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Hindu Traditionalism and Nationalist Ideologies in Nineteenth-Century Maharashtra

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

Richard Tucker
Richard Tucker
Affiliation:
Oakland University
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Extract

Historians of modern India have recently been paying increased attention to the founders of nationalist politics in the provinces, in growing recognition that the heredity of the Indian National Congress was influenced by complex institutional patterns going back some decades before its birth in 1885. These patterns were rooted in widely varying local and regional conditions. To the extent that the local political associations were designed by a Western-educated professional class with the common purpose of influencing policy decisions of the British Raj, they can all be understood within the context of British imperial politics. But the associations' leaders, the spokesmen of Indian nationalism in its early forms, had to confront a second audience as well as the British: the largely traditional society of their birth. Their relationship to that society was probably the most controversial and misunderstood dimension of their lives, yet it was crucial to the growth of regionally distinctive variations of later mass nationalism.

Type
Articles
Information
Modern Asian Studies , Volume 10 , Issue 3 , July 1976 , pp. 321 - 348
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1976

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References

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8 For their early activities, see Annual Reports of the Students' Literary and Scientific Society (from 1850 onwards).

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24 It is uncertain whether a Mahanubhav group as such was active in Poona, but its doctrines, labelled Vāmamārga in Marathi, were the heart of the controversy. See Dnyan Prakash, August 30, 1852, p. 280, and November 29, 1852, pp. 378–80.

25 Dnyan Prakash, December 13, 1858, pp. 587–8. Since before Poona's modern preeminence began in the 1720s, Wai, a small Brahmin center some sixty miles to the south, had been the region's most highly regarded center of Brahmin learning and authority. This struggle was another chapter in Poona's gradual displacement of other district towns.

26 An 1855 survey revealed that there were 158 pantojis in Poona District, including 114 Brahmins; the schools enrolled 4,144 students, 1,510 of them Brahmin. There were also nine Sanskrit schools with 74 students, all of them Brahmin. Khanolkar, V. P. (ed.), Indigenous Education in the Bombay Presidency and Thereabouts (Bombay, 1965), pp. 19–20. See also two broader studies: L. P. Patterson Maureen, ‘Changing Patterns of Occupation Among Chitpavan Brahmans,’ presented to the Conference on Nineteenth-Century Maharashtra,Chicago,June 6–8, 1969, esp. pp. 39–42;Google Scholar and Ellen, E. McDonald and Craig, M. Stark, English Education, Nationalist Politics and Elite Groups in Maharashtra, 1885–1915 (Berkeley, 1969), pp. 16–48.Google Scholar

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28 The results can be suggested by the fact that both Mor Shastri Sathe and Krishna Shastri Sathe were members of the Sanskrit Department staff at Poona College for many years, and Gangadhar Shastri Phadke was employed by the government Translators' Department for over twenty years.

29 For a fuller account of these developments, see Kumar, Ravinder, Western India in the Nineteenth Century (London, 1968), pp. 264–75.Google Scholar

30 Poona Observer, March 12, 1853, p. 43.

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33 See the essays entitled ‘Inglish Rājyāci Avashyakati,’ and ‘Rājyasudhāranā,’ in Tikekar, S. R. (ed.), Shatapatreṅ (Poona, 1963), pp. 22ff. and 33ff.Google Scholar

34 Ibid., pp. 15–16.

35 Dnyanoday, June 15, 1850, p. 218.

36 Dnyanoday, December 16, 1850, pp. 438–9.

37 Mehrotra, S. R., ‘The Poona Sarvajanik Sabha: The Early Phase (1870–1880),’ Indian Economic and Social History Review, VI:3 (09 1969), 299–300.Google Scholar

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40 The fullest English account is Kolhatkar, W. M., ‘Widow Remarriage,’ Indian Social Reform, ed. Chintamani, C. Y. (Madras, 1901), Pt I, pp. 293ff.Google Scholar In Marathi, see Daftardar, R. V. and Bedekar, A. D., Vidhavāvivāhakhandanācā sādyaṅta itihāsa (Poona, 1870).Google Scholar See also Vaidya, C. V., The History of Hindu Social Reform Agitation (Poona, 1890), pp. 9ff;Google Scholar and Tucker, Ranade, pp. 90–103.

41 Pandit, V. P., trans. and author of introduction to Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar, Vidhavāvivāha (Bombay, 1865).Google Scholar

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49 Punā asosieshana mhaṅje puṅyaṅtīl sārvajanik sabhā hyā sabhece nīyam (Poona, 1867);Google Scholar Mehrotra, ‘Poona Sarvajanik Sabha,’ pp. 300ff.

50 Dnyanoday, December 1, 1853, p. 371.

51 Dnyan Prakash, August 5, 1858, p. 372.

52 Masselos, ‘Liberal Thought in Maharashtra,’ pp. 277–83; Native Opinion, 08 1, 1880, p. 485. Full details, including the legal forms employed, are included in Pune yetil sārvajanik sabhecī racanā va niyam (Poona, 1870), pp. 6, 7, 11, 12.Google Scholar

53 Ibid., p. 8, Regulations Nos. 15, 16.

54 See Sabha, Vedashastrottejaka, First Annual Report (rpt Poona, 1914), annual reports for following five years;Google Scholar and Vedashāstradipika: Hirak-mahotsava-smārakagraṅtha (Poona, 1941).Google Scholar

55 For a later development of this character, see Kumar, Western India, pp. 308–9.

56 See Apte, ‘Lokahitavadi, and Chiplunkar, V. K.’; Inamdar, N. R., ‘Political Thought of Vishnushastri Chiplunkar,’ Journal of the University of poona, Humanities Section, No. 31, pp. 15–24;Google ScholarMadkholkar, G. T. and Banhatti, S. N., Vishnū Krishna Chiplunkar (Bombay, 1934).Google Scholar

57 Buddhisagar, M. G. (ed.), Chiplunkar Lekhasangraha (Bombay, 1963), p. 246.Google Scholar

58 Nibandhamālā, ed. Sathe, V. V. (Poona, 1926), pp. 1046–205.Google Scholar

59 Heimsath, Charles, Indian Nationalism and Hindu Social Reform (Princeton, 1964), ch. 7;CrossRefGoogle Scholar Tucker, Ranade, Ch. 7.

60 For the ‘orthodox party’ and its support of Tilak's campaigns in the 1890s, see Cashman, Richard, ‘The Politics of Mass Recruitment: Attempts to Organize Popular Movements in Maharashtra, 1891–1908,’ Diss. Duke University, 1968, pp. 50–1, 95ff.Google Scholar