In India 'the unthinkable' is printed at one's peril: Laine

[Guest guest]

In the following article written by James W. Laine, the professor

tries to explain why he wrote 'Shivaji: Hindu King in Islamic India'.

 

Kalyanaraman

 

 

 

January 12, 2004

 

COMMENTARY

In India, 'the Unthinkable' Is Printed at One's Peril

 

By James W. Laine, James W. Laine, a professor of religious studies

at Macalester College in Minnesota, is the author of "Shivaji: Hindu

King in Islamic India" (Oxford University Press, 2003).

 

Growing up in Texas in the 1950s, I spent many days roaming my

neighborhood wearing a coonskin cap, carrying a toy rifle and

singing "Davy, Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier." I was

always drawn to stories of heroes.

 

In western India, not just kids have heroes. In recent years, the

figure of Shivaji, a 17th century Hindu king, has attained almost

divine status among the Hindu population. He had long been a

regional favorite, for he founded an independent kingdom against all

odds in the face of the Mughal Empire to the south and other sultans

in the north. There is a way to read his story as the first chapter

in a tale of Indian independence — first from Muslim rule and then

from British. His portrait is everywhere and his name is always

invoked with reverence, especially among Hindu fundamentalists, in a

time of polarized religious politics in India.

 

In 1985, I began to translate the Shivabharata, "The Epic of

Shivaji." It contained a great story about Shivaji: How, as a young

prince, he was attacked in a diplomatic meeting by an arrogant

general but, forewarned by a goddess to wear chain mail, he instead

fatally stabbed his attacker and led his troops to victory over a

much larger force. I was hooked.

 

I began to realize that everyone knew these tales. Some were

historical, some fictive, but they fell into a neat and commonly

accepted narrative, reproduced in popular histories, school

textbooks and comics. I decided to write about that narrative

process, an account of three centuries of storytelling that produced

a tale that lived in the minds of people celebrating Shivaji's

legacy today. The book came out this summer, and even ranked up with

Hillary Rodham Clinton's in the local list of English-language

bestsellers in Pune, the city south of Bombay where these cultural

traditions are most in evidence and where I had spent months in the

library at the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute. Back in Pune

this summer, I saw a couple of bland but positive reviews in the

Indian papers. I thought, "As long as they don't get to the last

chapter."

 

And then someone did. The last chapter is where I entertained what I

called "unthinkable thoughts" — questioning "cracks" in the Shivaji

narrative. I wondered, for example, why no one considered the

possibility that Shivaji's parents were estranged, given that they

never lived together during the period the three were alive (1630-

1664), and that the tale provided "father substitutes" for the king-

to-be. Why not entertain such an idea? What made it unthinkable?

 

As it turned out, the "owners" of Shivaji's story had their own set

of questions, delivered with a punch: Who should be allowed to

portray this history? Should an outsider, working with Brahmin

English-speaking elites, have a greater say in Shivaji's story than

Shivaji's own community?

 

In November, in response to protests over the book, Oxford

University Press stopped distributing it in India. With the book

unavailable, rumors piled on rumors. Misreadings lapped the globe by

e-mail. A colleague, a man mentioned in the book's preface,

distanced himself by condemning its contents but was still roughed

up by zealots, who smeared tar on his face. Another Pune scholar

tore up his manuscript of a biography of Shivaji, proclaiming

scholarship an impossibility in such a context. Horrified, I faxed

letters to Indian newspapers, taking full responsibility for my book

and apologizing for causing offense.

 

The furor seemed to die down, but then last week a mob stormed the

Bhandarkar research institute, destroying ancient manuscripts and

artifacts, reportedly numbering into the thousands. "Not a sapling

was spared," one shaken researcher said. The culprits claimed

they "did it for Shivaji."

 

On the other hand, I have also received many letters of support and

read many condemnations of these acts. The vast majority of Indians

are appalled at what happened in Pune. And yet no one has stepped

forward to defend my book and no one has called for it to be

distributed again. Few will read it for themselves. Instead, many

will live with the knowledge that India is a country where many

thoughts are unthinkable or, if thought, best kept quiet.

 

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