An outline version of this paper was delivered at the symposium on ‘Changing Identities—The Self and the Other in Colonial Societies of Asia and Africa’, at the Centre for Modern Oriental Studies in Berlin, on 21–22 October 1993.

¹ The paper is part of a larger study on ‘Ethnic and Religious Identities in Colonial India: A Comparative Analysis’ which concerns itself with the profile of ethnic and religious movements under colonial rule concentrating on the Pathans, the Sikhs and the Tamils. For a discussion of theoretical issues involved in the project, see Reetz, D., ‘Ethnic and religious identities in colonial India: a conceptual debate’, Contemporary South Asia, Vol. 2, no. 2 (1993), pp. 109–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

² CfReetz, D., ‘Enlightenment and Islam: Sayyid Ahmad Khan's Plea to Indian Muslims for Reason’, The Indian Historical Review, New Delhi, vol. XIV, nos. 1–2 (07 1987 and Jan. 1988), pp. 206–18.Google Scholar

³ From the Gospel of Ramakrishna, pp. 158–60, quoted in Hay, Steven (ed.), Sources of Indian Tradition, Second edn., Vol. 2: Modern India and Pakistan (New York, 1988), pp. 66–7.Google Scholar

⁴ ‘The putative ancestor, Qais, lived at the time of the Prophet. He sought the Prophet out in Medina, embraced the faith, and was given the name of Abdur- Rashid. Thus Pathans have no infidel past, nor do they carry in their history the blemish of defeat and forcible conversion’. [Meaning: unlike others whose ancestors converted to Islam.—D.R.] Barth, F., ‘Pathan identity and its maintanance’, in Barth, F., Features of Person and Society in Swat: Collected Essays on Pathans, Selected Essays of Frederik Barth, vol. II (London, 1981), p. 105.Google Scholar

⁵ Cf. Piet, John H., A Logical Presentation of the Śaiva Siddhānta Philosophy, (India Research Series, VIII) (Madras, 1952), pp. 3–4ff.Google Scholar

⁶ Anderson, Benedict, Imagined Communities (London—New York, 1991 rev. & ext. edn), pp. 33–6 and chapter 3, pp. 37–46.Google Scholar

⁷ The political movements of the Pathans, the Sikhs and the Non-Brahmins, and later the Tamils, will not be discussed in detail here. For a review of their history before independence see Rittenberg, Stephen A., Ethnicity, Nationalism and the Pakhtuns: The Independence Movement in India's North-West Frontier Province, (Durham, NC, 1988);Google ScholarSingh, Khushwant, A History of the Sikhs, 2 vols (Princeton, 1963–1966);Google ScholarGrewal, J. S., The Sikhs of the Punjab (The New Cambridge History of India, 11.3) (Cambridge, 1990);Google ScholarIrschick, Eugene, Politics and Social Conflict in South India (Berkeley, 1969);Google ScholarArooran, K. Nambi, Tamil Renaissance and Dravidian Nationalism, 1905–1944 (Madurai, 1980).Google Scholar

⁸ Cf. the evidence of Sirdar Bahadur Sundar Singh, Secretary of the Chief Khalsa Diwan and a member of the Legislative Council of Punjab Province, before the ublic Service Commission in 1913. United Kingdom, Parliamentary Papers, Royal Commission on the Public Services in India: Appendix vol. X (London, 1914), Cd. 7582, pp. 71–5; here: p. 75.Google Scholar

⁹ For an interesting summary of opposing arguments, see Petrie, D., Developments in Sikh Politics (1900–1911), Report, Diwan, Chief Khalsa (Amritsar, 1911), originally compiled for the Criminal Intelligence Department of the British administration.Google Scholar

¹⁰ Quoted in Grewal, J. S., ‘Legacies of the Sikh Past for the Twentieth Century’, in O'Connell, J. T. et al. (eds), Sikh History and Religion in the Twentieth Century (Delhi, 1990), pp. 25–6.Google Scholar

¹¹ Cf. Singh, Gobinder, Religion and Politics in the Punjab (Delhi, 1986), pp. 57ff.Google ScholarPubMed

¹² Barrier, N. Gerald, ‘Sikh Politics in British Punjab prior to the Gurdwara Reform Movement’, in O'Connell, et al. (eds.), Sikh History and Religion, pp. 170–2.Google Scholar

¹³ Quoted in Sarkar, Sumit, Modern India (Delhi, 1983), p. 57.Google Scholar

¹⁴ Cf. O'Hanlon, Rosaline, Caste, Conflict and Ideology: Mahatma Jyotirao Phule and Low Caste Protest in Nineteenth-Century Western India (Cambridge South Asian Studies, 30) (Cambridge, 1985);Google ScholarOmvedt, Gail, Cultural Revolt in a Colonial Society: The Non-Brahmin Movement in Western India: 1873–1930 (Bombay, 1976), pp. 107ff.Google Scholar

¹⁵ Started with the publication of Caldwell's Dravidian Grammar in 1856. For references, see the second revised and enlarged edition, Caldwell, Robert, A Comparative Grammar of the Dravidian or South Indian Family of Languages (London, 1875).Google Scholar

¹⁶ See for instance Pope, G. U. (trans, and ed.), The Tiruvācagam (Oxford, 1900).Google Scholar

¹⁷ Pillai, M. S.Purnalingam, Tamil Literature, p. 254, quoted in Irschick, Politics and Social Conflict in South India, p. 294.Google Scholar

¹⁸ Ibid., p. 293.

¹⁹ Ibid., p. 295.

²⁰ Sundaram Pillai (1855–97), historian of Tamil literature, quoted in ibid.

²¹ Quoted in Tendulkar, D. G., Faith is a Battle (Bombay, 1967), p. 59.Google Scholar

²² Ghaffar Khan at a Red Shirt meeting at Khairmaidan on 6 November. 1931. Quoted in P. S. Ramu, Momentous Speeches of Badshah Khan, p. 26.

²³ Ibid., p. 33.

²⁴ Tendulkar, , Faith is a Battle, p. 33.Google Scholar

²⁵ Khan, Ghaffar at a meeting on 6 November. 1931, quoted in Ramu, Momentous Speeches of Badshah Khan, p. 22.Google Scholar

²⁶ ‘We do earn a living but it becomes the food of the Britishers, it becomes the food of the Tahsildars, the subinspectors and the appeal writers’. Quoted in ibid., p. 34; ‘We have very big Jagirdars among us. Question them as to whether they have ever made the Firangi inclined to do good to our nation. Have the Jagirdars and Khans done any service to your nation. There is none who might have made a gutta (benefit) for the nation’. Ibid., p. 38.

²⁷ The usage of the term is confusing, particularly for the outsider. It is often used interchanging with the term Pathan. At the time, Pakhtun was more often used to describe ethnic and linguistic attributes and the commonness of all the tribes in both Afghanistan and India while Pathan is the eastern tribesman living mainly in India and the independent territories.

²⁸ ‘All those who belong to the N.-W.F.P., whether rich or poor, Hindus, Muslims or Sikhs, are Pakhtoons’. Hindustan Times, 9–7–1947; ‘By Pakhtun I mean everyone, whether Hindu, Muslim, Sikh or Christian, whether rich or poor, Pir, Khan or ordinary layman’. Tribune, 9–7–1947, quoted in Jansson, Erland, India, Pakistan or Pakhtunistan? The Nationalist Movement in the North-West Frontier Province, 1937–1947 (Studia Historica Upsaliensia; 119) (Uppsala, 1981), p. 219.Google Scholar

²⁹ Barrier, , ‘Sikh Politics in British Punjab’, p. 182.Google Scholar

³⁰ Sundar Singh claimed beliefs were primary and outward appearances less important. For his evidence, see United Kingdom, Parliamentary Papers, Royal Commission on the Public Services in India: Appendix vol. X, p. 71–5.Google Scholar Gurbakhsh Singh Bedi who represented the established section of the Sikh élite held the opinion that the emphasis on the separateness of Sikhs from Hindus is only 20–25 years old. Ibid., pp. 125–7.

³¹ Government of India, Census of India, 1911, Punjab (Lahore, 1912), vol. XIV, part 1, Subsidiary table ‘General distribution of the population by religion’, p. 193.Google Scholar

³² See, for instance, Great Britain, Parliamentary Papers, Joint Select Committee on the Government of India Bill (London, 1919), Cmd. 203, Vol. 2: Minutes of Evidence, Evidence by Sardar Thaker Singh, p. 2726. For a thorough account of the representation demand and the exchange of respective arguments,Google Scholar see Memorandum on Sikh representation submitted by the Diwan, Chief Khalsa, Amritsar, and the following interview in Indian Statutory Commission (I.S.C.), Selections from the Memorandum and Oral Evidence by Non-Officials (Part 1), (London, 1930), pp. 135ff.Google Scholar

³³ Emmerson to Linlithgow, 19 Oct. 1936, Linlithgow Papers, NMML, in Tuteja, K. L., Sikh Politics 1920–1940 (Kurukushetra, 1984), p. 176.Google Scholar

³⁴ Of the 175 seats, the Muslim Unionist Party got 96, Congress 18 (of which 5 were Sikh seats), the Muslim League got only 2. Of the Sikh seats, the Khalsa National Party secured 18, the Akalis 10, and the Congress 5. The rest were Independents. Ibid., p. 179.

³⁵ Hindu, weekly edition, 1 January. 1925, quoted in Irschick, Politics and Social Conflict in South India, p. 263.

³⁶ For deta ils see United Kingdom, Parliamentary Papers, Royal Commission on the Public Services, Appendix vol. II, ‘Minutes of Evidence … taken in Madras from the 8th to the 17th of January, 1913’, Cd. 7293 (London, 1914), pp. 103–4; for a more general discussion of non-Brahmin representation see Arooran. Tamil Renaissance and Dravidian Nationalism, pp. 35–40.Google Scholar

³⁷ The figures of comparative increase of general literacy and literacy in English released in the 1931 census for Madras Presidency proved convincingly that the non-Brahmin groups had made considerable advances. With general literacy of all ages in Madras Presidency standing at 9.26 per cent. In 1931, general literacy of non-Brahmin caste Hindus varied between 7 and 40 per cent, which was a twofold increase over 1901. During the same period, ther English literacy had increased up to ten times:

³⁸ India. Government of India. Census of India, 1911, Madras, vol. XII, part II (Madras, 1912), Table XIII, part I, ‘Caste, tribe, race or nationality’, p. 112.Google Scholar

³⁹ Hindu, 20 December. 1916.

⁴⁰ Irschick, , Politics and Social Conflict in South India, p. 165.Google Scholar

⁴¹ The non-Brahmin manifesto stated that ‘… Though rather late in the field, the non-Brahmin communities have begun to move. They now represent various stages of progress. Some of them such as the Chetty, the Komati, the Mudaliar, the Naidu, and the Nayar, have been making rapid progress; and even the least advanced, like those who are ahead of them, are manfully exerting themselves to come up to the standards of the new times … In a variety of ways in different walks of life non-Brahmins will now be found unostentatiously and yet effectively contributing to the moral and material progress of this Presidency. But they and their brethren have so far been groping helplessly in the background, because of the subtle and manifold ways in which political power and official influences are often exercised by the Brahmin caste’. Hindu, 20 December. 1916.

⁴² Report of the North-West Frontier Enquiry Committee and Minutes of Dissent by Mr. T. Rangachariar and Mr. N. M. Samarth (Delhi, 1924), p. 17.Google Scholar

⁴³ Cf. Report and Evidence of the North-West Frontier Enquiry Committee.

⁴⁴ See evidence to the Simon Commission in November 1928: I.S.C., Selections, (Part I), p. 269.

⁴⁵ Jansson, , India, Pakistan or Pakhtunistan?, p. 54.Google Scholar

⁴⁶ Government of India, Census of India, 1931 (Bangalore, 1932), Vol. 1. India, part II ‘Imperial Tables’, pp. 424–5, calculated on the population aged 5 years and over.Google Scholar

⁴⁷ I.S.C., Survey (London, 1930), part III, Working of the reformed constitution, P. 197.Google ScholarPubMed

⁴⁸ Franchise (Lothian) Committee 1932, in Indian Annual Register 1932, Vol. 1 (Delhi, 1990 Repr.), pp. 437–71, here: p. 455. The proportion of adult males enfranchised was 43.4 and of adult females 10.5 million people.Google Scholar

⁴⁹ Cf. secret government memo on Akali Dal in Papers of Sir Evan Jenkins, Governor of the Punjab, Record of distrubances and constitutional affairs, confidential letters, interview notes etc., Mar.—Aug. 1947. India Office Library and Records R/3/1/176, file pages 75–80. Kerr doubts that the mass participation was really massive. Singh, Mohinder (The Akali Movement (Delhi, 1978), pp. 100–1, table note) gives the number of 25,000 which even if doubled would amount to only 1.6 per cent of the Sikhs in the Punjab (3,110,060) in 1921.Google ScholarKerr, Ian J., ‘Fox and the Lions: The Akali Movement Revisited’ in O'Connell, et al. (eds.), Sikh History and Religion, p. 222, footnote 46.Google Scholar

⁵⁰ Quoted in Tendulkar, Faith is a Battle, p. 110.

⁵¹ Ramu, , Momentous Speeches of Badshah Khan, p. 224.Google Scholar

⁵² Singh, Ganda (ed.), Some Confidential Papers of the Akali Movement (Amritsar, 1965), p. 66.Google Scholar

⁵³ He was the president of the temple administration committee SGPC from 1936 till 1944, and he also remained the president of the Shiromani Akali Dal for most of this period. Except for a short period in 1944, he remained the most prominent Akali leader of the time.

⁵⁴ Akali Party Manifesto in The Tribune, 20 June 1936.

⁵⁵ Gandhi, M. K., The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, vol. LXXII (Delhi, 1978), PP. 395.Google Scholar

⁵⁶ Quotd from Arooran, Tamil Renaissance and Dravidian Nationalism, p. 269.

⁵⁷ Madras Mail, 23, 27 Feb. 1937, in Ibid., p. 184.

⁵⁸ For details see Banga, Indu, ‘The Sikh Crisis of Sikh Politics (1940–1947)’, in O'Connell, et al. (eds), Sikh History and Religion, pp. 233–55;Google ScholarEffenberg, Christine, The Political Status of the Sikhs (New Delhi, Archives Publishers, 1989), pp. 117ff.Google Scholar

⁵⁹ Cf. the documents of the All Parties Sikh Conference and the Shiromani Akali Dal under Tara Singh where the demand for Azad Punjab was raised but not pressed when it came to resolutions. Indian Annual Register 1944, vol. II, pp. 210 ff.

⁶⁰ For a review of the issue, see Jansson, , India, Pakistan or Pakhtunistan?, ch. ‘Pakhtunistan’, pp. 206–15.Google Scholar

⁶¹ Talbot, Ian, Provincial Politics and the Pakistan Movement (Karachi, 1990), p. 27.Google Scholar

⁶² Cf. Naicker's Presidential address at the 14th Session of the Justice Party Conference which elected him President of the Party in absentia, in Indian Annual Register 1938, vol. II, p. 380.Google Scholar

⁶³ Madras Mail, 19 October. 1938, in Arooran, Tamil Renaissance and Dravidian Nationalism, p. 238.

⁶⁴ For details, see ibid., Chapter 9 ‘The Demand for Dravidanad, 1940–44’, pp. 233–51.