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vol xlIX no 30
The views are mine, and yet not mine. They are mine because I hope
to act according to them. They are almost a part of my being. But, yet,
they are not mine, because I lay no claim to originality.
Mahatma Gandhi (Preface to the English edition of Hind Swaraj)
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Looking back, Gandhi too shared with Lash how his wife and
son rescued him during the crisis in his life: It was their love
which chained me so tightly and strongly and saved me.
Like Nagendrabala before her, Sarala Devi never accused
Gandhi in public for having betrayed her. One could easily
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In order to express this he feigns an ironic distance. He dissociates himself from the elite and the rich and identifies with
the Odia-educated poor and their well-wishers. He is even
critical of the intrusion of babu-culture in Odisha, of which he
may have become a small part. He puns the word babu. He
refers to the class rather derisively as abu (that is, literally a
tumour or bulge). I know that the babus will not like my
words. Then he goes on to say that he is not addressing them:
But I am not saying anything to them. Well-fed, let them lead a happy
and pleasurable life. Why should they worry about the poor? But, how
many babus are there in the desha, maybe a small handful? But you
and I make for the majority of the population. The desha exists for us.
Those who are well-off dont care for the desha. In my opinion, they
are not babus but abus or undesirable tumours (ibid).
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I had begun this essay hypothesising about the large conclusions scholars tend to draw on the basis of the limited archives
available to them in colonial times and which could prove to
be of dubious merit. This is especially the case when theorising
the semiotic of or assigning meanings to certain Gandhian
tropes. The foregoing discussion clearly shows the merit of the
hypothesis. Speaking of the trend in south Asian studies
(though of an earlier period), Sheldon Pollock has recently
argued how
A good deal of this scholarship has been both substantively and theoretically exciting and provocative and has changed the way we understand the transformative interactions between India and the West,
starting from the consolidation of British power in the subcontinent
around 1800. But as many of its practitioners would be ready to admit,
colonial studies has long been skating on the thinnest ice, given how
far it presupposes knowledge of the precolonial realities that colonialism encountered and how little such knowledge we actually possess
(Pollock 2011: 1).
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Notes
1 Sarala Devi (1872-1945) was born in Kolkata in
1872 to Janakinath Ghosal (a Congressman)
and Swarnakumari Devi (an early Bangla
novelist). The latter was the daughter of
Maharshi Debendranath Tagore, a Brahmo
leader and older sister of Rabindranath Tagore.
She died in 1945.
2 Literary historians of Odisha describe Radhanath
Ray (1848-1908) as the first and most important modern poet. He remained at the centre of
Odia literary culture from the mid-19th century
until his death, and his reputation as the preeminent poet of his time has never been seriously questioned. A Bengali, born and brought
up in Balasore in north Odisha, he quickly rose
to fame in the 1870s as a poet and public figure.
His first collection of poetry was in Bangla, but
all his subsequent publications were in Odia.
The colonial governors had honoured him with
the title, Rai Bahadur. Bhudev Mukhopadhayay
(1827-94), whom Partha Chatterjee calls the
most brilliant rationalist defender of orthodox
tradition (Chatterjee 1999: 55) had come to
know Radhanath during his visits to Orissa in
his official capacity as the Inspector of Schools.
As a Deputy School Inspector under the Raj
Radhanath had already been embroiled in
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towards Nagendrabala was that he confessed
his sin levelling all kinds of serious charges
against her after her death. Whereas Radhanath
received nothing but accolades for his brave
confession, for having come clean, and in a
way retained his untarnished image as a
sage-like character, there was none to defend
Nagendrabala. So much so, very few biographical notes even mention that she committed suicide, let alone go into the reasons
thereof.
Gaurishankar Ray (1838-1917) played a key role
in the Odia public sphere, especially as editor
of the influential newspaper, Utkal Dipika
Baikunthanath Dey (1852-1913), the Raja of
Balasore was a patron of literature and around
him was formed the nucleus of writers in
Balasore.
12 He even composed a few poems on the same
subject such as Sati Satiprati Satidrohi Patira
Ukti, or Words of an Unfaithful Husband for
His Chhaste Wife (Utkala Sahitya, 1909);
Nibedana, or A Supplication (Utkala Sahitya,
1911) in Mishra and Dash Granthabali (484).
13 For a discussion of a quasi-feminist angle, see
Brajanath RathAs Radhanath got busy trying to clear his conscience, exorcising the
spell of the now dead Nagendrabala, in the
last few years of her life she suffered silently,
unless, one reads her 1902 poem, The Thief
(in Bangla) as a prescient response to his accusations, an uncanny anticipation of Radhanaths Confession:
Are you alone righteous and pure, and am I
alone the thief?
Have you not stolen my hearts treasure by
hacking the gate of my life?
Have you not stolen my all? Have you not plundered everything I had?
I do whatever you do, my friend and the love of
my life?
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newspaper culture, and was just about emerging as a literary genre. Unsurprisingly, Fakir
Mohans scepticism about his mastery over the
form
was
apparent
in
the
essay
itself: I have been talking randomly, but dear
reader, please rearrange my thoughts yourself,
and you will understand the drift of my
argument, he admits.
Baleswer Sambad Bahika (41/10 dtd 5 March
1908); see for etymology of the word from
Sanskrit araghatta Purnachandra Bhasakosha,
vol I, p 557; this is the Odia word for charkha (for
etymology of charkha see, ibid: 2559). Since
then this word is seldom used in Odisha: it is
charkha such has been the thorough conversion
of a common Odia word into Gandhism.
See Rebecca M Brown (2010).
At this point, however, we might do well to remind ourselves that the movement itself was
low-key in Odisha, in some places, even meeting with some opposition. Only a few instances
can be found in the newspapers, Fakir Mohan
is said to have delivered a speech in one such
public meeting in Balasore in 1905 (Kar 1987:
56), though this is not mentioned in a more
authentic edition of Fakir Mohan Granthabali
the one by Debendra Dash (Dash, Vol III). In
the absence of any evidence, and going by the
intricate details of Fakir Mohans argument, it
might be safe to assume that he covers new
ground. Purusottam Kars history seems to be
the only one which cites instances of meetings
and rallies regarding swadeshi. But there were
such cases as Pandit Nilakantha and the others
wearing black badges when the people of
Sambalpur were celebrating the introduction
of Odia in place of Hindi in Sambalpur: Maybe,
the launching of Utkala Sammilani had something to do with this indifference. This is
recounted in th autobiography by Nilakanthas
firend, Bharat Chandra Nayak. See the latters
Mor Purba Smruti Katha (or Remembering my
Past) Cuttack 1996.
This was a speech delivered at the Baleswar
National Societys fourth annual conference
on 7 July 1883. This Society may have been
a local branch of the national Society of
Nabagopal Mitra a k a National Nabagopal.
Mitra (1840-1894) was an important early
Bengali nationalist, best known as an organiser
of the Hindu Mela.
According to Thomas Bowrey (1669-79), in
Bengal 4 cauris made one ganda, 20 gandas
one pan, and 16 pans one kahana. 2 such
kahanas (or 3,200 cauris) went for a rupee.
See in Om Prakash (2006).
I consider Fakir Mohan to be belonging, though
not to the subaltern groups, at least to the nonelite, somewhat indeterminate class and an
intermediate caste in the way Sumit Sarkar
describes the latter in The Conditions and
Nature of Subaltern Militancy (272-73). Also
see Fakir Mohans Autobiography for an
appreciation of his class and caste plight in
his childhood.
See Dorai Charitmanas where the charkha is
seen as sudarshan-chakra (Sumit Sarkar: 1313).
See Yogesh Chandra Rays Ja Manepade.
Yogesh Chandra Ray tells us I never bought
foregn goods if I could find indigenous items:
this was an old habit with me. I even started
selling handloom items in Cuttack procuring
them from Medinipur (Yogesh Chandra Ray:
387). In September 1898, he set up with the
help of friends a cooperative store. A signboard, with the Odia name, Udyogi Samiti
Bhandar, and inscribed below it in English
Udyog Samiti Stores was hung in front of the
two-room store indigenous clothing and
other daily-use items. In 1905 there was a
fresh call for swadeshi (391). As early as 1890,
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he also discovered the indigenous art and science of colouirng cotton cloth by Odia weaver
women and launched his own experiments
(350-55).
Gopabandhu Das (1877-1928) was the pre-eminet Gandhian leader of Odisha. He also was
close to the tther nationalists including Subhas
Chandra Bose, and was a leading nationalist
poet. He founded two major institutions, the
Satyabadi Bana Vidyalaya in 1909 and the
news paper Samaj (1919).
Tanika Sarkar critiques such ideas, especially
of Partha Chatterjee, who postulates a process
of percolation: the idea that western cultural
forms filter down through a bourgeois poet and
modernise the indigenous-popular (Tanika
Sarkar 2009: 270).
Bhima Bhoi (1850-95). See Basu (1911: 154).
Also known as Pathani Samant (1835-1904),
who had not had an iota of Western education.
He was first called an astrologer, then an
astronomer, and finally recognised as a scientist. See Ray (332-49).
See Spivak (1988: 197-221).
This was common strategy, practised during
the period under scrutiny. I am not thinking of
the hilarious cartooning of Indians getting in
and out of Indian dhoti and donning European
pants and suit before disembarking in England
or vice versa (see illustration in Emma Tarlo
1996: 54). I am thinking of how Gandhi mastered sartorial matters when he went to
England so that he did not look a barbarian in
the eyes of the Englishman (Tarlo 1996: 65).
Though he quickly gave up his early attempts
to learn French or dancing lessons or playing
the violin, it was years before he caste off his
Western appearances (Tarlo: 66) He as quickly donned the Indian look as he had done the
European clothes and manners. There is a picture of the suited Gandhi with Kasturba shortly
before leaving South Africa (1914) and another
when he appeared in public after he disembarked in Bombay a few months later (January
1915) dressed as a Kathiawadi peasant (Tarlo:
69). Around the same time, we have the
supreme example, T S Eliot donning his bowler
hat, brolly in hand and Saville Rowe or
Oxford Street suit passing off as an English
man, and finally accepted as an iconic status
soon after. Ezra Pound was critical of his fellow
American poets capacity to pretend to be dead
like the opossum (Ol Possum), but himself
soon realising the impossibility of being accepted as an English poet without flaunting the
cultural semiotic of being a local.
References
Newspapers and periodical consulted: Asha, Utkala
Sahitya, Utkal Dipika, Baleswer Sambad Bahika.
Basu, Nagendra Nath (1911): Buddhism and Its
Followers in Orissa (Calcutta: Published by the
Author).
Brown, Rebecca M (2010): Gandhis Spinning Wheel
and the Making of India (London and New
York: Routledge).
Chakravarty, Dipesh (2002): Habitations of Modernitv: Essays in the Wake of Subaltern Studies;
with a Foreword by Homi K Bhabha (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press).
Chatterjee, Partha (1999): The Nation and Its
Fragments: Colonial and Postcolonial Histories
in The Partha Chatterjee Omnibus (New Delhi:
OUT).
Das, J P (2009): Time Elsewhere, Tr Jatindra K Nayak
(Delhi: Penguin).
Foucault, Michel, Luther H Martin, Huck Gutman
and Patrick H Hutton (1988): Technologies of
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