Making an Everest of the Western Ghats??
img: via NDTV
When James Blaine, thanked the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute (BORI) in Pune, India, for helping him with his latest book, Shivaji: Hindu King in Islamic India, all hell broke loose. Armed thugs belonging to the (I’m not making this up), Sambhaji Brigade, attacked and vandalized BORI. For those new to the history of India and Maharashtra, Sambhaji was the son of Shivaji. Shivaji, the Maratha warrior King (not the actor), was the subject of this controversial book.
The activists — armed with batons, bamboo sticks and nanchakus — first hit peon Prasad Konde on his head and forced their way into the research and study halls which house ancient and valuable books, manuscripts, pictures, copper and clay tablets.
The vandals ransacked cupboards, broke the computer, smashed window panes and mutilated oil paintings of stalwart Indologists like Ramkrishna Bhandarkar, P.V.Kane,Kashinathshastri Abhyankar, P.V. Bapat and P.L. Vaidya, who spent their lives bringing Bori to its preeminent stature.
First off, what??!!! Thugs using nanchakus in India? Much of a Bruce Lee influence there? Back to the matter on hand – what was in the book that caused them to react that way. Surely something bad was said about Shivaji???
Looking at “cracks in the narrative”, Laine explores the things left out of traditional stories — and what these absences show about the concerns of those who produced them. Shivaji came from a “broken family”, with separated parents, he probably had a harem, he showed no interest in the bhakti saints, his ambition was to build a kingdom, not liberate a nation, and he did little to change the “cosmopolitan Islamicate world” he lived in.
I confess to not really wanting to read Laine’s book given its steep cover price of $45. Also growing up in Mumbai, I read enough about Shivaji in my history books to know that none of those things were mentioned in the history books. So were my history books or was Laine wrong? I don’t know. But I would really not mind reading a contrarian view of a historical figure from someone who took the time to do the research. And besides, how is coming from a broken family, a bad thing? Maybe it was Shiavji’s parents fault but certainly not his. And having a harem? Polygamy was common in those those and it was not out of the question for kings and even commoners to have more than one consort.
Before this attack, Shiv Sena activists roughed up Sanskrit scholar, Shrikant Bahulkar, for his alleged role in contributions to this book. Given the background of these facts, these extreme reactions seems unfathomable. Besides, this book was published in 2003 and banned in 2004 by the Maharashtra Government. So where was the “Sambhaji Brigade” these past 3 years??
Shivaji was cool. He defied the Mughal Empire when they were at the peak of their powers and established his kingdom inspite of the Mughals and the three Islamic kingdoms hostile to him, Adil Shah, of Bujapur, Nizam Shah of Ahmednagar and Qutub Shah of Golconda. Most historical accounts indicate that while a staunch Hindu, he largely was a secular king. Some of his uber-cool exploits included attacking Mughal general Shaista Khan in the middle of the night and cutting of his thumb literally on his own stomping grounds and escaping from Agra under Mughal emperor Aurangazeb’s nose in a manner that would put the movie “Great Escape” to shame. No wonder he attained demi-god status in Maharasthrian culture. But attacking academic institutions, roughing up scholars and state sponsored censorship of books because they potray him as a human being with some flaws is taking it to a whole new level.
The ban on the book was revoked recently. A move Economic Times hails as Desirable judicial activism: a blow to state-sponsored censorship and rightly so.
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