly a melting pot where Southern and Northern Indian cultures melted to give birth to a new vision of a nation. Shivaji was far more an Indian king than a Maratha king.

Dear readers, here ends the story of an epic war. I hope this saga gives you a sense of realistic hope and a sense of humble pride. All you might be doing today is sitting in a cubicle for the day ,typing on keyboard. But remember that the same blood runs in our fingers that long long time ago displayed unparalleled courage and bravery, the same spirit resides within us that can once soured sky high upon the call of freedom.

by Kedar Soman

References:

“History of Mahrattas” by James Duff –   http://www.archive.org/details/ahistorymahratt05duffgoog

“Shivaji and His Times” by Jadunath Sarkar – http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924024056750

“A History Of Maratha People” by Charles Kincaid – http://www.archive.org/details/historyofmaratha02kincuoft

“Background of Maratha Renaissance” by N. K. Behere – http://www.archive.org/details/backgroundofmara035242mbp

“Rise of The Maratha Power” by Mahadev Govind Ranade – http://www.archive.org/details/RiseOfTheMarathapower

“Maratha History” by S R Sharma – http://www.archive.org/details/marathahistory035360mbp

(visit the links to download the full books in PDF form free)

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Gandhiji’s mistakes

Without attempting to approach completeness, we may sum up as Gandhi’s biggest political failures the following events:

(1) Recruiting Indian soldiers for the British war effort in 1914-18 without setting any conditions, in the vain hope that this unilateral gift to Britain would bring about sufficient goodwill in London for conceding to India the status of a self-ruling dominion within the British Empire, on a par with Canada or Australia. While it was already off line for a pacifist to cooperate in such a wasteful war (as contrasted with World War 2, to both sides a kind of holy war where fundamental principles were at stake), Gandhiji’s stance was also a glaring failure of political skill, since he neglected to extract any tangible gains for India in return for the thousands of Indian lives which he sacrificed to British imperial interests.

(2) Committing the mobilisation potential of the freedom movement to the Khil’fat agitation in 1920-22, again a non-negotiated unilateral gift. The Khilafat movement was a tragicomical mistake, aiming at the restoration of the Ottoman Caliphate against which the Arabs had risen in revolt and which the Turks were dissolving, a process completed with the final abolition of the institution of the Caliphate in 1924. It was a purely retrograde and reactionary movement, and more importantly for Indian nationalism, it was an intrinsically anti-nationalist movement pitting specifically Islamic interests against secular and non-Muslim interests. Gandhi made the mistake of hubris by thinking he could reconcile Khilafatism and Indian nationalism, and he also offended his Muslim allies (who didn’t share his commitment to non-violence) by calling off the agitation when it turned violent. The result was even more violence, with massive Hindu-Muslim riots replacing the limited instances of anti-British attacks, just as many level-headed freedom fighters had predicted. Gandhiji failed to take the Khilafat movement seriously whether at the level of principle or of practical politics, and substituted his own imagined and idealized reading of the Khilafat doctrine for reality.

(3) His autocratic decision to call off the mass agitation for complete independence in 1931, imposed upon his mass following and his close lieutenants against their wishes and better judgment, in exchange for a few puny British concessions falling far short of the movement’s demands. His reputation abroad didn’t suffer, but to informed observers, he had thrown away his aura as an idealist leader standing above petty politics; the Pact between Gandhi and Viceroy Lord Irwin amounted to the sacrifice of a high national goal in favour of a petty rise in status for the Congress. Also, every delay in the declaration of Independence gave the emerging separatist forces the time to organize and to strengthen their position.

(4) Taking a confused and wavering position vis-vis India’s involvement in World War 2. His initial refusal to commit India to the war effort could have been justified on grounds of pacifist principle as well as national pride (the Viceroy had committed India without consulting the native leadership), but it was a failure because his followers weren’t following. Indian recruits and business suppliers of the Army eagerly joined hands with the British rulers, thus sidelining Gandhi into political irrelevance. By contrast, the Muslim League greatly improved its bargaining positions by joining the war effort, an effect not counterbalanced by the small Hindu Mahasabha’s similar strategy. The pro-Partition case which the Muslim League advocated was bolstered while Gandhi’s opposition to the imminent Partition was badly weakened. Gandhi was humiliated by his impotence before the degeneration of his “Quit India” agitation into violence and by ultimately having to come around to a collaborationist position himself.

(5) Taking a confused and wavering position vis-vis the Partition plan, including false promises to the Hindus of the designated Pakistani areas to prevent Partition or at least to prevent their violent expulsion. He chose not to use his weapon of a fast unto death to force Mohammed Ali Jinnah into backing down from Partition, a move which cast doubt on the much-touted bravery of all his other fasts “unto death” performed to pressurize more malleable opponents. If acquiescing in the Partition could still be justified as a matter of inevitability, there was no excuse for his insistence on half measures, viz. his rejecting plans for an organized exchange of population, certainly a lesser evil when compared to the bloody religious cleansing that actually took place. Gentle surgeons make stinking wounds.

(6) Refusing to acknowledge that Pakistan had become an enemy state after its invasion of Kashmir, by undertaking a fast unto death in order to force the Indian government to pay Pakistan 55 crore rupees from the British-Indian treasury. Pakistan was entitled to this money, but given its aggression, it would have been normal to set the termination of its aggression, including the withdrawal of its invading troops, as a condition for the payment. Indeed, that would have been a sterling contribution to the cause of enduring peace, saving the lives of the many thousands who fell in subsequent decades because of the festering wound which Kashmir has remained under partial Pakistani occupation. Coming on top of Gandhi’s abandonment of the Hindus trapped in Pakistan in August 1947, it was this pro-Pakistani demand, as well as his use of his choice moral weapon (left unused to save India’s unity or the persecuted Hindus in Pakistan) in the service of an enemy state’s treasury, that angered a few Hindu activists to the point of plotting his murder.

Problems with pacifism

The common denominator in all these costly mistakes was a lack of realism. Gandhi refused to see the realities of human nature; of Islamic doctrine with its ambition of domination; of the modern mentality with its resentment of autocratic impositions; of people’s daily needs making them willing to collaborate with the rulers in exchange for career and business opportunities; of the nationalism of the Hindus who would oppose the partition of their Motherland tooth and nail; of the nature of the Pakistani state as intrinsically anti-India and anti-Hindu.

In most of these cases, Gandhi’s mistake was not his pacifism per se. In the case of his recruiting efforts for World War 1, there wasn’t even any pacifism involved, but loyalty to the Empire whether in peace or in war. The Khilafat pogroms revealed one of the real problems with his pacifism: all while riding a high horse and imposing strict conformity with the pacifist principle, he indirectly provoked far more violence than was in his power to control. Other leaders of the freedom movement, such as Annie Besant and Lala Lajpat Rai, had warned him that he was playing with fire, but he preferred to obey his suprarational “inner voice”.

The fundamental problem with Gandhi’s pacifism, not in the initial stages but when he had become the world-famous leader of India’s freedom movement (1920-47), was his increasing extremism. All sense of proportion had vanished when he advocated non-violence not as a technique of moral pressure by a weaker on a stronger party, but as a form of masochistic surrender. Elsewhere (Elst: Gandhi and Godse, Voice of India, Delhi 2001, p.120-121) I have cited four instances of his advice to the victims of communal violence which is simply breathtaking for its callousness in the face of human suffering. Two more instances follow.

During his prayer meeting on 1 May 1947, he prepared the Hindus and Sikhs for the anticipated massacres of their kind in the upcoming state of Pakistan with these words: “I would tell the Hindus to face death cheerfully if the Muslims are out to kill them. I would be a real sinner if after being stabbed I wished in my last moment that my son should seek revenge. I must die without rancour. (*) You may turn round and ask whether all Hindus and all Sikhs should die. Yes, I would say. Such martyrdom will not be in vain.” (Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, vol.LXXXVII, p.394-5) It is left unexplained what purpose would be served by this senseless and avoidable surrender to murder.

Even when the killing had started, Gandhi refused to take pity on the Hindu victims, much less to point fingers at the Pakistani aggressors. More importantly for the principle of non-violence, he failed to offer them a non-violent technique of countering and dissuading the murderers. Instead, he told the Hindu refugees from Pakistan to go back and die. On 6 August 1947, Gandhiji commented to Congress workers on the incipient communal conflagration in Lahore thus: “I am grieved to learn that people are running away from the West Punjab and I am told that Lahore is being evacuated by the non-Muslims. I must say that this is what it should not be. If you think Lahore is dead or is dying, do not run away from it, but die with what you think is the dying Lahore. (*) When you suffer from fear you die before death comes to you. That is not glorious. I will not feel sorry if I hear that people in the Punjab have died not as cowards but as brave men. (*) I cannot be forced to salute any flag. If in that act I am murdered I would bear no ill will against anyone and would rather pray for better sense for the person or persons who murder me.” (Hindustan Times, 8-8-1947, CWoMG, vol. LXXXIX, p.11).

So, he was dismissing as cowards those who saved their lives fleeing the massacre by a vastly stronger enemy, viz. the Pakistani population and security forces. But is it cowardice to flee a no-win situation, so as to live and perhaps to fight another day? There can be a come-back from exile, not from death. Is it not better to continue life as a non-Lahorite than to cling to one’s location in Lahore even if it has to be as a corpse? Why should staying in a mere location be so superior to staying alive? To be sure, it would have been even better if Hindus could have continued to live with honour in Lahore, but Gandhi himself had refused to use his power in that cause, viz. averting Partition. He probably would have found that, like the butchered or fleeing Hindus, he was no match for the determination of the Muslim League, but at least he could have tried. In the advice he now gave, the whole idea of non-violent struggle got perverted.

Originally, in Gandhi’s struggle for the Indians’ rights in South Africa, non-violent agitation was tried out as a weapon of the weak who wouldn’t stand a chance in an armed confrontation. It was a method to achieve a political goal, and a method which could boast of some successes. In the hands of a capable agitator, it could be victorious. It was designed to snatch victory from the jaws of powerlessness and surrender. By contrast, the “non-violent” surrender to the enemy and to butchery which Gandhi advocated in 1947 had nothing victorious or successful about it.

During the anti-colonial struggle, Gandhi had often said that oppression was only possible with a certain cooperation or complicity from the oppressed people. The genius of the non-violent technique, not applicable in all situations but proven successful in some, was to create a third way between violent confrontation between the oppressed and the oppressor, fatally ending in the defeat of the weak, and the passive resignation of the oppressed in their state of oppression. Rather than surrendering to the superior power of the oppressor, the oppressed were given a method to exercise slow pressure on their oppressor, to wrest concessions from him and to work on his conscience. No such third way was left to the minorities in Pakistan: Gandhi’s only advice to them was to surrender, to become accomplices in their extermination by meekly offering their necks to the executioner’s sword.

My point is not that Gandhi could and should have given them a third way, a non-violent technique that would defeat the perpetrators of Partition and religious cleansing. More realistically, he should have accepted that this was the kind of situation where no such third option was available. Once the sacrifice of a large part of India’s territory to a Muslim state had been conceded, and given previous experiences with Muslim violence against non-Muslims during the time of Gandhi’s own leadership, he should have realized that an exchange of population was the only remaining bloodless solution. The Partition crisis was simply beyond the capacity of Gandhian non-violence to control. If he had had the modesty to face his powerlessness and accept that alternatives to his own preferred solution would have to be tried, many lives could have been saved.

Robust pacifism

It cannot be denied that Gandhian non-violence has a few successes to its credit. But these were achieved under particularly favourable circumstances: the stakes weren’t very high and the opponents weren’t too foreign to Gandhi’s ethical standards. In South Africa, he had to deal with liberal British authorities who weren’t affected too seriously in their power and authority by conceding Gandhi’s demands. Upgrading the status of the small Indian minority from equality with the Blacks to an in-between status approaching that of the Whites made no real difference to the ruling class, so Gandhi’s agitation was rewarded with some concessions. Even in India, the stakes were never really high. Gandhi’s Salt March made the British rescind the Salt Tax, a limited financial price to pay for restoring native acquiescence in British paramountcy, but he never made them concede Independence or even Home Rule with a non-violent agitation. The one time he had started such an agitation, viz. in 1930-31, he himself stopped it in exchange for a few small concessions.

It is simply not true that India’s Independence was the fruit of Gandhian non-violent agitation. He was close to the British in terms of culture and shared ethical values, which is why sometimes he could successfully bargain with them, but even they stood firm against his pressure when their vital interests were at stake. It is only Britain’s bankruptcy due to World War 2 and the emergence of the anti-colonial United States and Soviet Union as the dominant world powers that forced Clement Attlee’s government into decolonising India.

Even then, the trigger events in 1945-47 that demonstrated how the Indian people would not tolerate British rule for much longer, had to do with armed struggle rather than with non-violence: the naval mutiny of Indian troops and the ostentatious nationwide support for the officers of Subhas Bose’s Axis-collaborationist Indian National Army when they stood trial for treason in the Red Fort.

So, non-violence need not be written off as a Quixotic experiment, for it can be an appropriate and successful technique in particular circumstances; but it has its limitations. In many serious confrontations, it is simply better, and on balance more just as well as more bloodless, to observe an “economy of violence”: using a small amount of armed force, or even only the threat of armed force, in order to avoid a larger and bloodier armed confrontation. This is the principle of “peace through strength” followed by most modern governments with standing armies. It was applied, for example, in the containment of Communism: though relatively minor wars between Communist and anti-Communist forces were fought in several Third World countries, both the feared Communist world conquest and the equally feared World War 3 with its anticipated nuclear holocaust were averted.

The ethical framework limiting the use of force to a minimum is known as “just war theory”, developed by European thinkers such as Thomas Aquinas and Hugo Grotius between the 13^th and 18^th century, but in essence already present in the Mahabharata as well. Thus, waging war can be a just enterprise when it is done in self-defence, when all non-violent means of achieving the just objective have been tried, when non-combatants are respected as such, when the means used are in proportion to the objective aimed for, etc.

One of the less well-known criteria for just warfare which deserves to be mentioned here in the light of Gandhi’s advice to the Hindus in Pakistan is that there should be a reasonable chance of success. No matter how just your cause, it is wrong to commit your community to a course of action that only promises to be suicidal. Of course, once a group of soldiers is trapped in a situation from which the only exit is an honourable death, fighting on may be the best course remaining, but whenever possible, such suicide should be avoided. This criterion is just as valid in non-armed as in armed struggle: it was wrong to make the Hindus stay among their Pakistani persecutors when this course of action had no chance of saving lives nor even of achieving certain political objectives.

As the Buddha, Aristotle, Confucius and other ethical guides already taught, virtue is a middle term between two extremes. In this case, we have to sail between the two extremes of blindness to human fellow-feeling and blindness to strategic ground realities. It is wrong to say that might makes right and that anything goes when it comes to achieving victory, no matter what amount of suffering is inflicted on the enemy, on bystanders or even on one’s own camp. It is equally wrong to strike a high moral posture which haughtily disregards, and hence refuses to contain or subdue, the potential for violence in human confrontations and the real pain it causes. In between these two extremes, the mature and virtuous attitude is one which desires and maintains peace but is able and prepared to fight the aggressor.

Limiting the use of force to a minimum is generally agreed to be the correct position. In this case, disagreeing with Gandhi is not an instance of Communist or Hindu-chauvinist extremism, but of the accumulated wisdom of civilized humanity. Excluding the use of force entirely, by contrast, may simply whet the aggressor’s appetite and provoke far more violence than the achievable minimum.

This is a mistake which an overenthusiastic and inexperienced beginner can forgivably make, but in an experienced leader like Mahatma Gandhi during his time at the head of the freedom movement, it was a serious failure of judgment. The silver lining in the massacres which his mistakes provoked, is that they have reminded us of the eternal wisdom of “the golden mean”, the need for a balanced policy vis–vis the ever-present challenge of violence and aggression. It has been known all along, and it is crystal-clear once more, that we should avoid both extremes, Jinnah’s self-righteousness and Gandhi’s sentimentalism.

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In Indian secularist publications, it is often alleged that Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, also known as (Swatantrya) Veer, “hero (of independence)”, was a Nazi. Let us examine the two main aspects of this allegation: his view on race, and his actual record in World War 2.

Savarkar on race

It is undeniable that Hindu Maha Sabha ideologue Savarkar spoke of reviving the “race spirit” of the Hindus. So did Golwalkar. Sri Aurobindo even used the term “Aryan race”, which to him meant exactly the same thing as “Hindu nation”, and Sri Aurobindo was one of the most outspoken enemies of Hitler in India, supporting all-out involvement in the British war effort. But their reading of the term “race” was radically different from Hitler’s. Not that it was in any way exceptional: Savarkar’s interpretation of the term was the standard usage in the English-speaking world, while Hitler’s usage was innovative.

It is not sufficiently realized today that before Auschwitz gave a bad name to the term “race”, forcing it back into the strictest use as a biological term, it used to have a broader and hazier meaning, roughly as a synonym of “nation”, but sometimes ranging from “species” to “family”, exactly like the Sanskrit word jati. In actual usage, “race” implied an element of identitarian continuity, but not necessarily biological continuity. As late as 1947, British sources spoke of Hindus and Muslims not as contending religions but as “the two races of India”, though they knew fully well that these were not separate biological races, most Indian Muslims being the progeny of converts from Hinduism.

After 1945, the English language gradually lost the usage of the term “race” for the concept of “nation”; the Hindu nationalists followed suit. This was only natural: they had never cared for “race” in the biological sense so dear to the Nazis. The very concept of race, having been narrowed down to its biological meaning, has simply disappeared from their horizon. It is plainly untrue that Hindu ideologues at any time have shared Hitler’s racism.

The point is made in the most straightforward terms by Savarkar himself: “After all there is throughout this world so far as man is concerned but a single race  ,the human race, kept alive by one common blood, the human blood. All other talk is at best provisional, a makeshift and only relatively true. Nature is constantly trying to overthrow the artificial barriers you raise between race and race. To try to prevent the commingling of blood is to build on sand. Sexual attraction has proved more powerful than all the commands of all the prophets put together. Even as it is, not even the aborigines of the Andamans are without some sprinkling of the so-called Aryan blood in their veins and vice-versa. Truly speaking all that one can claim is that one has the blood of all mankind in one’s veins. The fundamental unity of man from pole to pole is true, all else only relatively so.” (Hindutva, p.90)

This is the diametrically opposite of any “pure race” theory.

Most secularists pretend not to know this unambiguous position of Savarkar’s (in many cases, they really don’t know, for Hindu-baiting is usually done without reference to primary sources). Likewise, Savarkar’s plea for caste intermarriage to promote the oneness of Hindu society is usually ignored in order to keep up the pretence that he was a reactionary on caste, an “upper-caste racist” (as Gyan Pandey puts it), and what not. There are no limits to secularist dishonesty, and so we are glad to find at least one voice in their crowd which does acknowledge these positions of Savarkar’s.

An Indo-Australian philosophy professor, Purushottam Bilimoria (“Hindu perception of Muslims in India: from Savarkar’s ascendancy genealogy to the Bhavishya Hindujativad”, International Conference on New Perspectives on Vedic & Ancient Indian Civilization, LA 7-9 August 1998), has given a hostile but undeniably original and thoughtful interpretation of Savarkar’s views. He comments on Savarkar’s Hindutva:

“Two things stand out oddly in this proclamation:

(i). the difficulty of linking the modern Hindu with the erstwhile Aryan stock, so a theory of descendance does not hold firm;(ii). if all people (other than the tribal and indigenous peoples) are immigrants to the provinces of the subcontinent, then how can they claim to be the authentic inheritors of the mantle of the civil nation?”

The first point rightly acknowledges that Savarkar, not being a historian, accepted the Aryan invasion theory promoted by prestigious seats of Western learning; and that he saw modern Hindus as a biological and cultural mixture of Aryan invaders and indigenous non-Aryans. He shared this view with Indian authors across the political spectrum, e.g. with Jawaharlal Nehru. Like Nehru, he saw no reason why people of diverse biological origins would be unable to form a united nation; the difference being that Nehru saw this unification as a project just started (“India, a nation in the making”), while Savarkar believed that this unification had come about in the distant past already.

At any rate, this is an excellent non-racist position, contrasting sharply with the then-common view that upper castes were Aryan invaders, a nation separate on biological grounds from the lower castes who were native. Savarkar’s was an eminently reasonable interpretation of the Aryan invasion theory, viz. that in spite of divergent biological origins, people who live together end up mixing both culturally and biologically, and that this was not a problematic phenomenon as the Nazi race-purifiers thought, but a natural process and one which had happened to generate the Hindu nation.

In the second point, Bilimoria loses sight of the first, and lapses into the racist and non-Savarkarite view of distinct biological identities of the “tribal and indigenous peoples” and the rest, presumably the upper castes. Savarkar did not think that Hindus or anyone for that matter would lose their entitledness to membership of the nation just because some (or even all) of their ancestors had immigrated four thousand years ago. Only the anti-Brahmin Dravidian racists and tribal-hunting Christian missionaries could have come up with such a ludicrous idea. Like so many Hindutva spokesmen, Savarkar often gave the example of the assimilation of the Shaka and Huna invaders into the Hindu nation; foreign geographical provenance was not his problem. The view which Bilimoria ascribes to Savarkar here is just a straw man, unrelated to Savarkar’s actual position.

Bilimoria claims to have found a “tacit commitment to a racialization doctrine which underpins the further moves Savarkar and the religious-political movements that grow out of this ideology (which have come to power in recent days in India)”. The term “tacit” gives the game away: plenty of Hindutva-watching “analysis” consists in nothing but divining hidden motives and “tacit commitments” unrelated to the actual programmes and manifestoes which exist in cold print but remain unread by the supposed experts.

Nevertheless, let us read on: to Bilimoria, the Hindu nationalism ideology focused not on the inherited race, which is a mixed affair, but on “a future race-to-be, the spiritual blood once purified, rather than the racial lineage we can trace our blood directly to, which has all but been sullied and become impure through intermixing and mingling of disparate cultures. Now a race carved out along these lines can mean that others who do not fall within these descriptors have to be left out, and we can only speak of them as bearers of their own downward conditions, their victimhood, their otherness. This has been one reason why communalism has reached perilous dimensions in India, why the Hindu Right campaign for Uniform Civil Codes, and why there is global expression of fear and rivalry between the two groups across the ‘garami hawa’ borderzone.”

It is rank nonsense that the BJP position on a Common Civil Code (which is simply the implementation of the principle of equality before the law deemed essential to the very idea of a secular state) is based on a “racialization” doctrine: no BJP or related document even thinks of the Hindu-Muslim problem in terms of race, and if it did, its choice for a legal unification of Hindu and Muslim communities would obviously go against their “racial” separateness. And no Hindu wants to keep the Muslims out, the way racists want to keep members of other races out, on the contrary: every Hindu activists hopes that the Indian Muslims will return to the Hindu fold.

However, Bilimoria has a point when he implies that Savarkar’s policy of caste intermarriage would further the process of biological homogenization of the Hindu nation. But so what? Should he have opposed caste mixing instead? Then he would have been decried as a reactionary “upper-caste racist” and what not. But now that he takes the opposite position, it is still not good: now he is a “future-Hindu-racist”, a kind of mad scientist brewing a new race in his lab, the caste-mixed Hindu-race-to-be. This is just another case of secularist justice: Hindu are damned if they do, damned if they don’t.

Savarkar and Nazi collaboration

Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke has written a book on the strange case of a French-Greek lady who converted to Hinduism and later went on to work for the neo-Nazi cause, Maximiani Portas a.k.a. Savitri Devi. The book is generally of high scholarly quality and full of interesting detail, but when it comes to Indian politics, the author is woefully misinformed by his less than impartisan sources.

He squarely places himself outside the scholarly community and inside the Indian Marxist propaganda machine by asserting the following howler: “After the German invasion of Prague in March 1939, Indian opinion on Germany polarized sharply into two camps: those who would be loyal to Britain in the event of a war between Britain and Germany and those who would not. The Hindu Mahasabha adopted a particularly strong pro-German position, assuming a close congruence between the Aryan cult of Nazism and Hindu nationalism.” (Hitler’s Priestess, New York University Press 1998, p.66)

To say that, faced with the choice of being loyal to Britain in her war with Germany, the Hindu Mahasabha took “a particularly strong pro-German position”, is the diametrical opposite of the truth. It is quite simply a lie. I am not saying that it is Goodrick-Clarke’s lie, he may naively have copied it from partisan sources, of which there is no dearth in Indian academe nor in the Indian Studies departments in the West. But if he had done his research well, he could not have failed to come across one of the central facts of World War 2 in India: that the Hindu Mahasabha actively campaigned to recruit Hindu young men into the British war effort. Congress activists used to scold HMS president V.D. Savarkar as a “recruiting officer”, for it was Congress which refused to stand by the British, at least until 1944.

If one is inclined towards fascism, and one has the good fortune to live at the very moment of fascism’s apogee, it seems logical that one would seize the opportunity and join hands with fascism while the time is right. Conversely, if one has the opportunity to join hands with fascism but refrains from doing so, this is a strong indication that one is not that “fascist” after all. Many Hindu leaders and thinkers were sufficiently aware of the world situation in the second quarter of the twentieth century; what was their position vis-a-vis the Axis powers?

For their own reasons, Hindu and Muslim masses were very enthusiastic about Hitler. The Muslim League frequently compared its own plan of Partition with the Partition which Germany imposed on Czechoslovakia (the ethnic reunification of the Sudeten Germans with the Reich Germans was in fact deemed logical and fair by most observers, including Savarkar, though in contrast with the League he did not support the imperialistic methods used by Germany). Congress leftist Subhash Chandra Bose formed Indian battalions in the German and later in the Japanese army. The Congress leadership was utterly confused and took just about every possible position in succession or even at the same time.

In these conditions, the foremost Hindu leader of the time, Swatantryaveer Savarkar, refused to support the Axis and advocated a massive enlistment of Hindus in the British army. The point is proven even by the very nadir of the Hindu Mahasabha’s history, viz. the murder of Mahatma Gandhi by its activist Nathuram Godse: of the seven conspirators, three had served in the British-Indian Army during the war. Savarkar calculated that massive Hindu enlistment in the war effort would provide a winning combination in the war.

And indeed, in the successful retreat from Dunkirk and in the British victories in North Africa and Iraq, Indian troops played a decisive role. It would earn the Hindus the gratitude of the British, or at least their respect. And if not that, it would instill the beginnings of fear in the minds of the British rulers: it would offer military training and experience to the Hindus, on a scale where the British could not hope to contain an eventual rebellion in the ranks. After the war, even without having to organize an army of their own, they would find themselves in a position where the British could not refuse them their independence.

It is in this context that in 1940, Savarkar launched his slogan: “Hinduize all politics, militarize Hindudom.” This slogan is nowadays often quoted out of context to impute to Savarkar a fascist-like fascination with “war for war’s sake”. But it meant nothing of the kind. He wanted Hindus to get military experience for a specific purpose, viz. that after the war, England would find a vast number of combat-ready Indian troops before her. More than a preparation for war, this combat-readiness was the right preparation for a peaceful showdown, in which the British would be made to understand that fighting was useless, that the Indian march to independence had become unstoppable.

This much has to be said in favour of Savarkar’s strategy: it worked. It is a matter of solid history that the new military equation of 1945 was one of the decisive considerations in Britain’s decision to decolonize India. With the military experience and capability now possessed by vast numbers of Indians, a British reassertion of colonial authority would have required an immeasurable investment of troops and money of which a war-weary Britain was no longer capable.

It is not unreasonable to suggest that Savarkar’s collaboration with the British against the Axis was opportunistic. He was not in favour of any foreign power, be it Britain, the US, the Soviet Union, Japan or Germany. He simply chose the course of action that seemed the most useful for the Hindu nation. But the point is: he could have opted for collaboration with the Axis, he could have calculated that a Hindu-Japanese combine would be unbeatable, he could even have given his ideological support to the Axis, but he did not. The foremost Hindutva ideologue, president of what was then the foremost political Hindu organization, supported the Allied war effort against the Axis.

It must also be noted that Savarkar never went as far in his cooperation with the British as the Communists who supported the British (after they became a Soviet ally in 1941) by betraying Congress “Quit India” activists to them. While the Communists were Soviet loyalists who saw Indian opponents to the war effort as simply their enemies, Savarkar was an Indian patriot who differed with the Gandhian patriots (as with Bose) regarding the means but agreed with them on the goal, viz. India’s independence, and therefore left them to their own designs without interfering.

Savarkar’s deputy on fascism

That HMS support to the anti-Nazi war effort was not merely tactical but to quite an extent also ideological, is shown by a series of statements by Nirmal Chandra Chatterjee, president of the Bengal Hindu Mahasabha and vice-president of the All-India Hindu Mahasabha. He declared in February 1941: “Our passionate adherence to democracy and freedom is based on the spiritual recognition of the Divinity of man. We are not only not communal but we are nationalists and democrats. The Anti-Fascist Front must extend from the English Channel to the Bay of Bengal.” (Hindu Politics, Calcutta 1945, p.13)

He too had taken the habit of loosely labelling hostile forces as “fascist”, e.g. in his opposition to a 1939 Muslim League proposal to communalize the municipal elections in Calcutta: “We must resist these reactionary measures which are founded on the principle of communal Fascism.” (Hindu Politics, p.21; note how back then words hadn’t lost their meaning yet, so that “communalism” was identified with Muslim League politics, not with its opponents). He also compared them to the Norwegian Nazi collaborator Quisling: “Political Misfits are as dangerous as Quislings.” (Hindu Politics, p.25) More substantially, he called the threat of a Japanese conquest “the direct calamity that can befall Bengal”. (Hindu Politics, p.25)

All this is hardly the language of a collaborator with the Axis powers. For anyone still in doubt on the Hindu Mahasabha’s position, he declared in March 1942: “In the conflict of ideologies the Hindus have made their position perfectly clear. We hate Nazism and Fascism. We are the enemies of Hitler and Mussolini. We are longing and struggling for our own emancipation and we want to repel any dictator who would try to reduce sections of humanity to slavery to serve the whims of his own megalomania.” (Hindu Politics, p.26) And in December 1943: “We are wholeheartedly anti-Fascist. Every anti-Imperialist must be anti-Fascist.” (Hindu Politics, p.68)

His problem with the British was not that they were defending democracy worldwide, but that they were compromising with anti-democratic tendencies within their own Indian domains, particularly with the Muslim League’s insatiable hunger for communal privileges. When the Cripps mission was announced (exploring an agreement with Congress to get India more actively into the war effort in exchange for promises of more autonomy), Chatterjee declared: “We shall suspend judgment unless we know what exactly he has to offer and we only wish that artificial minority problems will not be exploited to dilute democracy and to injure Hindu interests.” The Hindu Mahasabha was, after all, in favour of undiluted democracy: “Our main plank is Veer Savarkar’s message which he preached at the Calcutta session: ‘Equal rights for all citizens and protection of the culture and religion of every minority’.” (Hindu Politics, p.74)

Yet, the British accused the Freedom Movement, including the HMS but also the Congress, of Nazi sympathies. Already in the 1930s, they had sometimes equated no less a person than Mahatma Gandhi with Hitler (a comparison which made Gandhian Congress activists feel proud). That was the only way they could hope to lessen the sympathy of the increasingly influential American public opinion for the Indian anti-colonial struggle.

Against this colonial propaganda, Nirmal Chandra Chatterjee replied in November 1943: “The Hindus in this supreme crisis of humanity never wanted to shirk the responsibility to fight the Axis powers. Our leaders took a realistic view of the political situation. Veer Savarkar’s clarion call to the Hindus had met with a ready response and the Hindu boys had rushed forward and joined up in thousands. On every front our boys have demonstrated their valour and discipline, and the African Campaign, if faithfully recorded, will put the Indian in the forefront of the noble heroes who decimated the Fascist [hordes].” (Hindu Politics, p.55-56)

And in November 1944: “It is the subtle scheme of political propaganda to describe the Hindu as pro-Fascist. It is a cruel calumny which has been spread in America and other countries. The Hindu Mahasabha stood for Savarkar’s policy of militarization and industrialization. We recognized that Fascism was a supreme menace to what is good and noble in our civilization. Due to Veer Savarkar’s call thousands of young men joined the Army and Navy and Air Force and shed their blood for resisting Nazi tyranny and for real friendship with China and Russia. But as the Hindus had the temerity to ask for National Independence and took the lead in rejecting the Cripps offer, they were maligned and the subtle forces of organized British propaganda were let loose to blackmail the Hindus.” (Hindu Politics, p.103)

The current tendency to accuse the Hindu movement for cultural decolonization of India of “fascism” is nothing but a replay of an old colonial tactic.

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The chronological frame sketched is somewhat different from the dogma of the generation past. Then we were told that India was invaded around 1500 BC by Aryans from Central Asia or, perhaps, even South Europe. This dogma was at the basis of the construction of an elaborate scenario related to strife between the speakers of the Aryan and Dravidian languages.

As the science of language, historical linguistics in the early 19th century saw itself as providing a framework for studying the history and relationships of languages in the same manner as biology describes the animal world. But whereas biology has been revolutionized by the discovery of the genetic code, no similar breakthrough has brought new illumination to linguistics. Over the protestations of its many critics, mainstream historical linguistics has remained within the parameters of 19th century thinking. In the meanwhile, archaeological discoveries have altered our understanding of ancient Eurasia.

The Indo-Europeans are seen to be present in Europe a few thousand years earlier than was supposed before. The Indian evidence, based on archaeology as well as the discovery of an astronomy in the Vedas, indicates that Vedic Sanskrit is to be assigned to the 4th and the 3rd millennia BC, if not earlier. The Indian cultural area is seen as an integral whole.

The Vedic texts are being interpreted as a record of the complex transformations taking place in the pre-2000 BC Indian society. We understand how the 19th century construction of the Orient by the West satisfied its needs of self-definition in relation to the Other. To justify its ascendancy, the Other was defined to be racially mixed and inferior, irrational and primitive, despotic and feudal. This definition was facilitated by a selective use of the texts and rejecting traditional interpretations, an approach that is now called Orientalism. The terms in the construction were not properly defined. Now we know that to speak of a “pure” race is meaningless since all external characteristics of humans are defined in a continuum.

In the 19th century atmosphere of European triumphalism, what was obtained in Europe was taken to be normative. With hindsight it is hard to believe that these ideas were not contested more vigorously. Although this was the age that marked the true beginnings of modern science, old myths continued to exercise great power. When it was found that the languages of India and Europe were related in structure and vocabulary, the West responded with what J.-P. Vernant calls “a tissue of scholarly myths. These myths were steeped in erudition, informed by profound knowledge of Hebrew and Sanskrit, fortified by comparative study of linguistic data, mythology, and religion, and shaped by the effort to relate linguistic structures, forms of thought, and features of civilization. Yet they were also myths, fantasies of the social imagination, at every level.

The comparative philology of the most ancient languages was a quest for origins, an attempt to return to a privileged moment in time when God, man, and natural forces still lived in mutual transparency. The plunge into the distant past in search of ‘roots’ went hand in hand with a never forgotten faith in a meaningful history, whose course, guided by the Providence of the one God, could be understood only in the light of Christian revelation.

As scholars established the disciplines of Semitic and Indo-European studies, they also invented the mythical figures of the Hebrew and the Aryan, a providential pair which, by revealing to the people of the Christianized West the secret of their identity, also bestowed upon them the patent of nobility that justified their spiritual, religious, and political domination of the world.” Although the term Aryan never had a racial connotation in the Indian texts, the scholars insisted that this was the sense in which the term ought to be understood. It was further assumed that Aryan meant European by race. By doing so Europe claimed for itself all of the “Aryan” texts as a part of its own forgotten past. The West considered itself the inheritor of the imagination and the mythic past of the Aryan and the idea of the monotheism of the Hebrew.

This dual inheritance was the mark of the imperial destiny of the West. Vernant reminds us that despite his monotheism, the poor Jew, since he lacked Aryan blood, should have seen “the dark silhouette of the death camps and the rising smoke of the ovens.”

On the other hand, the Asiatic mixed-blood Aryan had no future but that of the serf. He could somewhat redeem himself if he rejected all but the earliest core of his inheritance, that existed when the Aryans in India were a pure race. For scholars such as Max Müller  this became ultimately a religious issue. Echoing Augustine, Müller saw in his own religious faith a way for progress of the Asiatic. We would smile at it now but he said,

“Christianity was simply the name ‘of the Language Wars , true religion,’ a religion that was already known to the ancients and indeed had been around ‘since the beginning of the human race.’

But ideas—bad and good—never die. Müller’s idea has recently been resurrected in the guise that Christianity is the fulfillment of Vedic revelation!

A linguistic “Garden of Eden’’ called the proto-Indo-European (PIE) language was postulated. Europe was taken to be the homeland of this language for which several wonderful qualities were assumed. This was a theory of race linking the Europeans to the inhabitants of the original homeland and declaring them to the original speakers of the PIE. By appropriating the origins, the Europeans also appropriated the oldest literature of the Indians and of other IE speakers. Without a past how could the nations of the empire ever aspire to equality with the West? Indian literature was seen to belong to two distinct layers.
At the deepest level were the Vedas that represented the outpourings of the nature-worshiping pure Aryans. At the next level, weakened by an admixture with the indigenous tribes, the literature became a narrative on irrational ritual.

Science and Pseudoscience

In scientific or rational discourse the empirical data can, in principle, falsify a theory.This is why creationism, which explains the fossil record as well as evolution by assuming that it was placed there along with everything else by God when he created the universe in 4004 BC, is not a scientific theory: creationism is unfalsifiable. Building a scientific theory one must also use the Occam’s razor, according to which the most economical hypothesis that explains the data is to be accepted.

Bad intent should not turn anyone away from good science. Why isn’t PIE good science? It looks reasonable enough: If there are biological origins then there should be linguistic origins as well. And why don’t we believe that the nature of language tells us something about culture? If Europeans have been dominant in recent history, then why don’t we accept it as a characteristic of the European? Thus the origin of the PIE must be in the European sphere from where the energy of its early speakers carried them to the far corners of Asia and allowed them to impose their language on the native speakers. There are several problems with the idea of PIE. It is based on the hypothesis that languages are defined as fixed entities and they evolve in a biological sense. In reality, a language area is a complex, graded system of several languages and dialects of a family.

The degree of homogeneity in a language area is a reflection of the linkages, or interaction within the area. For a language distributed widely in the ancient world, one would expect several dialects. There would be no standard proto-language. It is clear that language families belong to overlapping groups, because such a view allows us to represent better the complex history of the interactions amongst their ancestor languages.

Such an overlap need not imply that the speakers of either group intruded into the overlapping region. We note further the warning by N.S. Trubetskoy (1939) that the presence of the same word in a number of languages need not suggest that these languages descended from a common parent:

‘ There is, then, no powerful ground for the assumption of a unitary Indogerman protolanguage, from which the individual Indogerman language groups would derive. It is just as plausible that the ancestors of the Indogerman language groups were originally quite dissimilar, and that through continuing contact, mutual influence and word borrowing became significantly closer to each other, without however going so far as to become identical.’

The evolution of a language with time is a process governed by context-sensitive rules that express the complex history of interactions with different groups over centuries. The changes in each region will reflect the interaction of the speakers with the speakers of other languages (most of which are now extinct) and various patterns of bilingualism. There is no evidence that can prove or disprove an original language such as PIE.

We cannot infer it with certainty since the historically attested relationship between different languages could have emerged from one of many competing models. If one considers the situation that prevailed in the New World when Europeans arrived as typical, the ancient Old World had a multitude of languages. It is from this great language diversity that a process akin to biological extinction led to the currently much smaller family of languages.Scholars now say that the metaphor of a perfect or pure language leading to large diversity must be replaced by the metaphor of a web. This becomes clear when we consider biological inheritance. We inherit our genes from more than one ancestor. The postulation of PIE together with a specific homeland in Europe or Turkey does violence to facts.

There is no evidence that the natives of India for the past 8,000 years or so have looked any different from what they look now. The internal evidence of this literature points to events that are as early as 7000 years ago and its geography is squarely in the Indian region. If there was no single PIE, there was no single homeland either. The postulation of an “original home”, without anchoring it to a definite time-period is to Language Wars 17 fall in the same logical trap as in the search for invasions and immigration.

Tree or animal name evidence cannot fix a homeland. In a web of languages, different geographical areas will indicate tree or animal names that are specific to these areas. When the European side of the IE languages is examined, the tree or animal names will favour those found in its climate and when the Indian side of the languages are examined, the reference now will be to its flora and fauna.

Colin Renfrew has pointed out how a circular logic has been used by linguists to justify what has already been implicit in their assumptions. Speaking of the work by Paul Friedrich (1970) on “Proto-Indo-European trees”, Renfrew reminds us that the starting assumption there is that PIE was current in western Caspian and the Carpathians during the fourth millennium and the first centuries of the third millennium and then Friedrich proves that this was the PIE homeland! Reminds Renfrew:

[Friedrich’s] assumption is highly questionable. So complete an adoption of one specific solution to the question of Indo-European origins is bound to have a considerable impact upon his analysis of the origins of tree-names, and the historical conclusions he reaches. It is scarcely surprising if his theory harmonizes with the historical reconstruction upon which it is based. It is perhaps reasonable that the historical linguistics should be based upon the archaeology, but that the archaeological interpretation should simultaneously be based upon the linguistic analysis gives serious cause for concern. Each discipline assumes that the other can offer conclusions based upon sound independent evidence, but in reality one begins where the other ends. They are both relying on each other to prop up their mutual thesis.

Aryan and Dravidian

It was Bishop Caldwell (1875) who suggested that the South Indian languages of Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada, and Telugu formed the separate Dravidian family of languages. He further suggested that the speakers of the proto-Dravidian language entered India from the northwest. Other scholars argued against this Dravidian invasion theory. Scholars have argued that this attempt to see both the North and the South Indian languages coming to the subcontinent from outside (West Asia) as another example of the preoccupation with the notion of the “Garden of Eden’’.

In reality, the problem of what constitutes an Aryan or a Dravidian, in the biological or cultural sense in which it is generally posed, is insoluble. The problem of Aryan and Dravidian is a conflation of many categories. Indian texts do not use the term Arya or Aryan in a linguistic sense, only in terms  of culture.

There is reference in the Manu Smriti where even the Chinese are termed Aryan, proving that it is not the language that defines this term. The South Indian kings called themselves Aryan as did the South Indian travelers who took Indian civilization to Southeast Asia. One may have posed the problem in terms of the anthropological “distinction” between the speaker of the North and the South Indian languages. But the anthropologists tell us that there is no difference. When linguists in the last century insisted that the term “Aryan” be reserved for the North Indian languages alone, it was inevitable confusion would emerge.

The definition of Aryan and Dravidian are extrapolated from the culture of the speakers of the North and the South Indian languages. But the cultures of the North and the South are the same as far back as we can go. (There is some minor difference in kinship rules.) There is even a mirroring of the sacred geography. The North has Kashi and Mathura; the South has Kanchi and Madurai. Who is to say what the original was? If there is no cultural difference then the use of the term “Aryan” as defining the culture of just the speakers of the North Indian languages is misleading.

This following example puts the absurdity of the terminology in focus. There exist texts that state that Tamilian Hindus came and settled in Kashmir in the early 15th century in the liberal reign of Bada Shah. We don’t know how many people came, but that is the nature of such textual evidence anyway. Now what does that make a Kashmiri? An Aryan or a Dravidian?

Some scholars have claimed a Dravidian substratum for Marathi, but how do we know that prior to that Dravidian substratum there was not some other language that was spoken there? And maybe there has been more than one shift back and forth. Let’s imagine that everyone in India originally spoke Dravidian and then due to some process of “elite dominance” most people in the North started speaking Indo-Aryan and they kept their old traditions and legends.

The new speakers will still be culturally Dravidian and certainly they would be so “biologically”, if that could ever mean anything. If this is what happened in India then are the Aryans actually Dravidians and, by implication, are the Dravidians also Aryans?

There could be two groups of people speaking two different languages who culturally belong to the same tradition like the modern-day Hungarians and Czechs. We don’t know who the authors of the Vedas were. They could have been bilingual speakers who knew “Dravidian” and “Vedic”; maybe their first language was really Dravidian even though they had Sanskrit names as has been true in South India for much of historical times; or they were purely Sanskrit speaking. No rhetoric or ideology can resolve this question.

The use of a language in literature does not even mean that the speakers are a dominant elite. Let’s consider the use of Urdu in Pakistan. The Punjabi speaking Punjabis are the dominant group but Urdu is used for official work purely due to some historical factors. In fact, the only Urdu-speaking ethnic group in Pakistan, the Mohajirs, feel they are at the bottom of the totem pole. The texts cannot reveal the ethnic background just as Indians in the US who have adopted American names cannot be identified as ethnically Indian from their writing. The lesson is that the term “Aryan”, misused by so many different parties, should be retired from academic discourse.

Several Kinds of Families

The Indian linguistic evidence requires the postulation of two kinds of classification. The first is the traditional Indian classification where the whole of India is a single linguistic area of what used to be traditionally called the Prakrit family. Linguists agree that based on certain structural relationships the North and the South Indian languages are closer than Sanskrit and Greek.1, Second, we have a division between the North Indian languages that should really be called North Prakrit (called Indo-Aryan by the linguists) and the South Indian languages that may be called South Prakrit (or Dravidian).

There is also the Indo-European family to which the North Prakrit languages belong. Likewise, Dravidian has been assumed to belong to a larger family of agglutinative languages. This classification will allow us to get rid of the term Aryan in marking the families of languages, allowing us to move past the racist connotation behind its 19th century use. Its further virtue is that it recognizes that language families cannot be exclusive systems and they should be perceived as overlapping circles that expand and shrink with time.

Back to the Origins

Some Indologists driven by the old race paradigm have stood facts upside down to force them to fit their theory. We know that the internal evidence of the Indian texts shows that the Vedas precede the Puranas.

Since Puranic themes occur in the iconography of the Harappan times (2600-1900 BC), some take the Puranic material to precede the Vedas so that the Vedas could be placed in the second millennium BC.  I think the only logical resolution of all the archaeological and textual evidence is to assume that the Indic area became a single cultural area at least around 5000 BC. The Indian civilization was created by the speakers of many languages but the language of the earliest surviving literary expression was Vedic Sanskrit, that is itself connected to both the North and the South Prakrit languages.

This idea is supported not only by the internal evidence that shows that the Indic tradition from 7000 BC onwards is an indigenous affair, but also from the new analysis of ancient art. For example, David Napier argues that the forehead markings of the Gorgon and the single-eye of the cyclops in Greek art are Indian elements. Although he suggests that this may have been a byproduct of the interaction with the Indian foot soldiers who fought for the Persian armies, he doesn’t fail to mention the more likely possibility that the influence was through the 2nd millennium BC South Indian traders in Greece.

This is supported by the fact that the name of the Mycenaean Greek city Tiryns—the place where the most ancient monuments of Greece are to be found—is the same as that of the most powerful Tamilian sea-faring people called the Tirayans., Since the 2nd millennium interaction between Greece and India is becoming clear only now, it is appropriate to ask if our languages were frozen into fixed categories wrongly by the 19th century historical linguists. Consider the centum/satem divide in which European languages belong to the centum group and the North Indian languages to the satem group. The tree model is used to divide the PIE into these two sub-classes with the centum group representing the western branch and the satem group representing the eastern branch.

The discovery of Tocharian as a centum language was seen as an example of a heroic movement of centum-speaking people from the west. But now the discovery of Bangani, a centum language in India, has make the whole idea of a treelike division suspect. Consider also the question of our knowledge of the vocabulary of various languages. For some languages, this knowledge was primarily obtained in quick field-work done decades ago by scholars who were not native speakers. Could it be that they missed out on vital evidence?

One of the orthodox scholars informs us;that the word *mori “seems originally to have meant swamp, marsh land or lake, rather than a large body of open water. [I]t is found only in European languages and not in Indo-Iranian other than Ossetic—an Iranian language contiguous to Europe although originating further to the east.” This “fact” has lent itself to endless theorizing. But this “fact” is a result of incomplete surveys. The word mar, a cognate, is a common Kashmiri term for a swamp or even a lake. We see this word in the formation of Kashyapmar from which the word Kashmir is derived.

Even Kannada has a cognate. Also, many Hindi speakers pronounce the word for “hundred” as sainkara rather than saikara, which the field studies tell us is the “correct” form. Does that make Hindi a centum language? The archaeological findings from India and the discovery of the astronomy of the Vedic period are fatal for the constructions of historical linguistics that arose in the 19th century and are still being followed in schoolbooks in India although textbooks in the West have begun to present the new picture. While the general language categories seem reasonable, the concept of overlapping families seems essential to obtain better conceptual clarity. The breakdown of the old paradigm calls for considerable effort to create a new one to take its place.
In particular, the emerging chronological framework can be used to examine the relationships between Sanskrit and other ancient Indo-European languages. Etymological dictionaries should be revised to take note of the antiquity of Vedic Sanskrit. If PIE did not exist, can we extrapolate from the earliest layer of Vedic Sanskrit for correlations with life in prehistoric Harappan India?

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