Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-jn8rn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-24T17:50:09.987Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Imagining Region in Late Colonial India: Jhaverchand Meghani and the Construction of Saurashtra (1921–47)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 April 2022

Aparna Kapadia Open the ORCID record for Aparna Kapadia [Opens in a new window]
Aparna Kapadia*
Affiliation:
Department of History, Williams College, Williamstown, MA, USA
*
Email: [email protected]
Get access

Abstract

The making of regional and national imaginaries in colonial South Asia and indigenous elites’ role in this process are well documented. Less clearly understood are the cultural and social elements that were subordinated to the regional formations that prevailed. By focusing on the travel writings of Jhaverchand Meghani (1896–1947), a prominent intellectual and litterateur from western India, this article illustrates the internal configurations and contestations that underpinned the imaginings of regions in South Asia. Notably, Meghani saw the cultural preservation of Saurashtra as his life's mission. This article is the first to engage in a close reading of his travelogues, situating them in the wider context of emergent ideas of Gujarat in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It argues that by showcasing Saurashtra's particular folk and oral traditions, Meghani distinguished himself from the other regionalists and thus also sought to prevent Saurashtra's complete subsumption within the modern state of Gujarat.

Keywords

CharansfolkloreGujaratJhaverchand Meghanioral traditionsregion makingSaurashtra-KathiawadSouth Asiatravelogues
Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Asian Studies , Volume 81 , Issue 3 , August 2022 , pp. 541 - 560
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © The Association for Asian Studies, Inc. 2022

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

List of References

Alam, Muzaffar, and Subrahmanyam, Sanjay. 2007. Indo-Persian Travels in the Age of Discoveries, 1400–1800. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Amarji, Ranchodji. 1882. Tā’rīkh-i Soraṭh: A History of the Provinces of Sorath and Halar in Kathiawad. Translated and edited by Burgess, J.. Bombay: Education Society's Press.Google Scholar
Bhagavan, Manu. 2008a. “The Hindutva Underground: Hindu Nationalism and the India National Congress in Late Colonial and Early Post-Colonial India.” Economic and Political Weekly 43 (37): 39–48.Google Scholar
Bhagavan, Manu. 2008b. “Princely States and the Hindu Imaginary: Exploring the Cartography of Hindu Nationalism in Colonial India.” Journal of Asian Studies 67 (3): 881–915.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chakrabarty, Dipesh. 2004. “Romantic Archive: Literature and Politics of Identity in Bengal.” Critical Inquiry 30 (3): 654–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chandra, Sudhir. 1982. “Regional Consciousness in 19th Century India: A Preliminary Note.” Economic and Political Weekly 17 (32): 1278–85.Google Scholar
Chatterjee, KumKum. 1995. “Nature, History & Nationalism: The Travel Narratives of a South Asian Colonial Elite.” American Journal of Semiotics 12 (1–4): 381–402.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chatterjee, KumKum. 2005. “The King of Controversy: History and Nation Making in Late Colonial India.” American Historical Review 110 (5): 1454–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chatterjee, Partha. 1993. Nation and Its Fragments: Colonial and Postcolonial Histories. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Chatterjee, Roma. 2016. “Scripting the Folk: History, Folklore, and the Imagination of Place in Bengal.” Annual Review of Anthropology 45:377–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cinestaan. 2021. “OHO Gujarati's Sambhlo Chho? Brings Alive Stories by Jhaverchand Meghani.” May 31. https://www.cinestaan.com/articles/2021/may/31/29873 (accessed February 22, 2022).Google Scholar
Deshpande, Prachi. 2007. Creative Pasts: Historical Memory and Identity in Western India, 1700–1960. Ranikhet: Permanent Black.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dosabhai, Edalji. 1850. Gujarātano itihās [History of Gujarat]. Amdavad: Gujarat Vernacular Society.Google Scholar
Dosabhai, Edalji. (1894) 1986. A History of Gujarat from the Earliest Period to the Present Time. New Delhi: Asian Educational Services.Google Scholar
Eubanks, Charlotte. 2006. “On the Wings of a Bird: Folklore, Nativism, and Nostalgia in Meiji Japan.” Asian Folklore Studies 65 (1): 1–20.Google Scholar
Fakir, Ra. Latth. 1929. “Sākṣaro, Sāhityarasiko ane Ugtā Lekhako ane Patrokāro” [Scholars, litterateurs and emerging writers and journalists]. Vīsmī sadī [The twentieth century], October 28, 352–53.Google Scholar
Gopalan, Gopalan V. 1976. “A Pioneering Folklorist: Jhaverchand Kalidas Meghani (1896–1947) of Saurashtra, Gujarat, India. A Study of his Folklore Collections, Techniques, and Theories.” PhD diss., Indiana University Bloomington.Google Scholar
Goswami, Manu. 2004. Producing India: From Colonial Economy to National Space. Chicago, Ill: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Green, Nile. 2018. “The Waves of Heterotopia: Toward a Vernacular Intellectual History of the Indian Ocean.” American Historical Review 123 (3): 846–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grierson, G. A. 1908. Linguistic Survey of India. Vol. IX, Part II, Indo-Aryan Family, Central Group. Calcutta: Office of the Superintendent of Government Printing, India.Google Scholar
Gulati Balachandran, Jyoti. 2020. Narrative Pasts: The Making of a Muslim Community in Gujarat, c. 1400–1650. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Isaka, Riho. 2000. “M. K. Gandhi and the Problem of Language in India.” Odysseus 5:132–45.Google Scholar
Isaka, Riho. 2002a. “Gujarati Intellectuals and History Writing in the Colonial Period.” Economic and Political Weekly 37 (48): 4867–72.Google Scholar
Isaka, Riho. 2002b. “Language and Dominance: The Debates over the Gujarati Language in the Late Nineteenth Century.” South Asia 25 (1): 1–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Isaka, Riho. 2006. “Gujarati Elites and the Construction of Regional Identity in the Late Nineteenth Century.” In Beyond Representation: Colonial and Postcolonial Constructions of Indian Identity, edited by Bates, Crispin, 151–76. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Isaka, Riho. 2015. “The Multilingual City of Bombay and the Formation of Linguistic States.” In Cities in South Asia, edited by Bates, Crispin and Mio, Minoru, 143–58. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Jhala, Jayasinhaji. 2009. “The Tragada Bhavaiya Contribuiton to the Making of Hindu Identity in Saurashtra.” In Popular Culture in a Globalised India, edited by Gokulsing, K. Moti and Dissanyake, Wimal, 69–81. Oxon: Routledge.Google Scholar
Kapadia, Aparna. 2010. “Alexander Forbes and the Making of a Regional History.” In The Idea of Gujrat: History, Ethnography and Text, edited by Simpson, Edward and Kapadia, Aparna, 50–65. New Delhi: Orient Blackswan.Google Scholar
Kapadia, Aparna. 2018. In Praise of Kings: Rajputs, Sultans and Poets in Fifteenth-Century Gujarat. New Delhi: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Korom, Frank. 2006. “The Role of Folklore in Tagore's Vernacular Nationalism.” In Tagore and Modernity, edited by Sen, Krishna and Gupta, Tapati, 34–58. Kolkata: Dasgupta & Co. Pvt. Ltd.Google Scholar
Korom, Frank. 2010. “Gurusaday Dutt, Vernacular Nationalism, and the Folkculture Revival in Colonial Bengal.” In Folklore in Context: Essays in Honor of Shamsuzzaman Khan, edited by Mahmud, Firoz and Zaman, Sharani, 256–93. Dhaka: Bangaldesh University Press.Google Scholar
Kothari, Rita, and Kothari, Abhijit. 2019. “Introduction.” In The Glory of Patan, by Munshi, K. M., translated by Kothari, Rita and Kothari, Abhijit, ix–xxxi. Gurgaon: Penguin Viking.Google Scholar
Meghani, Jhaverchand. (1928, 1935) 1994. Sauraṣṭranā Khanḍeroṃā [Amidst Saurashtra's ruins]. Bhavnagar: Prasar.Google Scholar
Meghani, Jhaverchand. (1929) 1997. Loksāhitya ane Cāraṇī Sāhitya: Vyākyāyano ane Lekho [Folk literature and Charani literature: Lectures and essays]. Bhavnagar: Prasar.Google Scholar
Meghani, Jhaverchand. (1933) 1994. Soraṭhne Tīre Tīre [On Sorath's shores]. Bhavnagar: Prasar.Google Scholar
Meghani, Jhaverchand. (1946, 1947) 1981. Parakammā [Perambulation]. Bhavnagar: Prasar.Google Scholar
Meghani, Vinod, and Shelat, Himanshi, eds. (1988) 2003. Li, Hun Āvu Chun: Jhaverchand Meghāṇīnu Patrajīvan [Signed, I am coming: Jhaverchand Meghani's letters]. Vol. 1. Ahmedabad: Gurjar Grantharatna Karyalaya.Google Scholar
Micallef, Roberta, and Sharma, Sunil. 2013. On the Wonders of Land and Sea: Persianate Travel Writing. Boston, Mass.: Ilex Foundation.Google Scholar
Munshi, K. M. 1935. Gujarāta and Its Literature from Early Times to 1852. Calcutta: Longman, Green and Co.Google Scholar
Munshi, K. M. 1939. Gujarātnī asmitā [Gujarati consciousness]. Bombay: Gujarati Sahitya Parishad.Google Scholar
Naregal, Veena. 2001. Language Politics, Elites, and the Public Sphere in Colonial Western India. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
O'Sullivan, Michael. 2021. “Vernacular Capitalism and Intellectual History in a Gujarati Account of China, 1860–68.” Journal of Asian Studies 80 (2): 267–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Palshikar, Shreeyash. 2007. “Breaking Bombay, Making Maharashtra: Media, Identity Politics and State Formation in Modern India.” PhD diss., University of Chicago.Google Scholar
Parekh, Hiralal. (1932) 2010. Gujarāt Vernacular Societyno Itihās [History of the Gujarat Vernacular Society]. Vol. 1. Ahmedabad: Gujarat Vernacular Society.Google Scholar
Pare Vyas, Shvetal. 2014. “Writing Fiction, Living History: Kanhaiyalal Munshi's Historical Trilogy.” Modern Asian Studies 48 (3): 596–616.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rabitoy, Neil. 1974. “Administrative Organisation and the Bhats of British Gujarat.” Indian Economic and Social History Review 11 (1): 46–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shah, A. M., and Shroff, R. G.. 1975. “The Vahīvancā Bāroṭs of Gujarat: A Caste of Genealogists and Mythographers.” In Traditional India: Structure and Change, edited by Singer, Milton, 40–70. Philadelphia, Pa.: American Folklore Society.Google Scholar
Sheikh, Samira. 2010. Forging a Region: Sultans, Traders and Pilgrims in Gujarat, 1200–1500. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Sheffield, Daniel. 2013. “Iran, the Mark of Paradise or the Land of Ruin? Historical Approaches to Reading Two Parsi Travelogues.” In On the Wonders of Land and Sea: Persianate Travel Writing, edited by Micallef, Roberta and Sharma, Sunil, 14–43. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Shelat, Himanshi, and Meghani, Vinod, eds. (1998) 2003. Antar Chabī: Jhaverchand Meghāṇīnu saṃkalit atmavṛtant [Inner portrait: Autobiographical compilations from Jhaverchand Meghani's writings]. Ahmedabad: Gurjara Grantharatna Karyalaya.Google Scholar
Suhrud, Tridib. 2008. “Modi and Gujarati Asmita.” Economic and Political Weekly 43 (1): 11–13.Google Scholar
Suhrud, Tridib. 2009. Writing Life: Three Gujarati Thinkers. New Delhi: Orient BlackSwan.Google Scholar
Tambs-Lyche, Harold. 1982. “The Merchantization of Saurashtra: Non-violence, Sacrifice and Political Power in a region of Western India.” Journal of Social Studies, no. 16:39–50.Google Scholar
Tambs-Lyche, Harold. 1997. Power, Profit and Poetry: Traditional Society in Kathiawar, Western India. New Delhi: Manohar.Google Scholar
Tambs-Lyche, Harold. 2011. “The Quest for Purity in Gujarat Hinduism: A Bird's Eye View.” South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies 34 (3): 333–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thapar, Romila. 2005. Somanatha: The Many Voices of a History. London: Verso.Google Scholar
Varma, Niranjan, and Parmar, Jaymall, eds. (1947) 2005. Jhaverchand Meghāṇī Smraṇānjalī [Remembering Jhaverchand Meghani]. Sanskar Sahitya Mandir: Bhavnagar.Google Scholar
Yagnik, Achyut, and Sheth, Suchitra. 2005. The Shaping of Modern Gujarat: Plurality, Hindutva, and Beyond. New Delhi: Penguin.Google Scholar