Festschrift on medieval India
KESAVAN VELUTHAT
RETHINKING A MILLENNIUM — Perspectives on Indian History from the Eighth to the Eighteenth Century, Essays for Harbans Mukhia: Ed. by Rajat Datta; Aaakar Books, 28 E Pkt. IV, Mayur Vihar Phase I, Delhi-110091. Rs. 795.
This volume embodies essays in honour of Professor Harbans Mukhia. As Mukhia was responsible for raising refreshing if uncomfortable questions on the history of medieval India, so too the essays brought together here “rethink” the millennium in a way different from the conventional. This is a fitting tribute to his work in every sense. The 14 learned essays cover a wide range: from body techniques in early medieval India to the nature of state under the East
India Company and from literary tropes to traditional crafts. This heterogeneous assortment is bound together by the Introduction of the editor which both justifies the volume and summarises the major arguments of the articles, thus providing a pattern to the book. This is a difficult task, given the variety in the subject matter and the differences in the levels at which the topics are dealt with by individual authors. Occasional contradictions in some of the statements notwithstanding, the Introduction does a relatively good job of bringing strange bedfellows together.
Themes
The essays are arranged under three broad rubrics: Politics, legitimacy and political culture; Community, gender and cultural transmission; and Commerce, craft and the countryside. To what extent the essays fit into these categories is a question: for instance, Ujjayan Bhattacharya’s article on revenue farmers and the Company’s state would have been more comfortable under the rubric of politics, legitimacy, etc. than that of commerce and craft? This is not to pick holes in the editorial policy – a lack of understanding of the purport of the articles is seen in pigeonholing this and many other pieces such as those of Sumit Guha, Stephen Blake, Catherine Asher and Prasannan Parthasarathy. Generalisation is certainly important to understand patterns; but if it reduces the richness of the hues into one grey scale, I for one will rather stay away from the risk.
Sense of the past
Dirk Kolff asks an important question related to the relevance of the unit of a millennium. In spite of the fears that such a treatment will fail to calibrate changes over the vast span, one suspects that the essay finally ends up with the old Orientalist assumption of a changeless society, if in more sophisticated terms. Daud Ali’s article discusses the body techniques in early medieval India and raises the level of debate to considerable heights as similar questions are not posed in the monotony of the “feudalism debate.” Ali’s deft use of literature complemented by sculpture is an example of masterly use of the historian’s craft. Richard Eaton shows how the Vijayanagara ruler, Rama Raya, was obsessed with presenting himself as a successor to the Kalyana Chalukyas and demonstrates how the Battle of Talikkotta was not a watershed in the history of Deccan, its disastrous character notwithstanding. Sumit Guha’s article on the bakhar of the same Rama Raya shows how Indian society did have a sense of the past, where there is later retelling of the traditions related to the fall of Vijayanagara. Stephen Blake’s important essay on the Nau Ruz in Mughal India shows, once again, how Akbar demonstrated his political acumen in adopting “non-Islamic” practices such as nau ruz or the Fasli Era and how that statesmanship was lost in the subsequent regimes.
Communities
Sunil Kumar and Raziuddin Aquil, in two different essays, consider the question of “communities” under the Sultanate of Delhi – a question of great significance in the context of the rhetoric on communalism. Aquil insists that “religious identities …did exist in medieval India” and that “religious symbols were frequently used for political purposes.” Catherine B. Asher’s essay, on the other hand, disproves the claim that Jaipur “was founded as a Hindu state by a Hindu ruler for the benefit of its Hindu subjects.” Madhu Trivedi examines the various representations of women in Hindi premakhyans. Ranabir Chakravarti is, as always, concerned with the seaborne trade of western India. Vijaya Ramaswami writes on traditional crafts and technology in pre-colonial South India. Dilbagh Singh’s essay is on state and peasants in Rajasthan. Ujjayan Bhattacharya examines the character of state under the Company in the context of the land revenue settlements. Prasannan Parthasarathy, echoing Mukhia’s famous intervention in one of the more productive debates of Indian historiography, raises the question, “Was there capitalism in early modern India?” On the whole, we have a veritable cornucopia. The book deserved better production and cries out for (one more) copy-editing and proof-reading.
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