Hindu Nationalism, Sanskrit the National Language and Bengali Writers' Visions

 

Hindu Nationalism, Sanskrit the National Language and Hindu Bengali Writers' Visions

Rammohun Roy, Bankimchandra Chatterjee and Rabindranath Tagore (re-)construct a glorious past of the Hindu nation on the basis of Sanskrit literature (van Bijlert present volume). 

What were the reasons and motivations for the Bengali Hindu intellectuals to use Sanskrit texts as an ideological basis for nation building? In what follows we will take up for examination writings by Rammohun Roy, Bankimchandra Chatterjee and Rabindranath Tagore, three famous and influential Bengali authors whose writing career spans almost a century. They all wrote on Hindu religion and the Indian nation. As to Indian culture and the nation, the following motivations and assumptions can be extracted from many Bengali and English texts of that period: (a) gaining respect and self-respect, (b) the antiquity of Sanskrit, (c) the classical character of Sanskrit literature, (d) apparent universal extension of Sanskrit over a cultural area more or less coterminous with the geographical landmass of South-Asia, (e) Sanskrit was regarded as the ancestor of all the North-Indian vernaculars, (f) Sanskrit narrative texts were the source of most local mythologies; Sanskrit texts were thought to have provided the models for regional vernacular literature from the middle ages onwards. 

Let us take a closer look at the issue of respect. It is an established fact that towards the end of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth century, Protestant Christian missionaries in India made many disdainful comments on what they regarded as the utterly damaging influence of Hinduism on the population.

Hinduism according to them was inhumanly cruel, morally degrading, superstitious and to top it all, blatantly polytheistic. For example Rev. Ward in 1818 remarked that, . . . the authors of the Hindu mythology have taken care, that the quarrels and revels of the gods and goddesses shall be held up to the imitation of the whole community. (Dutta 1992:31) In 1854 McLeod Wylie stated: The old Government was intolerant, corrupt, and capricious, and the Hindu priests wherever Muhammadanism left them in power, taught the people to treat them as Gods, and then instructed them in the worship of deities, who were even more wicked than themselves. (Dutta 1992:30) For a boo length exposition and discussion of missionaries' views on Hinduism, (Dutta 1992).

Rammohun Roy:

Rammohun Roy, the well-known Hindu reformer and liberal philosopher of Bengal, tried to counter missionary critique by a project of Hindu reformation, whose mode was intellectually similar to the liberal utilitarianism of his western opponents. In a way he tried to turn the tables against them by showing the relative superiority of the Hindu scriptures. In order to make his point, he published between 1815 and 1819 five Upanisads, Isa, Kena, Katha, Mändükya and Mundaka, along with a few small Vedäntic tracts and the Brahma Sütra in Sanskrit with Bengali translations and lengthy introductions preceding the translations. Simultaneously he published these texts also in English translations without the Sanskrit text, but again with lengthy introductions. It is exciting to realize that Rammohun's translations contained the first printed editions of these texts. In a letter written to John Digby sometime in 1816 or 1817, Rammohun gives the following reasons for publishing his translations of Hindu texts: 

It is noteworthy that Rammohun to some extent shares the criticism of the missionaries, but does not reject Hinduism for it. On the contrary, he tries to reconstruct - or should we say 'invent' - a more humane Hindu tradition based on the Vedänta and the Upanisads. Note also the fact that he implicitly refers to the Hindus as a nation, even though this word may not have signified exactly the same thing as approximately sixty years later. About the relative superiority of Hinduism over other world religions, Rammohun once remarked: The Hindus seem to have made greater progress in sacred learning than the Jews, at least when the Upanishads were written. . . If religion consists of the blessings of self-knowledge and of improved notions of God and his attributes and a system of morality holds a subordinate place, I certainly prefer the Vedas. (in Dobson Collet 1988:98) 

That Rammohun regarded ancient, that is to say pre-islamic, India as possibly a Hindu nation, could be inferred from his "Appeal to the King in Council" from 1823. There he consistently refers to England as the 'British nation', from which it seems his concept of the 'nation' approached that of the 'nation state'. About India he says: The greater part of Hindustan having been for several centuries subject to Muhammadan Rule, the civil and religious rights of its original inhabitants were constantly trampled upon, and from the habitual oppression of the conquerors, a great body of their subjects in the southern Peninsula (Dukhin), afterwards called Marhattahs, and another body in the western parts now styled Sikhs, were at last driven to revolt. . . (Rämmohan Racanävali:508) 

Rammohun does not explicitly say here that the original inhabitants of 'Hindustan' were Hindus, but the Muslims at least are regarded as conquerors, and they trampled on the religious rights of the original inhabitants. The geographical expanse of Hindustan seems to include South India and the Punjab. In a tract called "The Rights of Hindoos over Ancestral Property" 1830 Rammohun is more explicit about what India comprises: "India, like other large empires, is divided into several extensive provinces, principally inhabited by Hindus and Mussalmans." Provinces like Dukhun, the Deccan that is, and Telinga which is present day Andhra Pradesh, are mentioned, as well as the fact that their languages are not based on Sanskrit, unlike, by implication, the Northern languages (Rämmohan Racanävali:544). The picture which emerges from Rammohun stray remarks show the motivations and assumptions for nascent Hindu nationalism I mentioned before: (a) gaining respect and self-respect, (b) antiquity of Sanskrit, (c) the classical character of Sanskrit literature, (d) apparent universal extension of Sanskrit over the geographical landmass of South Asia, (e) Sanskrit as the ancestor of all the North-Indian vernaculars. 

Rammohun uses often such words which nowadays we would no longer use to describe those religious practices. From the point of view of the Upanisads and the Advaita Vedänta, however, he was not entirely unjustified in calling certain aspects of the image worship of his day by the rather pejorative name of idolatry. The word is of Greek origin, and in fact means no more than just 'worship of images'. On the problematic term 'nation' and its several meanings, see Hobsbawm 1992:1423.

In a nutshell we already have in Rammohun's words the notion of a Hindu nation whose original national language was Sanskrit, and whose ideology should be derived from Sanskrit sources. Of course in modern times it would not be possible to reinstall Sanskrit itself as a national language. The modern national language of the nation should be the vernacular Bengali [Shudh Hindi etc.], purified and Sanskritized. This was very much Rammohun's view. He tried to popularize the use of Bengali [and Shudh Hindi] not only through his religious and philosophical writings, but also by publishing a small Bengali grammar in 1833, called Gaudya Byäkaran (in Rämmohan Racanävali:365)

 Rammohun represented the oldest and at the same time the more radically liberal trend within this nationalistic discourse. Because of his social activism and his liberal Hindu views he was subsequently regarded as one of the first Indian patriots. 

In March 1865 a lecture was given entitled "Bengalis as they are, and as they ought to be," at the Young Men's Literary Association, Presidency College.  In it the speaker says among other things: India, my country, illustrious for her original civilisation, is now lost; and I wait for the restoration. Now, Gentlemen, who is the man, that is to restore her to her former seat, who is that faithful patriot that intends to coronate her once more with her own crown of original glory? Where is that patriot, of illustrious fame, the Raja Ram Mohun Roy whose labors wrought so much for the social, intellectual and moral promotion of our countrymen? [p. 1 of the tract] Rajah [sic] Rammohun Roy stands perhaps the only example we can hold up for our admiration, and if I may be permitted to say so, for our imitation. Was he ever afraid of? - did he ever shrink from proclaiming what he considered to be the truth, to his benighted countrymen? Did he ever regard the scoffs, the persecutions, and animadversions which were heaped on him, by his unreasonable and misguided antagonists? [p. 24]

Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay

A rather similar urgent concern with patriotism but in a more explicit Hindu pitch—but these terms are problematic I should warn—is represented by the famous Bengali novelist and essay-writer Bankimchandra Chatterjee (1838-1894). 

Bankim wrote more than half a century after Rammohun and but a decade after the author of the lecture quoted above. Bankim wrote most of his works in Bengali but was also an able author in English. In a number of rather lengthy Bengali treatises Bankim has unfolded his constructions of a modern Hinduism adapted to the present needs of the country. In them he constructs a Hinduism that could serve as an ideology for national reconstruction.  The best known are his Krsnacharitra, a biography of Krishna based on the epical and purânic stories, but written with modern methods of textual criticism in order to separate the mythological embellishment from the plausible facts; a long philosophical dialogue Dharmatattva published in 1888, in which he elaborates his thesis that Hindu religion is Hindu culture; and a Bengali translation of the Bhagavad Gïtâ with commentaries, published posthumously in 1902. In English he wrote several articles on Hinduism and his Letters on Hinduism. Especially in the Bengali treatises Bankim liberally quotes from the Vedas, the epics, the Puränas and the Mänava Dharma Sästra. This constitutes his canon of Hinduism, with the Bhagavad Gïtâ as a special favourite. What did he think about the knowledge of Sanskrit and its literature? 

In a speech delivered in 1894 he laments the lack of knowledge of Sanskrit among many educated Hindus: I had ... occasion to inspect... a Vedic Toi... I found there were nine students only on the rolls . . . This appeared to me to be very disheartening evidence of the slight interest taken by our educated young men in the Vedic studies. I do not mean to say that all educated Hindus should be Vedic scholars - practically this would be impossible, but I am strongly of opinion that all Hindus who are willing to go through a course of 'Higher Training', as we call it, ought to possess a certain amount of knowledge, even if only second-hand knowledge, of the great Vedic Literature of our country . . . (Bankim Racanavali 111:149)

Obviously for Bankim too Sanskrit was the great national language of ancient Hindu India. In the next lecture Bankim expatiated on the content of the Vedic texts. Especially the Upanisads were favoured. He called the Upanisads 'the most interesting portion of the Vedic Literature' (Bankim Racanavali 111:167). He had noticed that their popularity led to subsequent numerous imitations, so that the total number of known titles of Upanisads exceeds the hundred. But the India of the Vedas and the Upanisads, of Buddhism and the Bhakti movement, was the India of Hindus alone. 

There were those who tried to accommodate Muslims. But hear what he says about such initiatives: . . . Pandit Satyabrata Samasrami mentions even an Allopanishad, or the Upanishad of Allah, the shameless production of some sycophant of the Mussalman rulers of India. (Bankim Racanavali 111:168) Ancient India as a great Hindu nation had lost its independence in the course of the centuries. First to the Muslims, then to the British. This view Bankim elaborated in a Bengali article called Bhäratvarser svâdhînatâ evang parädhlnatä: Formerly India had been independent - now for many centuries it has been dependent. The presentday Indians recollect this with deepest anguish. . . For so long many have stood against us with deepest anguish. . . For so long many have stood against us with sword in hand. What doubt is there that happiness lies in independence. Whoever would doubt this is absolutely wicked, the lowest of mankind, etc. In the next paragraph Muslim rule and British rule are mentioned. There is a sudden shift from India to Bengal. Still, what is true of Bengal is true of the whole of India. The Bengalis who have studied English have, regarding this, learned two words 'Liberty' 'Independence', as their translation we have got svädh inatä and svatantratä. In the minds of many there is the perception that these two words signify the same thing. It is the common conviction that they signify a situation in which a people rules itself. If a king is from a different country, then his subjects are dependent, and the realm is under foreign rule. For this reason, India that is presently under British rule is called dependent and under foreign rule. For this reason, Bengal that was ruled by the Mughals or ruled by Shiraj ud Daulah is called dependent and under foreign rule. (Bankim Racanävali 11:241) 

Bankim compares the past of India with the present situation and concludes that independence and dependence are only important to the extent that they give more or less happiness to the people. He ends the article with the somewhat melancholy observation: "In presentday India the Brahmans and the Kshatriyas, that is, those of high rank, have fallen, the Shudras, that is, the ordinary people, have risen a little bit" (Bankim Racanävali 11:245). More than through his prose writings, Bankim became the champion of nascent Hindu nationalism for the whole of Hindu India through his poem 'Vande Mätaram', 'I praise the Mother'. The poem occurs in Bankim's most celebrated Bengali novel 'Änandamath' . Its main theme is the Sannyasi rebellion of 1772 near Purnea against the Muslims and the British. One of the leading characters, the Sannyasi Bhavananda, sings the song which begins with the words "Vande Mätaram." The poem is almost entirely in Sanskrit, and had for some time aquired the status of national anthem, but due to its place in the novel, a national anthem of Hindu India, or rather of a Hindu nation that was to be constructed or resurrected. The first words, Vande Mätaram, became a revolutionary slogan, an emblem of renascent Hindu national consciousness. The poem itself does not have a trace of Hindu revivalism nor does it show any anti-muslim mood. The poem is a hymn of praise of the mother, who is none other than the land of Bengal, and by extension mother India. vande mätaram sujalärm suphaläm malayajas Italäih sasyasyämaläm mätaram. In the first decennia of the twentienth century there were at least two magazines in English devoted to revolutionay action in order to bring about Indian independence, that were called Bande Mätaram. One of them was printed and published in Poona by Hari Raghunath Bhagavat. The other one was published from Geneva. Its editor was Madame Cama in Paris. Many issues of both Bande Matarams were proscribed by the British Government of India.

subhra-jyotsnä-pulakita-yäminlm phullakusumita-drumadalasobhin suhäsin Im sumadhurabhäsinlm sukhadäm varadäm mätaram

I praise the Mother whose waters are sweet, who abundantly bears fruits, who is soothing as sandalwood, who is green with corn, the mother. Whose nights cause thrills of delight because of the beauty of the moon, who is resplendent with blossoming petals and flowering trees, who smiles sweetly and speaks very tenderly, the mother who gives happiness and grants [our] wishes. While the first half of the poem contains praises of the physical beauty of the mother land, the second half stresses the need for the devotees of the mother to realize her in their hearts. In other words the mother as the idea of the nation has to come about through the conscious devotion of the people. We can hardly have a better example of what Anderson calls an imagined community. The second part, although mainly in Sanskrit, contains some lines in Bengali as well: tumi vidyä tumi dharma tumi hrdi tumi marma tvam hi pränäh sarire bähute tumi mä sakti hrdaye tumi mä bhakti tomäri pratimä gadi mandire mandire. You are knowledge, your are religion, you are [our] heart, you are the core of [our] heart, for you are the life-breath in [our] bodies. In our arms you, mother, are our strength; In our heart you, mother, are our devotion; it is only your image we build in every temple. In the novel there is a remarkable explanatory scene just before the whole poem is sung. When Bhavananda is about to sing the hymn and The whole text of the poem is found in Bankim Racanavali 1:590.

The character, Mahendra is made to say: "but this is a country, this is not the mother." Then Bhavananda answers: We do not recognize any other mother—janani janmabhümis ça svargäd api garîyasî,(the mother and the place of birth are more important even than heaven). But we say, only the place of birth is the mother, we do not have a mother, no father, no brothers, no relatives,—no wife, no sons, no room, no house, for us there is only she whose waters are sweet (sujalä), who abundantly bears fruit (suphala), who is soothing through the winds carrying the fragrance of sandal wood (malayaja samlranasïtala), who is green with corn (sasyasyämalä ). Then Mahendra understood and said, then sing again. (Bankim Racanävali 1:590) Now Bhavananda sings the complete hymn Vande Mätaram. In order to make the ideological and emotional energy of the concept of the nation enter the faculty of imagination of his readers, Bankim translated the familiar Bengali religious concept of divine mother, the Goddess Durga or Kali, into the land of birth as mother. The figure of Mahendra expresses the thoughts of the ordinary reader, who would initially object to regarding a piece of land as a sacred mother, for the emotional content a stretch of land evokes seems limited. Only when the land can be regarded as the visible manifestation of a divine principle, is it capable of striking a deeply devotional chord. The religious modality of imagining the nation informs the second part of the hymn, when it says: "In our heart you, mother, are our devotion; / it is only your image we build / in every temple." The nation is a jealous mistress, for Bhavananda exclaims her votaries have abandoned all other emotional ties for her. 

 Rabindranath Tagore 

 Strictly speaking Rabindranath is not only a literary figure of the nineteenth century as the major part of his literary career, covering in all more than sixty years, advanced well into the twentieth century. Still, his earlier writings on which initially rested his fame, formed very much part of nineteenth century Bengali elite culture. Tagore's rise to  literary and intellectual fame around the nineties of the last century heralded the transition from nineteenth century Bengali intellectual debates to the more pan-Indian twentieth century and its rise of politically active nationalism as advocated by the Indian National Congress.

In August 1901 Rabindranath published two Bengali articles in one of the leading Bengali magazines Bangadarsan on the concept of the nation. In the first one entitled Nation ki?, "What is a nation?," he summarized and discussed the famous tract by Ernest Renan on the invention of a nation, Qu 'est-ce qu 'une nation ? In the second article called Hindutva, 'Hinduness', he used Renan's ideas for a discussion of the country, India.  As the original title suggests, Rabindranath rather explicitly constructed the nation India as a Hindu nation. In a reprint of the article four years later in a collection of essays called Ätmasakti, he changed the title Hindutva into Bhäratvarslya Samäj, "Indian Society," so as to soften the somewhat communalist sounding reference to an exclusively Hindu India. 

The text of the article remained unchanged however. Defining the essential characteristic of the concept of the nation in his first article, Rabindranath paraphrases Renan as follows: The nation is a living entity (satta), a mental object. Two things have constructed the inner nature of this object. These two things are in fact one and the same. One of them is situated in the past, the other in the present. One is the wealth of public memories of the past, the other the mutual consent, the desire to dwell in the same place—the desire to preserve in a suitable way the whole of the inheritance one has received. . . . To a large extent we have been already created in the past by our forefathers. Past heroism, greatness, and glory, on these rests the national feeling. In the past a single public glory (gaurav), in the present a single public desire; unitedly having done great deeds in the past and the resolve to perform such great deeds once more: these are the profound basis of creating a people (janasampradäy ) (Ravîndra-racanâvali, vol. 2:621) It is clear that Rabindranath believed the Indian nation of the past to have been a Hindu nation. The evocation of past glory, heroism, and sacrifice of the forefathers, can hardly have escaped the readers as an incentive to nation building in the present. 

In the second article Tagore explicitly speaks about the Hindu past of India. His greatest concern is with the concept of unity of a nation. He claims that the unity of the nation is based on the unifying principles underlying the coherence of society: . . . unity of the people's minds is not realized in all countries in one and the same sense. For this reason European unity and Hindu unity are not of the same kind, but saying this, it cannot be said also that there is not a single unity among the Hindus. (Ravîndra-racanavali, vol. 2:622) What separates Europe ideologically from India is Hindu culture. The latter has given to India a specific kind of social unity not found elsewhere. According to Rabindranath 'unity in diversity', is how one could characterize the underlying principle of Hindu civilization, whose important binding force is dharma, somewhat problematically translated by the European term 'religion': With respect to the great building work of civilisation—i.e. uniting the variegated - it has to be seen what the Hindus have made of it. . . . By giving shelter to so many different people, Hindu culture in various ways has deprived itself, and still it has not abandoned anyone. High and low, homogeneous (savarna) and not homogeneous (asavarna ), all of them it has drawn close, to all of them it has given the shelter of religion (dharma), all of them it has forced on the path of duty, thus preventing them from laxness and degradation. (Ravîndra-racanavali, vol. 2:622-623).

 Ultimately for Rabindranath the unifying force behind Indian civilization was the Hindu dharma, the complex amalgam of Hindu culture and religion. To Rabindranath's mind the situation of his times were unsatisfactory due to a lack of energy among the Hindus. The solution he proposed consists in social/religious reform. Religion should not be backward looking, it should not be an unthinking emulation of the past, but rather be energized by the same spirit which informed the society building of the forefathers. As he writes in the same article: For the protection of national self-interest everyone in the nation sacrifices personal self-interests. In the times when Hindu society was full of life, every part of society used to regard the self-interest of the integral body of society as its own ultimate self-interest. . . . Let us install as a living reality in our hearts that same ever-wakeful feeling of weal (mangal ) [inherited] from our ancestors and apply it everywhere in society, only then will we again reach great Hindu civilisation (hindu-sabhyatä ). To give education to society, health, food, wealth and riches, this is our own work; this alone is our weal - this should not be regarded as trade, rather, not to hope for anything else in exchange for this [activity] but merit (punya) and well-being (kalyän ) is sacrifice (yajna ), is the unification with God (Brahman) through work (karmayog ), to always remember this is Hindu-ness (hindutva ). (Ravïndra-racanâvali, vol. 2:625)

Lastly we may ask, what in Rabindranath's view was the role of Sanskrit in all this? In the period he wrote these articles, he also wrote a number of religious essays in which he tried to construct a more open, and very personal, version of the Brahmo spirituality and liberal theology he inherited from his father, Debendranath (1817-1905), who after the death of Rammohun Roy had been the second prophet of Brahmoism. Rabindranath himself has all his life been connected with the Brahmo Samaj movement, and often saw himself as one of its voices. There is little doubt that the kind of religion Rabindranath had in mind in the article Hindutva, would be the liberal Hinduism he constructed elsewhere. The main ingredient of this religion are the thoughts and poetical inspiration derived from the older classical Upanisads. In his religious writings, Rabindranath liberally quoted from the Upanisads, a habit he kept untill his death in 1941. The religious essays and discourses composed between 1901 and 1907 are especially relevant to our present discussion since they immediately succeeded his nationalistic writings. Among the religious essays composed between 1901 and 1907 (and published in 1909 in a collection called Dharma) there are articles with titles like Präcln Bhärater Ekah, 'The One of Ancient India' (written in 1901), and Dharmer Saral Ädarsa, 'A Simple Ideal of Religion' (written in 1902). They served to construct or reconstruct an ancient Indian religion on the basis of what Rabindranath believed the Upanisads had taught. Undoubtedly, the concept of this religion shows strong traits of a humanistic and humane approach to Indian life, and could be called progressive, but the impression that it is Hinduism and nothing else will not easily fade. For in none of the texts by Rabindranath so far mentioned do we find the slightest hint of Muslim India or of the Muslim past. The overwhelming impression of their discourse is that of a more liberal and explicitly humanistic version ofBankim's construction of Hinduism as a religion for national regeneration. 

 By choosing the Upanisads as his main source Rabindranath had brought his religious project fully into line with that of his great spiritual ancestor, Rammohun Roy, whom he immensely admired. About the religious ideal of the Upanisads in ancient India, Rabindranath says the following in the article Dharmer Saral Ädarsa: Once a simple ideal of religion did exist in our India (Bhäratvarsa ). In the Upanishads we get acquainted with it. Therein the revelation of Brahman (God) is full, unbroken, it is not encumbered by the web of our conceptualisations. . . . The Upanishad has shown this world (jagat - sariisär) full of diversity to be absorbed in the endless truth of Brahman, in the endless knowlegde of Brahman. The Upanishad did not conceptualise a particular world (lok), it did not erect special temples, it did not install particular forms [of the Gods] (mürti ) at some particular place - by only perceiving Him everywhere in a perfect way, it totally removed every manner of complexity, every manner of conceptualised unstableness. Where else is there such a great ideal of pure religious simplicity? . . . The Brahman of the Upanishad . . . is everywhere inside and outside; He is the most inner One, He is most far away. By His truth we are true, by His joy we have been revealed.(Ravîndra-racanâvali, vol. 7:462) 

The exhortatory mode of this passage seems rather similar to what we found in the hymn Vande Mätaram. In Tagore's text the divinity encompasses the whole world, and thus India, but the idea of this divinity is Indian as it stems from, or is legitimized by, the Upanisads. The burden of the message is that 'we', i.e., the Indian public—but who is this public if not the educated Hindus?—should not forget the simple religious ideal of the Upanisads, in other words, the heritage of the ancient Vedic seers. Bankim's hymn is more explicitly local. Not the whole universe pervaded by the Upanisadic deity, but the mother land, the place of birth, is the divinity that should inspire national feeling, nay more, total surrender and sacrifice. Bankim wrote his hymn almost entirely in Sanskrit, Rabindranath generously quoted from a particular Sanskrit literature. And yet the overall impression remains the same. Ancient India was a glorious Hindu nation whose greatest cultural capital was the Sanskrit literature and the civilization connected with it. In order to regain selfrespect as a Hindu nation, Hindus should go back to and reinterpret this cultural and civilizational capital. The dark sides of this cultural project emerged with the growing militancy and politicization of certain upper class Hindus. Borne onwards by the rising tides of early twentieth century Indian nationalism, they found in discourses such as the ones we have just shown, an almost impeccable legitimation for their communal political ends, even if they twisted and bent these discourses to near distortion of the original intentions.

Above excerpts are compiled by Sri Bandyo from  Ideology and Status of Sanskrit:Contributions to the History of the Sanskrit Language by Houben, J. E. M. (Ed.). 1996 Netherland.