book reviews and notices _ achin vanaik, communalism contested_ religion, modernity and...

8/12/2019 Book Reviews and Notices _ ACHIN VANAIK, Communalism Contested_ Religion, Modernity and Secularization. Ne

1/4

http://cis.sagepub.com/Sociology

Contributions to Indian

http://cis.sagepub.com/content/33/3/600.citationThe online version of this article can be found at:

DOI: 10.1177/006996679903300313

1999 33: 600Contributions to Indian SociologyAditya Nigam(hardback) /Rs. 250 (paperback)

Vistaar Publications, 1997. x + 374 pp. Notes, index. Rs. 550contested: Religion, modernity and secularization. New Delhi:

Book reviews and notices : ACHIN VANAIK, Communalism

Published by:

http://www.sagepublications.com

at:can be foundContributions to Indian SociologyAdditional services and information for

http://cis.sagepub.com/cgi/alertsEmail Alerts:

http://cis.sagepub.com/subscriptionsSubscriptions:

http://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.navReprints:

http://www.sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.navPermissions:

What is This?

- Oct 1, 1999Version of Record>>

at JAWAHARLAL NEHRU UNIVERSITY on March 8, 2014cis.sagepub.comDownloaded from at JAWAHARLAL NEHRU UNIVERSITY on March 8, 2014cis.sagepub.comDownloaded from


2/4

600

the ways in which the local communities reacted to colonial rule, and tried to gain controlover

the situation.Violence is popularly understood as a process of exerting great physical force, causing

harm and bloodshed. In traditional contexts, upper castes might resort to violence againstthe lower, or the dominant (such as the Rajput) against the external state (the colonial rule).But people low in hierarchy, or those subjugated, often adopted other methods of protest.Instead of retaliating, they emigrated en masse, hopefully searching for places where theycould be ensconced. One comes across stone tablets in Rajasthan erected by emigratingpeople, inscribing on them their reasons for leaving the village forever and also warningposterity against ever contemplating returning to it.

In addition to voluntary exile, ritualised non-cooperation and suicide were equally viable

methods of protest. Rather than directing their anger at others in the form of violence, thelower and subjugated castes often interiorised it, inflicting violence on themselves and

suffering in the end.

The colonial rulers challenged traditional uses of violence and truth in Indian society(p. III). They also tried to pacify the situation by granting concessions to the suppressedgroup, but at the same time, they did not apparently change the power relations between therulers and their subjects. The traditional society in any case was not as peaceful as has often

been depicted in anthropological writings.An important conclusion drawn by Vidal is that the people who suffered most because of

these changes not only persisted in using the traditional methods of protest but also lookedfor alternatives. One ofthe latter was the Gandhian ideology which combined non-violencewith non-cooperation. The call for non-violence had previously come from the colonialauthorities (pp. 226-27); however the principle of non-cooperation was a conventionalmode of protest. It was used by all castes notwithstanding their rank. For colonial masters,non-violence was a precondition for any negotiation with warring parties. But in Gandhian

teaching, it became an instrument challenging the hegemony of British rule.The concepts of non-violence and non-cooperation were transformed by Gandhian

thought, and this linked the national freedom struggle with local protest movements. Manylocal leaders were seen as mannequins of Gandhi. Gandhi became an idea, a concept rein-

carnated in the person of village and town heroes.Written perspicuously, Vidals book is an important one for both modem Indian historians

(especially, the ;ubaltem; ) and anthropologists.

Department of AnthropologyUniversity of Delhi

VINAY KUMAR SRIVASTAVA

ACHIN VANAIK, Communalism contested: Religion, modernity and secularization. NewDelhi: Vistaar Publications, 1997. x + 374 pp. Notes, index. Rs. 550 (hardback) /Rs. 250

(paperback).

This is a book by one of Indias leading marxist intellectuals who has been constantlyengaged with the burning questions of contemporary Indian politics, particularly commu-nalism. The present book is a result of this involvement-an attempt to theorise the vexed

issues around which the secular/ communal debate has got tangled in recent years.Achin

Vanaik summons all his intellectual resources-and passion-in this collection of essaysto reassert the validity of the secular credo and to establish it as the only legitimate ground

at JAWAHARLAL NEHRU UNIVERSITY on March 8, 2014cis.sagepub.comDownloaded from


3/4

601

on which to confront communalism. However, unlike many fellow-secularists, he concedesthat as an ideology, secularism is state-centric. He, therefore, argues for secularisation-a

process that, he claims, inevitably follows modemisation/modemity and which shifts theattention to civil society and the need to build modem institutions therein.

True to his style, Vanaik is polemical. He reserves his sharpest barbs for two kinds ofanti-secularists&horbar;the self-declaredones likeAshis Nandy, T.N. Madan and Bhikhu Parekh,as well as the undeclared ones, namely, theorists of the Subaltern Studies project, likePartha Chatterjee and Dipesh Chakravarty. Here too, he shows greater sensitivity for thenuances of the opponents arguments than most left-secularists who seem to unproblemat-ically lump together all of them into a single category. This effort to distinguish betweendifferent strands of the critique of secularism raises some hope in the initial sections, onlyto be dashed in

subsequentones. His arguments eventually merge into the already familiar

critiques available in the works of scholars like Sumit Sarkar andAijazAhmed, where char-

acteristically, all forms of anti-secularism (and anti-modemism) constitute one undifferenti-

ated mass. For, in the theological world ofthis secular credo, there can only be believers andnon-believers!

Vanaik believes that the struggle against communalism involves a battle for the soul

of Indian nationalism, in which he identifies three positions: those who believe it must bebased on Hindu cultural and psychological foundations; those who believe it must rest onsecular foundations; and those (who he says are confined to the academic world!) whobelieve that secularism being a Western ideal, a non-communal vision of the soul of India

must draw on the authentic resources of faith etc. (pp. 29-30). Is it possible that Vanaikdoes not see, or is it the case that he just outlaws (he uses this term in a slightly different

context) the non-theoretical, political articulations of identity that are challenging both thesecular-nationalist and the communal notions of nationhood? Is the dalit-buhujan assertion,for example, despite heavy investments in modernity, a secular assertion? Vanaik, like manyother marxists fighting rearguard battles in recent times, seems to have suddenly discoveredthe secularity of dalit politics-which till the other day was termed casteist-without somuch as a theoretical reconsideration! Having outlined the three positions thus, there canbe no doubt that any sensible person must rely on the secular-nationalist one.

In a subsequent chapter, Communalism, Hindutva andAnti-Secularists, he attacks

Partha Chatterjees position thus: To dismiss the importance ofone of the major gains of theNational Movement [capital letters original] and a fundamental pillar of Indian democracy,all Chatterjee latches on to by way of evidence is that the Hindu Right does not attacksecularism... (p. 188). One is truly baffled at the way in which, in the late 1990s this

degree of faith is displayed in the legacy of the [N]ational [M]ovement as though it wereso self-evident. This is especially baffling because the whole critique emerging from the

dalit-bahujan movement (not to speak of many others) is precisely that the legacy was one ofHindu hegemony encoded in secular language. Look at the sharp critiques of Indian marxist

practice made by the dalit movement and it is clear.

Secular-nationalism, saysVanaik, derives its

legitimacynot from

History...but from

its promise (p. 39)--the crisis of its legitimacy in the 1990s is simply not an issue worthyof consideration, even though that is what spurred him to write the book in the first place.The fact that its history stands in stark contrast to its promise matters little. It is importantto believe in its legitimacy, for an army in retreat to maintain its morale.

It is strange that while for Marx himself, the advent of modernity (and capitalism) con-stituted a fundamental rupture (all that is holy is profaned, all that is solid melts into



4/4

602

air), the entire effort of many present-day Indian marxists, Vanaik included, is investedin demonstrating its continuity with the pre-colonial world. If, even in societies whereit was an endogenous process, modernity tore asunder old relations, what reason canthere be of imagining that despite its implication in the history of colonialism, there is

benign continuity in India? Possibly, the fear is that a critique of the colonial legacywould play into the hands ofan anti-Enlightenment, anti-Rationalist position that is alreadyflourishing in an atmosphere permeated by the heady fumes exuded by Ashis Nandy,Partha Chatterjee, Subaltern Studies/postmodernism and Edward Said-a brew of potentanti-modernism!t

Interestingly, Vanaik comments that communalism can... only be perceived as a secular

problem, having fundamentally secular sources (p. 197) thus coming dangerously close inhis

diagnosistoAshis

Nandy.But the medicine-secular-nationalism-has

alreadybeen

decided a priori, before the investigation was begun. It is closures of this type that preventhim from even entertaining the possiblity of other positions-leave alone exploring them.

Often enough in the book, rhetoric seems to take the place of argument. However, readas a document on the crisis of the secular self, it makes for interesting reading.

Centre for the Study of Developing SocietiesDelhi

ADITYA NIGAM

JOANNE PUNZO WAGHORNE, The Rajas magic clothes: Re-visioning kingship and divinityin

EnglandsIndia.

Pennsylvania: PennsylvaniaState

University Press,1994.

This brilliant and persevering book engages in a dialogue with James Frazer and MaxMueller. The central theme of the work is the culture of ornament, fabrication and granddisplay in the court of the Tondaiman (Kallar) Kings of Pudukkottai during the years ofthe Victorian Raj in India.

While Frazers Golden Bough hangs heavy over a large and complex text, Joanne

Waghome substitutes syncretism and eclecticism with the structuralist motifs of order and

mytheme. But in its very grandness of scale this is a postmodern work. The author is con-cerned with weaving many different kinds of material and symbolic sources: photographs,

letters, objects of art, particularly printing, photographs and architecture.The book tries to get behind the flamboyant printed screens of dependent royalty andcolonial authority. Photography, as an act ofremembering and crystallising the past is taken

very seriously: ritual, dress-codes, jewellery, hierarchy, relationships all are considered in a

style both objective and deeply introspective. The text becomes a museum: both a way of

embossing the past, of reading it and of appropriating it.Two problems are particularly interesting. One is the feminist presence of the Maharani

Janaki Subbamma Bai Sahib. She dominates the early landscape of the book by her presence,so beautifully captured by Ravi Varma in 1879. Raja Ramchandra is fatally in love with

this, his second, wife and in British eyes, is rendered incapable by his ardour. His love for

jewels, singing birds and other objects of pleasure leads to an interesting correspondencebetween him and the British agent. The Queen in turn sets up her own correspondence withthe British demanding the royal right to luxury, for their visible prosperity is much desired

by the people. Then there is the consummate discussion by Waghome of the rule of the

dewan, the brahmin, Shastri, who took control when the lovesick Ramachandra died, and

whom the Rani fought every inch ofthe way. The second interesting problem is the problem


book reviews and notices _ achin vanaik, communalism contested_ religion, modernity and...

Documents