In Defense of the Fragment

Transcription

In Defense of the Fragment: Writing about Hindu-Muslim Riots in India Today
Author(s): Gyanendra Pandey
Source: Representations, No. 37, Special Issue: Imperial Fantasies and Postcolonial Histories (
Winter, 1992), pp. 27-55
Published by: University of California Press
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GYANENDRA
PANDEY
In Defense of the Fragment:
WritingAbout Hindu-Muslim
Riots in India Today
I
THIS
IS NOT A PAPER.
It is a preliminary statement of some of the
of writingthe historyof violence,more specificallyin thisinstancethe
difficulties
violence in colonial and postcolonial India. The historyof
of
sectarian
history
and
violence has been treatedin the historiographyof modern India as aberration
as absence:aberration in the sense that violence is seen as somethingremoved
fromthe general run of Indian history:a distortedform,an exceptionalmoment,
not the "real" historyof India at all.' Violence also appears as an absence-and
here the point applies more emphaticallyto a fieldwider than Indian historybecause historicaldiscourse has been able to capture and re-presentthe moment
The "history"of violence is, therefore,
of violence only with great difficulty.
almost always about context-about everythingthat happens around violence.2
The violence itselfis taken as "known." Its contours and character are simply
assumed; its formsneed no investigation.
The statementpresented in the followingpages is verygeneral, a bare outline of a largerargumentabout the natureof evidence and the modes of analysis
and representationemployed in historicaldiscourse. I profferit in this formin
the hope that it will focus some points for considerationin a way that a more
detailed statementmightnot. But I do so withsome hesitation.One reason for
hesitationis thatthe formulationspresentedhere are farfrombeing adequately
worked out at this stage; by the nature of things,theymay never be adequately
worked out.
Anotherreason forhesitationis thatI have had to adopt in thispiece a more
personal tone than is perhaps, as yet, common in social science and history
writing.My statementarises in large partout of the experienceof the Bhagalpur
"riots"of 1989, which figurein some detail in the latterpart of this essay. In
writingabout this experience I make considerable use of personal impressions
and insightsgathered as part of a ten-memberteam sentout under the aegis of
the People's Union forDemocraticRights(PUDR), Delhi, to investigatethe situation in Bhagalpur. The use of the "personal" is of course now encouraged in
REPRESENTATIONS 37 * Winter1992? THE REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
27
and politicalanalysesand writings.However,the important
both social-scientific
itsuse is somethingthatmany
advances occasioned byfeminismnotwithstanding,
of us are stilllearningto negotiate,and I remainuncomfortableabout what may
appear as an excessiveintrusionof the author'sselfin the pages thatfollow.
I hesitatebecause mycriticismof some
Finally,and perhaps mostimportantly,
on
of the most significantwritings contemporarysocial and politicalconflictin
India may appear ungenerous,especiallyin respectto scholarsand activistswho
have come out boldly against the sources of oppression and exploitationin our
stateand our society.I can only say thatthe kind of criticism(and self-criticism)
presentedhere would have been impossiblebut forthe pioneeringinvestigations
and studies of individuals like Asghar Ali Engineer and organizationslike the
People's Union for Civil Liberties(PUCL) and the PUDR. It is possible thatmy
criticismof their writingson contemporarypoliticsand strifewill appear academic and of littleimmediate relevance. I should like to believe, however,that
thereis some dialogue betweenthe "academic" and the "political,"and thatsome
of the argumentsin these pages willcontributein a small way to the continuing
debates on vitalpoliticalissues of our times.
The presentstatementdeals withthe historiographyof sectarianstrife.This
historiographyfunctions,and has long functioned,in a politicalcontextwhere
the rhetoricof nationalismis of centralimportance.In recent times,especially
over the last two decades, this rhetorichas taken on a new tone and a different
kind of stridency.The highlycentralizedstatepower thatnow goes by the name
of the Indian nation statehas spoken more and more brazenlyon behalfof a getrich-quick,consumerist"middle class" and itsrural ("richpeasant") allies. In furtheringthe ambitionof thissectionalinterest,the statehas showna willingnessto
mark all opposition as "antinational"-whetherthisopposition has been located
in the industrialworkingclass, among the rural poor, or in other regional and
local movements.
The "fragments"of Indian society-the smallerreligiousand caste communities,tribal sections,industrialworkers,activistwomen's groups, all of which
culturesand practices-have been expected
mightbe said to represent"minority"
to fallin line withthe "mainstream"(Brahmanical Hindu, consumerist)national
culture.This "mainstream,"whichrepresentsin facta smallsectionof the society,
has indeed been flauntedas thenationalculture."Unityin Diversity"is no longer
the rallyingcry of Indian nationalism.On the contrary,all that belongs to any
minorityother than the rulingclass-all thatis challenging,singular,local-not
to say, all difference-appears threatening,intrusive,even "foreign" to this
nationalism.
Writingson Indian politicsneed to foregroundthis state-centereddrive to
homogenize and "normalize,"and to foregroundalso thedeeplycontestednature
of nationalism.Partof the importanceof the "fragmentary"
of the territory
point
of viewlies in thatit resiststhe drive fora shallowhomogenizationand struggles
28
REPRESENTATIONS
for other, potentiallyricher definitionsof the "nation" and the futurepolitical
community.
I do not suggest that resistanceby the "minority"always,or even usually,
functionsconsciouslyin this way. But the historian,social scientist,or political
activistwho stands back to analyze the conditionsof Indian societywill perhaps
agree that this is an importantpart of what is happening. There is an historiographicalissue involvedhere too. For thenarrowand diminishingviewof nationalism describedabove is bolsterednot onlybya referenceto currentworld trends
in the economic and politicalpracticeof states,nor only by those who speak of
ancient India as the cradle of civilizationand the storehouseof all that is good
and valuable in the contemporaryworld,but also by a "modern" and avowedly
secular nationalisthistoriographythathas reinforcednotionsof a natural Indian
unityand an Indian national essence.
This historiographyhas elevatedthenationstate-indeed, a contingentform
of the nation stateas found in India today-to the statusof the end of all history,
so much so that"History,"in schools,colleges,and universitiesin India, stillends
for the most part in 1947. It has also created for us the neat binarycategories
with which we have all had to work: secular/communal;national/local(all too
oftenread as "antinational");progressive("economic")/reactionary
("cultural")categoriesthathistorianshave onlyrecentlybegun seriouslyto question.4
Even today,afterdecades of powerfuland sophisticatedhistorywritingby
Left-wingas well as nationalistand other liberal scholars, the view from the
"center"remains the recognized vantage point for a meaningfulreconstruction
of "Indian" history,and the "official"archive(governmentrecordsor, foran earlier period, court records) the primarysource foritsconstruction.This historiostresson the provisional
graphical practicefails,it seems to me, to lay sufficient
and changeable characterof the objects of our analysis:"India" as well as "Pakithe
stan,""Awadh,"or "AndhraPradesh"; the Hindu or the Muslim"community,"
a
"natural"
to
"communalism."
"nation,""nationalism,"
quality a
By attributing
particularunitysuch as "India," and adopting its"official"archiveas the primary
source of historicalknowledge pertainingto it, the historianadopts the view of
the establishedstate.This has surelyhappened in the historiographyof modern
India. The inordinateemphasisplaced on the (given)unityof India and the unity
of the struggleto realize "her" independence has meantthatthe historyof India
since the early nineteenthcenturyhas tended to become the biographyof the
emergingnation state.It has also become a historyin whichthe storyof Partition,
and the accompanying Hindu-Muslim and Muslim-Sikhriots of 1946-47, is
given shortshrift.
The historyof sectarian strifein general, and of what is called "communalism" in India, has been writtenup as a secondary story."Hindu" politics,
"Muslim"politics,and Hindu-Muslimstrifeappear as minorelementsin themain
drama of India's struggleforindependence fromcolonial rule,and theyare assoIn DefenseoftheFragment
29
ciated usuallywiththe machinationsof the colonial rulingclass. Historiesof Partitiontoo are generallywrittenup as historiesof "communalism."5These are, as
one mightexpect, anythingbut historiesof noble endeavor. They are not even,
to any substantialdegree, historiesof confused struggleand violence, sacrifice
and loss; of the tentativeforgingof new identitiesand loyalties;or of the rise
among uprooted and embitteredpeople of new resolutionsand new ambitions.
They are, in the main, accounts of the "origins"or "causes" of Partition,investigationsof the chances, the politicalmistakes,or the less amenable social and economic developments that allegedly brought about this tragic event. In this
account, moreover,the tragedy appears as one that, for all its consequences,
miraculouslyleft the course of Indian historyunaltered. In spite of the emergence of two, now three, independent nation states as a result of Partition,
"India," thishistoriographywould seem to say,stayedfirmly-and "naturally"on itssecular,democratic,nonviolent,and tolerantpath.
Bipan Chandra's ModernIndia, perhaps the best textbook on the colonial
period available to school-leaversand junior undergraduates,illustratesthese
pointsverywell indeed:6
of
On 15 August1947,India celebratedwithjoy itsfirstdayof freedom.The sacrifices
countless
had
But
the
the
blood
of
borne
fruit....
of
and
martyrs
generations patriots
senseofjoy ... was mixedwithpainand sadness.... [For]evenat theverymomentof
thouwasconsuming
freedoma communalorgy,accompanied
brutalities,
byindescribable
sandsoflivesin India and Pakistan.(305-6)
There is "pain and sadness" at whatcan onlybe read as the hijackingof an enormouslypowerfuland noble struggle.We read on:
wastheforlornfigureof
The symbolof thistragedyat themomentof nationaltriumph
truth
andloveandcourage
and
Gandhiji-themanwhohad giventhemessageofnonviolence,
he wastouringthe
to theIndianpeople.... In themidstof nationalrejoicing,
manliness
to peoplewhowereeventhenpaying
to bringcomfort
land of Bengal,trying
hate-torn
thepriceoffreedom.(306; emphasisadded)
throughsenselesscommunalslaughter
Who hijacked the movementis not explicitlystated at this point, although
other pages make it clear that Hindu and Muslim communalists,politicalreactionaries,and of course the Britishwere to blame (296-97 and passim). This
hijackingleads to senseless slaughter,hundreds of thousands of lives being lost
as "the price of freedom."Somethingis elided here,however.Whichpeople pay?
For whose freedom?Rather than ask these questions,Bipan Chandra's textbook
goes on to record how Gandhi died, assassinated in January 1948, "a martyrto
the cause of unity"; and how the people of India, "with confidence in their
capacityand theirwillto succeed ... now [afterAugust 1947] set out to build the
just and the good society"(306-7).
Here "Gandhi" and "the people" become symbolsof the nationalistessence,
the Indian spirit,and symbolsthat may easily be substitutedfor one another.
30
REPRESENTATIONS
"Gandhi" clearly stands in for the people in the nationalistaccount of India's
anticolonialstruggle.Similarly,withGandhi gone, "the people" apparentlytake
over Gandhi's workand march forward,unaffectedby Partition,riots,refugees,
and the like,to build "thejust and the good society."
Sumit Sarkar'smore criticaltextbook,meant formore advanced undergraduate and graduate students,puts forwarda differentargumentbut arrivesat the
same conclusion about the secular path of the Indian people.7Sarkar writesmovinglyof "the Mahatma's finesthour,"from1946 untilhis death in January1948,
when he labored almostsingle-handedto tryand restrainthe passions thatwere
leading to the slaughterof Hindus, Muslims,and Sikhs all over northernIndia.
The futility
of such "isolatedpersonal effort"was, however,evident,the historian
remarks.
"One mightstillargue," Sarkar says,"thatthe onlyreal alternativelay along
the path of unitedmilitantmass struggleagainstimperialismand itsIndian allies"
(438). He goes on to describe in fairlyoptimistictermsthe continuingpotential
forsuch struggle:
wasbyno meansentirely
causedbytheriots,thispossibility
Despitetheobviousdisruption
blockedevenin the winterof 1946-47. FivemonthsaftertheAugustriots[the"great
on 21January
ofCalcuttawereagainon thestreets
of 1946],thestudents
Calcuttakillings"
1947 in "Hands OffVietnam"demonstrations
againsttheuse of Dum Dum airportby
in theabsolutely
unitedand
seemedforgotten
Frenchplanes,and all communaldivisions
which
Communist
tram
strike
under
victorious
leadership
began the
85-day
ultimately
sameday.(438-39)
The author refersalso to the "strikewave" ofJanuary-February1947 in Calcutta,
Kanpur, Karachi, Coimbatore,and elsewhere,onlyto add: "The strikes... were
influall on purelyeconomic demands; what remained lackingwas a sufficiently
ential and determinedpoliticalleadership" (439).
I have quoted fromtwo of the best general books on the historyof colonial
India and the Indian national movement,both fromscholarswritingwithinthe
Marxisttradition,to emphasize mypointabout the quite remarkabledominance
of the nationalistparadigm in the writingon Partitionand Independence. This
historywritingis part of a larger nationalistdiscourse, which finds powerful
expression in films,journalism, and literatureas well. Partitionwas, for the
majorityof people living in what are now the divided territoriesof northern
India, Pakistan,and Bangladesh, theeventof the twentiethcentury-equivalent
in termsof trauma and consequence to the FirstWorldWar (the "Great War") for
Britain or the Second World War for France and Japan. The experience of the
Firstand Second WorldWars is commemmoratedin WesternEurope and Japan
no
throughthe erectionof major nationalmonuments;thereis, not surprisingly,
equivalent for Partitionin India. However,the erasure of memorygoes further
in thiscase.8
As in historywriting,so in filmsand fiction,Indian intellectualshave tended
In DefenseoftheFragment
31
to celebrate the storyof the Independence strugglerather than dwell on the
agonies of Partition.This statementrequires considerable qualification.There
has been a greatdeal of writingon Partitionand thesectarianviolenceof 1946-47
in Punjabi, Urdu, and Hindi. But "PartitionLiterature"of the early period-of
which Sa'adat Hasan Manto's devastatingstoriesare the outstandingexampleareas of Punjab and its environs in the
was largely confined to the strife-torn
decade or so afterPartition.9Subsequent literarystatementson this theme that
have come out of northernIndia fallmuch more clearlywithinthesecular nationalist problematic,forwhich Partitionwas a historygone wrong-a puzzling and
in effectinexplicable failure.The classic of thisgenre is probablyRahi Masoom
Raza's Aadha gaon (1966).
More remarkablystill,sectarianviolence and itsconsequences do not figure
as a centralmotifin the Bengali literatureof the post-Partition
period. A recent
studynotes thatwhile the famineof 1943 appears to have moved Bengali writers
deeply,"the Partitionof Bengal [dividingEast Bengal, whichbecame partof Pakistan in 1947, fromWestBengal, whichremained part of India] that ... conclusivelychanged all erstwhilesocio-economic configurationsin and after 1947,
never became a dominatingtheme of Bengali fictioneven during the 1950s or
shortlythereafter."'?
In cinema, of course, the great Bengali directorRitwikGhatak produced a
series of unparalleled filmicstatementsabout the pain, despair, and hopes of
those dispossessed and displaced by Partition:Komal Gandhar(1959), Subarnarekha(1962), Titashektinadirnam (1973), and, somewhatmore indirectly,
Meghe
dhakatara(1960). But Ghatak remainsan exception-and not because of his brilliance alone. In Bengali cinema generally,as in the huge Hindi-Urdu film
industrycentered in Bombay,as also in the large number of documentaryfilms
produced by the Films Division of India, filmmakershave paid relativelylittle
attentionto the historyand consequences of Partition.
Among Hindu/Urdu films,the example thatstands out against thistrend is
M. S. Sathyu'sGaramhawa,a remarkablestatementof the early 1970s thatsensitivelyportrayedthe collectiveinsanity,the uprooting, the meaninglessnessof
existence,and the fear-ladensearchesfornew meaning"elsewhere"thatwere the
lot of so many people in the aftermathof Partition.The more recent television
serialTamas,based on Bhishma Sahni's novelof thesame name publishedin 1972,
has acquired a special importancebecause of the numbersit reached. However,
the storymarks a return to a less subtle nationaliststatementin which agentsand mysteriousevil folk pulling the stringsfrombehind the scenes
provocateurs
mislead an innocent and bewildered but brave people. Partitionis represented
here, moreover,in the likenessof a naturaldisasterin whichhuman actionsplay
littlepart,far removed fromthe run of dailylife.As we have already noted, this
is also the line thatrespectable,academic nationalisthistoriographyhas followed.
32
REPRESENTATIONS
The reasons forthe kindof suppressiondescribedabove are nothard to find.
Differenceand strifebetween Hindus and Muslimspersistin India today,and in
relating the historyof such strifethere is the real danger of reopening old
wounds. In addition, there is no consensus among us about the nature of Partition. We have no means of representingsuch tragicloss, nor of pinningdownor rather,owning-responsibilityforit. As a consequence, our nationalisthistoriography,journalism,and filmmakinghave tended to generatesomethinglike a
collectiveamnesia. Consciouslyor otherwise,theyhave representedPartitionand
all that went withit as an aberration.The day of the establishmentof Pakistan,
14 August 1947, becomes an accident,a "mistake"-and one for which not we
but "others"were responsible.
I should like to suggest,further,
thatour analysesof politicsand strifein postrun
India
have
prettymuch along the same lines. The following
Independence
to
this
seek
demonstrate
throughan examinationof the historiographyof
pages
communalism."
There is anotherincidentalbenefitthatmayflow
"contemporary
fromsuch an examination.Recent eventsand the writingsupon themreveal,by
theirimmediacyand uncertainty,many of the hazards of evidence and of representationfrom which historiansof earlier periods sometimesbelieve themselves to be immune.
Although the immediate context for my observationsis the experience of
recent"riots,"especiallyone in Bhagalpur in 1989, I wishto stressthatthe difficultiesof evidence gatheringand representationencountered here point to the
follyof using accounts of, say, fiftyor a hundred years ago as if they were
somehow "transparent"-biased acounts to be sure,but accountsthatmaybe balanced bysettingthemoffone againstanother,byappropriateadditionsand subtractions,to give us a more or less adequate reconstructionof "history."
II
It has become commonplace in India now to describe one instanceof
strifeafteranother as "perhaps the worstsince 1947"; such has been the magnitude and brutalityof sectarianviolence in the 1980s." In any event,Bhagalpur
was indeed one of the mostdevastatingexamples of Hindu-Muslimstrifein the
countrysince Partition.This round of violencebegan in the lastweek of October
1989; arson, looting,and murder spread fromthe cityto the surroundingcountrysideand raged practicallyunchecked forseveraldays. The situationwas then
brought under some sort of controlby militaryand paramilitaryforces,but an
atmosphereof fear and terrorremained formonthsafterwards.'2
Given the scale of the "riots,"and the infamousrole of the local administrationin encouragingtheattacksand suppressingevidence,itis impossibleto estab-
33
lish the "facts"of thisoccurrence-what traditionalhistoriansliketo call the "nuts
and bolts"of the story.Possiblyas many as a thousand people were killed in the
course of the violence,mostof them Muslims,but estimatesof the casualties still
varyenormously.'3During thefirstdaysof the"riots,"trainswere stopped repeatedly at differentplaces in Bhagalpur and its neighboringdistricts;fromseveral
of these, Muslim travelerswere dragged out and lynched. No one can say for
certain how many were killed in thisway-not even disturbed Hindu travelers
who happened to be caught on one of these trainsand saw people being pulled
fromtheirparticularcarriage. In the major attacks,in the rural areas as well as
in the city,neither old people nor infants,neitherwomen nor children,were
spared. There is widespread feelingthatwomen were abducted and raped on a
large scale, but none of the survivingvictimswilltalkabout rape; the fivespecific
cases recorded bythe PUDR team thatconducted investigationsin Bhagalpur in
January 1990 were incidents that Muslim women informantshad themselves
heard about.
What is beyond question is that the extentand ferocityof the attackswere
unprecedented, even for a districtthat has seen much sectarian strifebefore,
including"riots"in 1946. At theworststageof theviolencein October-November
1989, some 40,000 people were forcedto leave theirhomes and live in makeshift
reliefcamps. Destructionand lootingof propertyoccurredon a massivescale for
several weeks. The fears generated among the heavilyoutnumbered Muslims
were such thata great manywere unwillingto returnto theirhomes even three
months after the initialoutbreak of violence; an estimated 10,000 were stillin
"reliefcamps" towardthe end ofJanuary1990, apart fromthosewho had moved
in withrelativesor friendsin "safer"places in or outside Bhagalpur district.At
thistimemanyMuslimswere pressingforthe permanentretentionof militaryor
paramilitaryforcesin the vicinityof theirvillagesor wards (mohallas)as the only
means for theirprotection,and some were demanding thattheybe
trustworthy
arms
by the governmentforthe same purpose. The air was stillthickwith
given
isolated attacksand lootingcontinued to occur; one such incident
and
rumors,
was reported as late as March 1990.
How do we write the historyof such an event? In Bhagalpur, the state's
"archives,"those officialsourcesthatgenerationsof historiansand social scientists
have treated as core accounts,more "reliable"or at least more "comprehensive"
than any other source, are largely missing. Like historiansgenerally,various
teams of independent investigatorsvisitingBhagalpur have been eager to obtain
the officialaccount in order to establish"some overallpicture"in the midstof an
otherwiseconfusinginvestigation.4But theviewfromthecenterhas largelybeen
destroyedin thisinstance,at any rate for the firstfew,absolutelycriticaldays of
the "riots." A SundayMail (Delhi) report of 11 February 1990, made after a
investigationinto the Bhagalpur carnage and itsaftermath,sums
fortnight-long
in thisregard:
the
situation
up
34
REPRESENTATIONS
Crucialrecordsof theperiod,especiallythosefromthetablesof [the]thendistrict
magofpolice[SP] are missing.
istrate[DM] and superintendent
thelog bookof
Evidencestrongly
destroyed
suggeststhat[theDM] in all probability
the CentralControlRoom in whichthe manySOS receivedin the fatefulweekwere
makesno menrecorded.The freshlog bookthathasbeenplacedin theoffice
strangely
tionoftheincidents...
too has lefthis successor...
[The SP at thetime],who has sincegainednotoriety,
His recordstooshowa singlejointreporton theChanderi
a clueto work[with?].
without
in thecountryside],
massacre[one of theworstincidents
just becausePatnaHigh Court
had issueda notice.
incidentat TatarpurChowk
EventhejointreportoftheDM and theSP on thefirst
[inBhagalpurcity]on October24 thathad litthefuseis amongthepapersnottraceable.
of factsavailablein
as itmaysound,is thatthereis no statement
The fact,incredible
eithertheDM or theSP's office.
This kind of destructionor removal of records is of course not unprecedented: the Britishpracticediton a large scale in India after1937, and no doubt
there have been many other instances since Independence. What is less frequentlyobserved,however,is the destructionentailedin the systematicconstruction of evidence on all sides, officialand unofficial,when an event of this kind
occurs. Violence produces the necessityof evidence gathering,of uncovering
hidden processesand contradictionsthatwe mightnormallypreferto ignore,but
violence also wipes out "evidence" and even, to a large extent,the possibilityof
collectingit in a manner and formthat is deemed acceptable by today's social
sciences. Let me illustratethis with reference to the PUDR team's work in
Bhagalpur.
In spite of the size of thisteam and the verylong hours it put in during its
eight-dayvisitto the district,our investigationwas subjectto severe constraints.15
The majorityof the people we spoke to in Bhagalpur were Muslims.They were
the primaryvictimsof the "riots";theywere in the reliefcamps; theywere the
people who were willingto, perhaps had need to, talk. Hindus in many of the
The Hindus we
badly affectedareas met us withstudied silence,ifnot hostility.16
could speak with easily were froma narrow stratum:middle-classintellectuals,
politicalactivists,professionalsand officialswithestablishedopinions (or "theories") about what had occurred.
In addition, we were confrontedwiththe problem when we met victimsof
the violence,or othereyewitnesses,of whatquestionsto ask, and how.The forms
of our questionssuggestedparticularanswers,and therewere particularanswers
that we were more ready to hear than others. This is a point to which I shall
at the outset: How does one ask the
return. But we faced a furtherdifficulty
and
father
victimsof such barbarism-the
son, or the motherand fourlittlechildren, who survivedbecause one was awayand othersmanaged somehow to hide
in the fieldsfromwhere theycould see elders and young ones, kithand kin and
neighbors,women and infantsin arms,everyone who was found in the Muslim
In DefenseoftheFragmnent 35
quarter of their village being slaughtered-How does one ask such victimsof
terrorfordetails of what theysaw?
are bound to ask. And sometimes
And yetone asks-because "investigators"
the victims,survivors,and others standingby begin to talk withouteven being
asked-because theyhave been asked so many times already,or because there
is need for a public narrativeof their suffering.However, this narrativetoo
assumes a set form. It appears as a ritualizedaccount, a collectivememoryor
record that has been generated on behalf of the entirecommunity-"Muslims"
or "Yadavs" or "Hindus" or whatever.The standard practice in the affected
mohallasand villageswe visitedwas forus to be takento a centralspotwhere many
people gathered,and the "elders"or the "educated" gave us whatmightbe called
the authorized account of local happenings.
The teams of three or four membersthatwentto any one place triedto get
around thisscreeningbybreakingup and talkingto different
groups individually.
But in several places women and youthwere restrainedfromholding independent conversationswith us; in one village some of the local people (especially
women) turned somewhat aggressivelyupon a woman colleague of ours and
upon those village women who had continued to talk in spite of earlier signals
askingthemto stop. However,even when women,youths,or forthatmatterchildren spoke up separatelyand differencesof emphasisand prioritysurfaced,their
differentaccounts stillemerged as part of a collectivestatement.The broad outlines of what occurred appeared to be knownto everyonein the same way,and
the need forprotecthe concernswere common: the sufferingof the collectivity,
of those who had proved to be friends
tion and compensation,the identification
in need (mainlyreligiousorganizationsand, in places where the Lefthad a presence, Left-wingactivistsand associations).
The PUDR team went to Bhagalpur threemonthsafterthe outbreakof this
violence,and it is possible to suggestthatthe ritualizednature of these collective
accounts was much more firmlyset by then. Yet I have no doubt thata collective
memory,in a set form,willhave come into being verysoon afterthe occurrence
of the events it describes. This has to do withthe livingconditionsof the local
relationswiththe state.
communities,the historyof past strife,and the difficult
that
factor
as
the
do
with
another
But it has to
well,
purpose of the public narrativeis at least partlyto impressa particularpoint of view on the state and its
agents.
The situationproduced by any large-scaleoutbreakof violence deepens the
divisions that may at any time be seen to exist between privilegedpeople and
common folkin India. Such situationsalso workto level communitiesand make
entire groups that are under suspicion a part of the "common folk."At these
times,the informants-distantvillagers,illiterateartisans,facelessmembersof a
makeshiftreliefcamp, and even the elite of a communitysuch as medical practitionersor universityprofessors-tend to become partof a collectivesubjectthat
36
REPRESENTATIONS
approaches the investigatoras "a person of influence"and appeals to her/himfor
Relief,Justice,Mercy.
Consequently,much of our conversationwithlocal people in Bhagalpur had
to do withminutedetails of propertylosses,injuries,and deaths thatwe did not
necessarilyconsider central to our investigation.We were asked repeatedly to
come a littlefurther,to thisvillageor thenext,to see forourselvesthedestruction
of this house, to make a note of these names too. We were asked also to record
"FirstInformationReports"and evidence where the police had allegedly failed
or refused to record these,or at least to help in gettingthem recorded because,
as a number of informantssaid, "We live under constantthreatand maywell be
killed before anyone bothersto take down our evidence." We were met in other
places withthe bare response: "We don't knowanything.We were not here."
Sometimes,as the denial of all knowledge of what occurred in a particular
place will have indicated,the collectiveaccounts we heard partook of the character of preemptivenarratives.They were constructed,more or less consciously,
in order to falsifyparticular"theories"or explanationsof the course of events.
"Hindus," who were accused of formingan armed procession and adopting
extremelyaggressivetacticsduringitscourse throughthe cityof Bhagalpur, thus
sparkingoffthe violenceof 24 October,declared thatthe processionwas an ordinaryreligiousone, like any other on importantfestiveoccasions,and thatit was
accompanied bylarge numbersof women and childrensingingdevotionalsongs
and playing on musical instrumentsas theywent along. "Muslims,"who were
accused by the local administrationand by othersof making preparationsfor a
"riot" from long before 24 October, declared all over the districtand almost
withoutexception thattheyhad never had any quarrel withthe Hindus and had
no reason to feara riot,thatperfectamityhad alwaysexistedbetweenthe Hindus
and Muslimsof the district,and that"even in 1946-47" whilethe restof northern
India burned, therewas no (or verylittle)troublein Bhagalpur.
Even where the defense of the immediate group or collectivitywas not an
issue, as when we spoke to urban professionalsand intellectuals,the defense of
somethinglarger and more intangiblewas sometimesat stake: the "good name"
of the city(or region),forexample, or theverypossibilityof Hindus and Muslims
livingtogetherin the future-as of course theymust.It was thiskind of thinking
thatled manypeople to stresstheimportanceof lettingbygonesbe bygones.Some
similarreasoning perhaps lay behind the pronounced tendencyto lay the blame
forthe strifeon "outsiders":politicalleaders in Patna and Delhi, "criminalgangs,"
a corruptand spineless administration.The theoryof "criminal"instigationand
conduct of the riotshas been especiallypopular. The argumentis that"criminal
castes" fromacross the Ganges (whichflowswestto east throughthe districtjust
northof the cityof Bhagalpur) came into the cityand other strife-torn
places in
colonial
the
erstwhile
"criminal"
castes
that
these
by
(designated
large numbers,
in
othereven
at
of
lawlessness
of
the
much
Bhagalpur
regime) are the cause
37
"normnal"-times,and thatcriminalgangs makingfreeuse of these "outside"elementswere largelyresponsibleforthe violenceof 1989.
The difficultiesof evidence gathering are, however, only a part of the
problem of reconstructingthe historyof such events. The question of how to
writeabout such experiences,already hinted at, is equally hazardous. For there
is the obvious danger of sensationalizing,of overdramatizing,
and thusrendering
such strifeand its consequences as extraordinary-aberrational.Yet there is, on
the other hand, at least an equal danger of surrenderingto the demands of an
academic discourse,of sanitizing,"naturalizing,"and therebymakingbland and
rather more palatable what is intenselyugly and disorienting.Academic discourse too tendsto push the momentof violenceintotherealmof theexceptional
and aberrant,as I shall tryto show in a moment.
Discussions of sectarianstrifein India findit necessaryto tryand balance an
account of "Hindu" atrocitiesbysome account of "Muslim"(or "Sikh") atrocities.
So, a fewweeks afterour visitto Bhagalpur, the Chief Ministerof Bihar spoke,
in a public announcement on the steps being taken to restorenormalcy,of the
numbersof Hindu templesand shrinesdestroyedin the districtalong withlarge
numbers of Muslim holy places-against all the evidence, for no investigating
team had reported a single Hindu temple or shrine damaged or destroyedon
thisoccasion. So too, a documentaryfilmon the Bhagalpur violence,made byan
independent and enterprisingfilmmaker,Nalini Singh, and shown on national
televisionin March 1990, equated Jamalpur(theone Hindu villageto be attacked
in the course of the "riots")withLogain (the siteof one of the worstmassacresof
Muslims), implying that the attacks and casualties were of the same order,
although the most reliable estimatessuggest that seven people were killed and
some seventyhouses and huts partiallyburned and looted in Jamalpur against
115 killedand the entireMuslimbastilooted, burned, and destroyedin Logain.'7
This allegedly "liberal"demand to document and present"both sides of the
case" is frequentlyaccompanied by the social scientist'ssearch forthose "outside
forces"and "exceptionalcircumstances"thatare, in thisview,likelyto be found
at the back of such acts of extraordinaryviolence. For Bhagalpur,journalists as
well as other investigatorshave pointed the fingerat "criminal"elements,at the
local administrationand at theviciouspropaganda of theVishwa Hindu Parishad
(VHP) and other militantHindu organizations.As a newspaper report of 19
November 1989 has it:
Is it possiblethatpeople who livetogether[havealwayslivedtogether]
and shareeach
other'sdailyconcerns-aboutfoodand drink,themarriageof daughters,
and electoral
What
...
become
enemies
have
to
these
politics-should
overnight?
people do withthe
Butthecriminal
BabariMasjidand Ramjanmabhumi
elementsofbothcomcontroversy?
sawtheiropportunity
and veryquicklyindeedtheyfilledthemindsofthepeople
munities
witha poisonousinsanity.
38
REPRESENTATIONS
That this task of poisoning the minds of the people could be accomplished so
quicklydoes not seem to raise any problemsforthewriter:itssignificanceis never
discussed. Instead we are told,"The Bhagalpur riotsare not so much the product
of sectarian['communal']feelingsas a calamitybroughtabout bythecriminals."'8
The moral of the story,which carries over fromnationalistaccounts of the
pre-Independence period, is that"the people" are essentiallysecular.The same
newspaper reportgoes on to say:
The criminals
arearmedwithrifles,
guns,bombs,axes,choppers,spears,and theblessings
of [powerful]
karetokya
politicalleaders.Whatcan thepeoplepossiblydo? [Becharijanta
of
in
both
and
to
The
members
communities
wished
live
Muslim]
kare?]
[Hindu
together
but the criminalsultimately
succeededin spreadingthe poison
peace and friendship,
amongthem.19
Explanations of violence in termsof "largerhistoricalprocesses" are not so
farremovedfromthiskindof analysisas mightappear to be thecase at firstsight.
Instead of focusing on the activitiesof VHP propagandists and criminal eletheseexplanationsdeal
ments,or derelictionof dutyon the partof local officials,
in the "criminalization"of politics;the "communalization"of Indian public life,
not excludingthe administration;and longer-termeconomicchanges such as the
rise of the "backward castes,"emergence of new tradinggroups, unionization,
labor troubles,and thelike.The PUDR's carefuland detailed reporton the "Bhagalpur Riots,"for instance,makes an elaborate-if somewhatconfusing-statement regarding the complex of circumstancessurrounding the outbreak of
violence:
of theriotshas consistedin placingtheresponsibility
forthem
A commonsimplification
on criminals.
Wefeelitmaybe moreaccuratetosaythatitwasthesumofrelations
between
the dominanteliteand the economy
criminals,the police,administration,
politicians,
whichare responsibleand,at anygiventime,one or all of these-alongwithsomelocal
factors
and agentsin theriots.20
people-were significant
Too often,however,the statementof complex,long-termhistoricalprocesses
leaves littleroom for human agency and human responsibilityand becomes a
statement about the essential and unchanging ("secular") character of the
majorityof the people concerned. The "economicdimension"particularlytends
to emerge as the masterof all. Two examples fromthe workof Asghar Ali Engineer,perhaps the mostprominentwriteron the causes of recentsectarianstrife,
willserve to illustratethe point. Writingon Jabalpur,1961:
causewas the "elopement"of a Hindu girlwitha Muslimboy.However,
The apparent
betweenthetwocommunities
prejudices
religio-cultural
althoughitbroughtthepowerful
intoplay... itwasnottherealreason.The realreasonlayelsewhere.
The Muslimboywas
controlover
theson of a localbidimagnatewhohad graduallysucceededin establishing
His Hinducompetitors
It was
wereverysoreoverthisdevelopment.
thelocalbidiindustry.
39
thatthe bidiindustry
not insignificant
belongingto the Muslimsin Jabalpursuffered
riots.
the
heavilyduring
And on Bhiwandi, 1970, he writes:
withquite a fewMuslims
centreof the powerloomindustry,
[Bhiwandi]is a thriving
number
of
Muslim
artisans
and
a
as weaverson these
working
large
owningpowerlooms
NationalHighway,
Bhiwandireceivesa large
looms.... Also,beingon theBombay-Agra
thushas a
amountof revenuebywayof octroifromthepassingtrucks.Its municipality
assumes[a] greatdeal of imporhandsomeincome.Local municipalpolitics,
therefore,
tance.Different
partiesand politicalgroupsvie witheach otherto wrestcontrolof the
due to theloom
MunicipalCouncil.A sectionof Muslimswiththeirincreasedprosperity
the traditional
challenging
leadership,
developedgreaterpoliticalaspirations,
industry
and thisled tocommunaltension.21
In its more extremeversions,thiseconomisticviewpointtends to reduce all
historyto a fightfor land and profit.Here is a journalist's account of the
"economyof communalism"in Bhagalpur: "It would be simplisticto dismissthe
recent Bhagalpur communal riotas a manifestationof the ugly face of our civilization.Attentionmustbe focused on [the]ruined economy,dyingindustryand
the decadent feudal agrarian structureof the area whichprovidesfood [fuel?]to
such an event." Further: "Religion is no considerationamong the buyers and
sellers [of firearms].Profitis the overwhelmingmotive. They have a vested
interest in keeping the communal tension going .... Another factor that keeps it
of reliefcamp operations[sic]."22
going is [the] profitability
it
is
not
mysubmissionthateconomic interestsand contradictions
Obviously
are unimportant.However, there is more than a narrowlyconceived material
interestto the historyof our times.Yet some of the mostsophisticatedwritingin
the social sciencescontinuesto reduce the livesof men and women to the play of
materialinterests,or at other timesto large impersonalmovementsin economy
and societyover whichhuman beings have no control.The thrustof thiswriting
is to suggestthatthe "real" battlelies not where it mightappear-say, in matters
of historyor notionsof honor,or in the centralityof religionor people's attachment to particularculturaland religioussymbols-but in the question of immediate materialinterests.In the quarrels at thislevel, furthermore,it is above all
the elite groups that count. Let me quote the PUDR report once more: "The
major materiallong termbenefitthe [rural]elitegroups are likelyto get fromthe
present riots is land." Or again, regardingcontinuingtensionbetween Hindus
and Muslims in the villages: "One of the major factorscontributingto thisstate
of affairsis property,especiallyland, of those who lefttheirhomes. Threats continue to be made by those who have now set their eyes on either grabbing or
buyingland cheap."23But are these threatsmade bythemalone?
Let me reiterate,at the riskof redundancy,thatmypointis not thatland and
propertyare of no importancein bringingabout or perpetuatingsectariancon40
REPRESENTATIONS
flict.My point is that the emphasis placed upon these factorsoftenleaves little
room for the emotionsof people, forfeelingsand perceptions-in a word, little
room foragency.
There is another aspect to thisquestion of agency.The mass of "the people"
appear to count for verylittlein our analysesof "riot"situations.It is economic
interests,land struggles,the play of marketforces,and frequentlyelite manipulation that make them occur. "The people" findtheirplace, once again, outside
history.By that means, perhaps, their pristinequalities (their "purity")is also
preserved.For the message of much of the writingon sectarianviolence in India
in recent times is the same as that found in the nationalisthistoriesof the preIndependence period. It is to suggest that events like Bhagalpur 1989 do not
represent the real flow of Indian history:they are exceptional, the result of
unusual conjunctures.It is to pretendthattheiroccurrenceon the scale and with
the frequencythatwe have seen in the 1980s stillmakes no fundamentaldifference to the essential "secularism"of the people and to our cherished national
traditions:"secularism,""nonviolence,""peaceful coexistence."24
III
This is, to my mind, an unacceptable history.It is unacceptable not
because
it tends to be reductionistand not onlybecause it continuesto plya
only
itessentializes
tirednationalistrhetoric.It is unacceptablealso because, willy-nilly,
"communalism"and the "communal riot,"making these out to be transparent
and immutableentitiesaround whichonlythe contextchanges. In thissection,I
wish to dwell a littlelonger on the inadequacies of historywritingin thisvein.
A point that I have already made but would like to emphasize is that the
grand narrativesthatwe produce-and mustcontinueto produce-as historians,
political scientists,sociologists,or whatever-tend to be about "context"alone,
or at least primarily:the "larger forces"of historythatassemble to produce violent conflictsof the kind discussed above. One advantage, or if you preferconsequence, of such narrativizingis that we are able to escape the problem of
representingpain. This is a sanitized historywithwhich we are relativelycomfortable.In it,violence,suffering,and manyof the scars leftby theirhistoryare
suppressed.
It seems to me imperative,however,thathistoriansand social scientistspay
closer attentionto the momentof violenceand tryin some wayto re-presentit in
theirwritings.There are at least two reasons for this.First,the momentof violence, and suffering,tellsus a great deal about our conditiontoday.25Secondly,
the experience of violence is in crucial waysconstitutiveof our "traditions,"our
sense of community,our communitiesand our history.
The scars of such experience are evident,forone thing,in the popular conIn DefenseoftheFragpent
41
structionsof the historiesthatwe livewith-the constructionof those brutish(or
pious) charactersthatpass for"the Hindu," "theMuslim,""theSikh,"all too often
withquite terrifying
consequences. I shall not try,in thisbriefstatement,to anain
detail
the
changing self-imageof the differentreligiouscommunities
lyze any
and theirconstructionsof the "other."A referenceto some aspects of the image
of "Hindus" and of "Muslims,"as it appears in recent Hindu propaganda, may
help, however,to illustratethe importanceof the question.
Many observershave pointed to the new heightsreached by Hindu militancy
and propaganda over the last fewyears.This has been orchestratedmostvisibly
bythe VHP, and itplainlyhad much to do withthe increased frequencyand scale
of Hindu-Muslim strifein the 1980s. The point that is perhaps not sufficiently
stressed,however,is that the violentslogans and demands of organizationslike
the VHP, and the "riots"they have sparked, do not poison the minds of "the
people" only for a moment. On the contrary-given our history,the resources
available to "secular" and "communal"forcesin the country,the opportunismof
most of our major politicalparties,and the continuedand repeated outbreakof
sectarian violence-the most outrageous suggestions about the "evil," "dangerous," "threatening"character of the "other" community(or communities)
come to be widelyaccepted and part of a popular dogma.26
Nothing but this acceptance can explain the kinds of atrocitiesperpetrated
in recent instancesof sectarianstrife:the call to leave not a single Muslim man,
woman, or child alive, whichwas acted upon in several places in Bhagalpur; the
massacre of all eighteen Muslim passengerstravelingin a tempo-taxialong with
the Hindu taxidriver,when theywere stopped on a major countryroad two-anda-half weeks afterthe cessation of general "rioting,"and theirburial in a field
which was then planted over with garlic; the chopping off of the breasts of
women; the spearingof infantsand children,the spears withthe victimsimpaled
on them being then twirledaround in the air to the accompanimentof laughter
and shouts of triumph.27
What lies behind thisinsane and incrediblebrutality,I suggest,is the belief
thatthe victimsare real or potentialmonsterswho have done all thisand worse
to "us," or will do so if given half a chance. In manycases, the alleged atrocities
forwhichthese actions are supposed to be just recompense are believed to have
occurred "yesterday"or "the other day,"in "the town"or a neighboringdistrict
or furtheraway: in Bhagalpur the rumorthatset offthe major Hindu attacksin
the countrysidewas that all the Hindu studentslivingin Muslim-ownedboardinghouses in a part of the citynear the university(manyof whom came of course
fromthe villagesof Bhagalpur) had been massacred on the firsttwo days of the
"riots."28In other instances,revenge appears to be sought for what "they"have
done to "us," generally,in the past. The relevantpoint is that what appears to
manyof us as rabid and senselessHindu propaganda is widelybelieved.
42
REPRESENTATIONS
In one of its more "restrained"forms,thisleads to the view thatall Muslims
in India are "Pakistanis":witness,we are told,theirresponse in the course of any
cricketmatch between India and Pakistan.Followingfromthisis the argument
thatlocal Muslimsare out to createanotherPakistan,in one place afteranotherBhagalpur, Moradabad, Meenakshipuram(Tamilnadu). By thisjuncture we are
well into that realm where "Muslims"are representedas being inherentlyturbulent,fanatical,violent.
Aggression, Conversion, Unbounded Sexuality: these are the themes that
make up the historyof the spread of Islam, as told by the Hindu historiansand
propagandists. "Wherever Muslim communitiesexist,there will inevitablybe a
'dance of annihilation'in the name of Islam." It is the "religiousduty of every
Muslim" to "kidnap and forceinto theirown religionnon-Muslimwomen." Several pamphletsand leafletsdistributedby militantHindu organizationsin places
where strifehas latelyoccurred show a "Hindu" husband and wifewithtwochildren ("Ham do, hamare do" [Us Two, Our Two]) by the side of a "Muslim"
family-a man withfourwivesand numerouschildren,accompanied bythe selfexplanatory slogan "Ham paanch, hamaare pacchis" (We Five, Our TwentyFive).29Thus a whole new "common sense" develops, relatingto the maritaland
sexual practicesof "the Muslims" (here, as elsewhere,referringonly to Muslim
men), to theirperversecharacterand theirviolenttemperament.
It will perhaps sufficeto illustratethe tenor of recent Hindu propaganda,
and beliefs,about the MuslimsifI reproduce here thesubstanceofjust one leaflet
thatwas distributedin Bhagalpur sometimebetweenthe lastquarterof 1989 and
January 1990. Entitled "Hindu BrothersConsider and Be Warned,"the leaflet
asks:30
whilethatof the Hindusis
1. Is it not truethatthe Muslimpopulationis increasing,
[sic]?
decreasing
2. Is it nottruethattheMuslimsare fullyorganized[prepared],whiletheHindusare
[scattered]?
fullydisorganized
3. Is itnottruethattheMuslimshavean endlesssupplyof weaponswhiletheHindus
unarmed?...
are completely
5. Is it nottruethattheCongresshas been electedto powerforthelast40 yearson a
mere30% of thevote:in otherwords,thatthedaytheMuslimsbecome30% of the
population,theywillgainpower?
6. Is it nottruethattheMuslimswillbecome30% of thepopulationin 12 to 15 years'
time:in otherwords,within12 to 15 yearstheMuslimswilleasilybecometherulers
ofthiscountry?
7. Is itnottruethat,as soonas theygainpower,theywilldestroytheHindusroot-andbranch,as theyhavedone in Pakistan?
the Hindus,theywillnot stopto thinkwhich
8. Is it not truethat,whendestroying
HindubelongstotheLok Dal, whoisa Socialistand whoa Congressman
[orwoman],
or who is a Harijan
who belongsto the "Forward"castes,who to the"Backward,"
["Untouchable"].
43
9. Is it not true that the lives and wealth of even those people willbe destroyedunder
Miuslimrule, who use today'scorruptpoliticsto make black moneyand multiplytheir
wealth? ...
11. Is it not true that,afterthe conceding of Pakistanthe land mass that remained was
manifestlythatof the Hindus? ...
13. Is it not true that Hindus [sic]are prohibitedfrombuyingland or settlingin Kashmir, whereas Kashmiri Muslims are free to buy land wherever they want in the
country?...
16. Is it not true that Christians[sic]have theirown "homeland"31or country,Muslims
[sic]also have theirown "homeland" or country,where theyfeel secure in everyway,
but Hindus have not been able to retaintheircountrybecause under the banner of
secularismit has been turnedintoa dharmshala
[hospice]?
17. Is it not true thatwhile Hindus are in power,Muslimscan live safely,but as soon as
forthe Hindus-that is, theywill
the Muslimscome to power,lifewillbecome difficult
be destroyed?
18. Is it not true thatall Muslim legislators[Membersof Parliament],irrespectiveof the
partyto which theybelong, spend nightand day workingto furtherthe interestsof
Muslims,while there is not a single Hindu legislatorin Delhi who sets self-interest
aside and devotes himselfto the interestsof the Hindus? ...
21. Is it not true thatthose Muslimwomen who have been divorcedbytheirhusbands are
supported throughthe Waqf Committeeby the Government,withfunds taken from
the Governmenttreasury;which means that for the maintenanceand joy- [or lust-]
filledlives of the Muslims,the majorityHindu communityhas to bear an additional
tax burden?
If these thingsare true,then Hindu brothersyou mustimmediatelyawake-awake while
thereis stilltime.And vow to sacrificeyourwealth,yourbody,yourall forthe protection
of the Hindu people and nationand forthedeclarationof thiscountryas a Hindu nation.
What follows from all this is of course a dread of "the Muslim" and the
demand to disarm "him"-by disenfranchisement and deculturization: Muslims
should adopt "our" names, "our" language, "our" dress. What follows is the
demand that if the Muslims wish to stay in India, they must learn to live like "us."
(Who? This is never very clear, but in the circumstances it does not seem to
matter). "Hindustan mein rahna hai, to hamse milkar rahna hoga" (If you wish
to live in Hindustan, you will have to live like us); "Hindustan mein rahna hai, to
Bande mataram kahna hoga" (If you wish to live in Hindustan, you will have to
raise the slogan "Bande mataram" [Victory to the Mother]).
Alongside this argument is sometimes found the paradoxical one that "we"
shall certainly provide justice to minorities like the Muslims, for, since they are
overwhelmingly local converts, it is "Hindu blood (that) flows in their veins."32
But the central message remains: "Live like us" or, its blood-curdling corollary,
face annihilation: "Babar ki santan-jao Pakistan ya kabristan" (Descendants of
or the grave, take your choice), a slogan that appears to have
Babar-Pakistan
been taken literally by large sections of the police and the local Hindu population
in Bhagalpur and some other places.
44
REPRESENTATIONS
The obverse of thisvilificationof the "Muslim" is the promotionof a rather
differentimage of the "Hindu" fromthatwhichhas mostcommonlybeen advertised fromcolonial times to today.The emphasis in this militantHindu propaganda is not so much on the nonviolent,peaceful, tolerantcharacter of "the
Hindus"-though, astoundingly,even thatpropositionremains.It is rathermore
on how "the Hindus" have been tolerantfor too long; theyare "stilltoo timid";
the need of the hour is "not tolerance but courage." "The Hindus" must now
theirs.If "Christians"have their
claim,are now finallyclaiming,whatis rightfully
own nation and "Muslims" have theirown, why should "the Hindus" not have
their own nation, their own country,their own state in the only territorythey
inhabit,where they form an absolute majority,and where they have lived for
thousands of years?For too long "Hindus" have been asked to make concessions
on the grounds of their"tolerance"and on the plea of "secularism";theymustbe
bullied no longer,theymust make no furtherconcessions. "Garva se kaho ham
Hindu hain" (Announce withpride thatyou are Hindus), and "Hindu jaaga, desh
jaagega" (The Hindus awaken, the nation shall awake), the walls of Delhi and
other northIndian citieshave proclaimedloudly over the last fewyears.
That there is nothing changeless or sacrosanct about all these traditions,
values, images, and self-imagesassociated with particularcommunitiesis strikinglydemonstratedbythe historyof theshuddhicampaignconducted bythe Arya
Samaj and otherHindu organizationsfromthe laternineteenthcenturyonward.
Lajpat Rai observed in his HistoryoftheAryaSamaj, published in 1914, that "the
and as such a Hindu organisation,engages itself
AryaSamaj, being a Vedic church,
havestrayed
in reclaimingthe wandering
who
fromtheHindufold,and converts
sheep
The shuddhimovementwas
anyone prepared to accept its religiousteachings."33
a directresponse to Christianmissionaryattackson Hinduism and theirefforts
at convertinglow- and, to a lesser extent,high-casteHindus in the nineteenth
century,and the Christianinspirationof Aryaorganization(into a "church")and
of Lajpat Rai's language ("wanderingsheep" to be broughtback by theirshepherd) is evident.
militant
Lajpat Rai noted also thatwhileshuddhiliterallymeans "purification,"
Hindu practice of the late nineteenthand early twentiethcenturieshad transto Hinformedits meaning. It now applied to a range of practices: 1) conversion
of thosewho had
duism of people belongingto "foreign"religions;2) reconversion
at some stage in the near or distantpast taken to a "foreign"religion;3) reclamation,thatis, raisingthe statusof the antyaj(depressed) classes and makingthem
fullyHindus.34
This redefinitionof the Hindu communityand of legitimateHindu practice,
and thisadoption of "Christian"tacticslikeconversion,had somethingto do with
the importanceattached to numbersin the politicaland administrativecalculationsof the regimein late colonial India.35As the assertionof communityidentity
45
gatheredpace at manylevels-Hindu, Muslim,Sikh,Ahir,Patidar,Nadar, Bihari,
Oriya,Telugu-and economic and politicalcompetitiontookon new dimensions,
militantHindu leaders and organizationscalled upon Hindus to give up "perverse" religiousnotionsand practices,the "silly,""antinational"traditionof caste
divisions,the restrictionsof inter-diningand on traveloverseas,"fantastic"ideas
of pollutionand the consequent ban on reconversionthatensured that"millions
of forciblyconvertedHindus have remained Muslimseven to thisday."36In the
1920s, Arya Samajis and more orthodoxHindu leaders "rediscovered"the Devalasmrti,said to have been writtena centuryor more aftertheArab raids on Sindh,
which prescribed lengthyrules for readmissioninto Hinduism of Hindus who
rites (supposedly
had been forciblyconverted,and in the 1930s the vratyastoma
laid down in the Atharvavedaand the Brahmanas)forreadmittanceof those who
Shastricauthorityhad
were earlierjudged to have fallenout of "Aryan"society.37
been marshaled fora new tradition.
What is true of "Hindu traditions,"thattheyare neitherstaticnor irreversible, is true of the traditions,images, and self-imagesof other communities.It
to what has forseventyyearsor more
mutandis,
may also be said to apply,mutatis
"communal
riot."
The changingcharacterand modes
been designatedsimplyas a
of sectarianstrifeeven over thisrelativelyshortperiod need carefulstudy,and it
is necessaryto emphasize thatthereis no essential"riot"around whichonlycontextchanges.
Sectarianviolencein the 1980s appears to have takenon new and increasingly
horrifyingforms.Recent strifebetween people belonging to differentreligious
denominationshas not been restrictedto pitchedbattleson the streetsor cloakand-dagger attacksand murdersin side lanes, whichwere the chief markersof
earlier riots.The worstinstancesof recentviolence-Bhagalpur, 1989; Meerut,
1987; the anti-Sikh"riots"in Delhi in 1984; the anti-Tamil"riots"in Colombo in
1983; the Hindu-Muslim "riots" in Moradabad in 1980; and others38-have
amounted to pogroms,organized massacresin whichlarge crowdsof hundreds,
thousands, and even, in places, tens of thousands have attackedthe houses and
propertyand lives of small, isolated, and previouslyidentifiedmembersof the
"other"community.
If just one or two deaths occur in an incidentnow, as a local leader of the
Communist Party(Marxist) observed in Bhagalpur, it is not even considered a
riot.39Attackson youngand old, theblind and the maimed,women,childrenand
infants;the aim of wiping out the "enemy"and hence physicaldestruction(of
lives, property,tools for work,and standingcrops) on a massive scale; the unashamed participationof the police; the lynchingof "enemy" people found on
trainsor buses passing throughthe affectedarea-all these have become standard featuresof today's"communal riot."
When the lynchingof railwaypassengers firstoccurred on a large scale in
46
REPRESENTATIONS
1947, it was remarked that the countryhad just been divided; two new states
were coming into being which needed time to consolidate their positions; and
the armed forces and police had also been split: confusion,serious crime, and
violence were almost inevitable.When such actions were repeated in 1984, it
was said that a world leader and enormouslypopular prime ministerhad been
assassinated; when a colossus fallssome upheaval, some exceptional reaction,is
onlynatural. Now it has become unnecessaryto plead exceptionalcircumstances
when people are lynchedor burned alive in the course of sectarianstrife:newspapers reportthese occurrences,sometimeson theirinnerpages, withoutspecial
comment.40
Clearly,all this is not unrelated to other kinds of violence in the society,in
othercontexts-which also pass quicklyfromthe domain of the "extraordinary"
to thatof the "everyday."Consider,forexample, the cursoryreporton the death
of five peasant volunteersfrom Bihar, among the tens of thousands who had
streamed into Delhi in order to attend a rallyorganized by the Indian People's
Front,who were run over and killed by a three-wheelertruckwhile theywere
sleeping on a pavementon the nightof 7 October 1990;41or thereportson recent
byschool and college studentsprotestingagainstthe
attemptsat self-immolation
institutionof reservation in governmentjobs for people from "Backward
Classes,"42which quicklyretreatedto pages 3 and 5 of the national newspapers
aftertheir first,sensationalizingappearance in the press-which was of course
no less problematical.
The discourse on violence brands eventsof thiskind as "extraordinary"but
treats them as completely ordinary,inconsequential,and unworthyof much
attention.It is in this context that I turn, finally,to another "fragment"from
perspectiveon violence,a different
Bhagalpur thatprovidesa somewhatdifferent
of
"communal
riots"
on
the
today.I presentthisfragment
meaning
commentary
here not as another piece, or even another kind, of "evidence." I propose it,
instead,as the articulationof anothersubjectpositionarisingfroma certainexperience (and understanding) of sectarian strife,one which may say something
about the parametersof our own subjectpositionsand understandings.In addition, this articulationprovides a commentaryon the limitsof the form of the
historiographicaldiscourse and itssearch foromniscience.
The fragmentin question takes the formof a collectionof poems writtenby
a college teacher in Bhagalpur, a residentof a mixed Hindu and Muslim, prelocalitythatwas not thescene of any of the "great"
dominantlylower-middle-class
attacked repeatedly, traumatized and
was
nevertheless
in
1989
but
killings
In Manazir Aashiq Harganvi'spoems,writtenforthe mostpart
scarred forever.43
five
first
the
days of the violence, we get some sense of the terrorand
during
desolationthatso manypeople in Bhagalpur experiencedat thistime.The poems
speak of darkness,of long nights,and of those days and nightsthat seemed to
In DefenseoftheFragmnent 47
run into each otherwithoutmeaning and withoutend. They speak of the hysterical screaming that marked that time, screams for help that were however
drowned out by the laughterand shoutsof the attackers:
Jaanlevahansi
Bhayanakkahkahe
Bachaokiawaazen
Balwaiyonkebeech
phansirahgayeen
/Terrifying
shouts/(Our) cries for help/
[Blood-curdlinglaughter
Lostamongtheattackers.]
We have pictures here of fieldsand corpses, and the impossibilityof counting
them:
Ek... tin... sattar
Sau ... do sau ... dhaisau
Yehgintipaarnahinlagegi
Inhenginnese pahlehi
Tumaajate ho
Bam aur golilekar
Gintikitadadbadhane
Lamhekirupahlitasveer
Koidekheaakar!
/Hundred... twohundred... twohundred
[One ... three... seventy
and fifty:/This
countingwill neverend/For beforeit has ended/
You comeagain/Withbombsand bullets/To increasethenumbersto
be counted./If onlysomeonecouldcomeand see/The beautyof this
moment!]
We have a representationof the "wake,"waitingforthedarknessto end and some
lightto begin to appear, but also-and more dreadfully-waitingsimplyfor the
attackersto come again.
Dangaiphiraayenge
Aisahai intezar
[The rioterswillcomeagain:/Wewaitexpectantly.]
Among these poems there are many thattalk about rape: a metaphoricalstatement of the humiliationssufferedby a community,or a literal descriptionof
eventsthatoccurred?
Margayebetemere
Biwimari
Auryehbetijisetumsaath
merekankhiyon
se dekhteho
48
REPRESENTATIONS
Beshumar haathon ne loota
hai ise
[My sons have been killed,/My wifeis dead /And thisdaughter,whom
you observe/out of the corner of your eyes,/sittingby my side- /
How manyhave looted her.]
Like the verse just quoted, there are many others that are addressed to neighbors
and friends-or people who were once "neighbors," "friends." Neighbors turned
and unknown-running away from one another, and
killers, people-known
afraid
of
to look in the mirror for fear of what they/wewill see.
us")
people ("all
We have in them appeals, and accusations. We have figures of emptiness:
Kuch bhi nahin rah gaya hai kahin
[Nothingis left,anywhere.]
Aadmi bahut hi bauna ho chuka hai
Apni lambai kajhootha ahsas bhi
baki nahin bacha
[Man has become a midget,/Unable any longer even to delude himself/
about his height.]
Ham behad khokhleho gaye hain
[We have been emptied{of meaning}.]
Aadhe-adhure log
[Half people, incompletepeople.]
And the endless search for ourselves, our loved ones, our friends:
Khud apne aap ko dhoondte hue
Ab tum us kinarepar hkade ho
Jahan se koi nahin lauta
Koi nahin laut-tadost
Ab to tumbhi nahin laut paoge
Yaad ki sirfek shartrahjayegi
kijab bhi kahin
Fasad hoga
Tum bahut yaad aoge
[In search of yourself/You have now reached thatshore/From where
no one had returned;/No one ever returns,my friend./Now you too
are lost forever:/There remains but one condition of memory/
thatwhenever,wherever/A riotoccurs-/ I shall rememberyou.]
It is a fragment that tells us a great deal about the Bhagalpur "riots" of 1989, and
tells us also how much of this history we shall never be able to write.
In Defense of the Fragmnent
49
IV
Standard historiographicalprocedure since the nineteenthcentury
to
appears have required the takingof a prescribedcenter(of a stateformation,
a nation state) as one's vantage point and the "official"archive as one's primary
source for the constructionof an adequate general "history."The power of this
model can easilybe seen in the writingof modern Indian history.
This is a procedure that is not easily discarded, both because states and
nations are central organizing principlesof human societyas we know it, and
because the historian must necessarily deal with periods, territories,social
groups, and politicalformationsconstitutedinto unitiesor blocs. However, the
factof theirconstitution-byhistoricalcircumstanceand bythe historian-needs
and contestedcharacterof all such unities
to be borne in mind. The provisionality
(the objects of historicalanalysis)mustbe underlined.
I should like to suggest,in oppositionto the establishedprocedure,that,with
all theirapparent solidityand comprehensiveness,what the officialsources give
us is also but a fragmentof history.44
More, thatwhat the historianscall a "fragof
ment"-a weaver'sdiary,a collection poems byan unknownpoet (and to these
we mightadd all those literaturesof India that Macaulay condemned, creation
mythsand women'ssongs,familygenealogies,and local traditionsof history)-is
of central importance in challenging the state's constructionof history,in
thinkingother historiesand markingthose contestedspaces throughwhichparticularunitiesare soughtto be constitutedand othersbroken up.45
If the provisionalityof our unitsof analysisneeds stressing,so does the provisionalityof our interpretationsand of our theoreticalconceits.The arrogation
of "total"and "objective"knowledgeis no longer anywherenear as common as it
used to be in historicalwriting.Neverthelessthe temptationsof totalizingdiscourses are great. The yearningfor the "complete"statement,which leaves out
nothingof importance,is stillwithus. That urge will remain an importantand
necessarypart of the historiographicalendeavor. At the same time,however,it
of the statementswe make, their
would be well to acknowledgethe provisionality
and locationin a specificpoliticalcontext,and consequentlytheir
own historicity
privilegingof particularformsof knowledge,particularrelationshipsand forces
to the exclusion of others. None of thisis to deny the importanceor efficacyof
certainsubject positionsin a certainhistoricalcontext.At the presentjuncture in
India, however,the totalizingstandpointof a seamless nationalismthatmanyof
us appear to have accepted as social scientistsand historiansseems especially
inappropriate.
The dominantnationalisthistoriography
thatinsistson thisstandpointneeds
to be challenged not onlybecause of itsinteresteduse of thecategories"national,"
"secular,"and so on. It needs to be challenged also because of its privilegingof
the so-called "general" over the particular,the largerover the smaller,the "main50
REPRESENTATIONS
stream"over the "marginal"-because of itsviewof India, and all of South Asia,
fromDelhi alone.
The PUDR team of which I was a memberhappened to be in Bhagalpur on
the eve of India's Republic Day, 26 January,in 1990. On the evening of the
25th, we heard extractsfrom the Indian constitutionbeing read out on the
national television:"We, THE PEOPLE OF INDIA, havingsolemnlyresolved to constituteIndia into a SOVEREIGN, SOCIALIST, SECULAR DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC and
to secure to all its citizens:JUSTICE, social, economic and political; LIBERTY of
thought,expression, belief, faithand worship . ..46 The remotenessof Delhi
struckus on thatoccasion in a waythatis hard to recapturein writing.
During the immediatelyprecedingdays,we had seen men,women,and children in many areas, carryinglittlebundles of theirbelongings,running away
fromtheirvillagesto "safer"places forfearof whatmighthappen on 26 January.
It was stronglyrumored thaton thatday of nationalcelebration,Muslims-"traitors"as always-would hoistblack flags(or even the Pakistaniflag)on theirreligious buildings and there would be another "riot."We had seen heated altercations among Muslim villagers and townsfolk,between those who said that
running away only added to the alarmistrumors and the dangers, and others
who accused themof foolhardinessin the contextof "all thathas happened." We
had been asked in a reliefcamp to take down "FirstInformationReports"and
evidence because the police, who should have done this,were themselvesthe
guiltypartyand, in manycases, stillensconced in office.The words "justice"and
"liberty"ratherstuckin the throatat thistime.
The remotenessof Delhi thatI have mentionedis not a functionof physical
distance alone. I have no doubt thatmanyhave feltthe same remotenessin Kota
and Jaipur, in Meham and Maliana (Meerut), in Tilaknagar, across the river
Jamuna fromthe capital of India, and indeed inside the old cityof Delhi itselfwhere, too, talk of 'justice" and "liberty"must often appear callous. We must
continueto search forwaysof representingthatremotenessin the historieswhich
we write.
October1990
Notes
1. See the many reviewsof SubalternStudiesand of Ranajit Guha's Elementary
Aspectsof
in ColonialIndia (Delhi, 1983), which make the criticismthat these
PeasantInsurgency
workshave concentratedtoo greatlyon the momentof open revoltand violence.This
criticismfitsin witha more general trendin "peasant studies"and social historythat
has led to the recent emphasis on "everydayforms"of people's existenceand resisFormsofPeasantResistance(New
tance. Cf.James C. Scott,WeaponsoftheWeak:Everyday
Haven, 1985).
51
2. Cf. Lata Mani, "The Female Subject,The Colonial Gaze: EyewitnessAccountsof Sati,"
Paper presented at a workshopon "Culture,Consciousness,and the Colonial State,"
Isle of Thorns, U.K., 24-27 July1989, whichmakes a similarpointabout agencyand
the momentof suffering.
3. The same pointneeds tobe made about thekindof historicaland social sciencewriting
discussed in thisessay.I have taken myexamples deliberatelyfromsome of the best
Left and liberal scholarswritingtoday.This is because it is among them,ratherthan
among chauvinist"Hindu," "Muslim,"or "Sikh" historiansand social scientists,that
and the meaning of secthere is serious debate about "secularism"/"communalism"
tarianviolence. It seems to me also thata critiqueof theirwritingsis not only harder
to make but,in termsof buildingup an alternativeto thedominant(chauvinist)political and ideological tendenciesin India today,also the more necessary.
4. See, forexample, Ashis Nandy,"An Anti-SecularistManifesto,"Seminarno. 314; T. N.
Madan, "Secularismin Its Place,"JournalofAsianStudies46, no. 4 (1987); ParthaChatterjee, Bengal, 1920-47: The Land Question(Calcutta, 1984); Dipesh Chakrabarty,
"Invitationto a Dialogue," in Ranajit Guha, ed., SubalternStudies,vol. 4 (Delhi, 1985);
in ColonialNorthIndia (Delhi,
of Communalism
Gyanendra Pandey, The Construction
1990).
5. For a discussionof the peculiar usage of thistermin India, see Pandey,Communalism,
6ff.
6. Bipan Chandra, ModernIndia (New Delhi, 1971). Page numbersin parenthesesrefer
to thisedition.
7. Sumit Sarkar,ModernIndia, 1885-1947 (New Delhi, 1983).
8. There is no equivalent,forexample, to thedebates in Germanyabout the meaning of
the holocaustand the whole experienceof National Socialism.German historiansand
philosophershave battledwiththequestionof whetherthiswas a one-timeaberration
or something produced by a German "national character"; see Theodor Adorno,
MinimaMoralia:Reflections
fromDamagedLife(1951; London, 1974); Karl Jaspers,The
FutureofGermany
(Chicago, 1967).
9. See Muhammad Umar Memon, "PartitionLiterature:A Studyof IntizarHusain" (and
the referenceshe cites),ModernAsian Studies14, no. 3 (1980); Aijaz Ahmad, "Urdu
Literaturein India," Seminar,no. 359 (July 1989); Alok Rai, "The Trauma of Independence: Some Aspectsof ProgressiveHindi Literature,1945-47," and SurjitSingh
Hans, "The PartitionNovels of Nanak Singh,"in Amit Kumar Gupta, ed., Mythand
in India, 1945-47 (Delhi, 1987).
forFreedom
Reality:TheStruggle
10. Tapati Chakravarty,"The Freedom Struggleand Bengali Literatureof the 1940s,"in
Gupta, Mythand Reality,329.
11. The strifein Delhi, 1984; Meerut, 1987; Bhagalpur, 1989 have been reportedin this
way.For a stillmore recentexample, see Tavleen'sSingh'sreportregardingcomments
on the Gonda riots,IndianExpress(Delhi), 14 October 1990.
12. The details in the next two paragraphs are taken fromthe PUDR reportBhagalpur
Riots(Delhi, 1990), and the notes upon whichit is based.
13. While manylocal people put the death tollat not less than 2000, the officialfigurefor
the number of people killed was 414, as of April 1990. The most careful unofficial
calculations suggested that perhaps 1000 people lost theirlives,over 90 percent of
these being Muslims; ibid., 1.
SatishSaberwaland Mushirul
14. I referhere to our own effortsas a teamof investigators.
Hasan also note the "whollyunjustifiedconfidence"of the mass media in the official
version of events in recentinstancesof strife;"Moradabad Riots, 1980: Causes and
52
REPRESENTATIONS
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
India
Meanings," in Asghar Ali Engineer, ed., CommunalRiots in Post-Independence
(Delhi, 1984), 208.
As the PUDR reportnotes,the supportgivento itsten-memberteam bylocal activists
doubled our strength";Bhaof the CommunistPartyof India (Marxist) "effectively
galpurRiots,70.
It is worth noting that we were repeatedlypressed to go and see those places also
where Hindus had been the victimsof attacks-notably,a village named Jamalpur
and a fewsectionsof Bhagalpur city.We had decided to visitthese places in any case,
even beforeour on-the-spotinvestigations
began in Bhagalpur,preciselyin order that
we mightsee and hear "bothsides."
BhagalpurRiots,17.
Ved Prakash Vajpayee, in NavbharatTimes(Delhi), 19 November 1989 (translation
mine).
Ibid. Here is an even cruder example of the same kind of argument: "In India the
basic materialis verygood. I mean, the people. They are honest,intelligentand generous. They are onlywaitingto be drawnintothenationalmainstream.What is absent
is leadership of the righttype";A. S. Raman, "Leaders to Blame forCommunalism,"
SundayMail, 14 October 1990.
BhagalpurRiots,6.
Riots,36-37.
Engineer,"Causes of Communal Riots,"in Communal
SumitraKumarJain,"Economyof Communalism,"TimesofIndia (Delhi), reproduced
in India PakistanTimes,May 1990.
BhagalpurRiots,32, 37.
I should add that"secularism"and "communalism"are perhaps not the most useful
termsto be applied in our investigationsof the social and politicalconsciousness of
differentsectionsof the Indian people. This is a pointthatis made byseveralscholars
and also in mybook on TheConstruction
ofCommunalism.
A detailed newspaper reporton the rape of two nuns teachingat a conventschool in
Gajraula, UttarPradesh, notes thatthe threerapists,wearingnothingbut undergarments,addressed one anotheras "ustad" and "guru" while theyheld the nuns at gunpoint; HindustanTimes,23 July 1990. This is the kind of brag commonlyassociated
withyoung louts found teasingwomen and girlson Delhi buses and in Bombay films.
It is worthpondering the question of how large the step is fromthiskind of molestationof women to the kind of violentassault involvedin rape.
This applies, of course, not only to constructionsof the differentreligiouscommunitiesbut also to stereotypesof differentcaste and tribalcommunitiesas "dirty,""mendacious," "turbulent,""ferocious," "criminal,"and so on, which have had wide
influencesince the nineteenthcentury,ifnot earlier.
All of these instancesare taken fromBhagalpur-see BhagalpurRiots,passim-but
the examples could be multipliedfromelsewhere.
The rumor was, in fact,malicious and baseless. Most studentslivingin the boarding
houses leftas soon as the disturbancesbroke out, if theyhad not lefta littleearlier,
and many were helped to get away safelyby theirMuslim landlords. The number of
studentskilledor missingis now computed to be no more thansix: of thesethebodies
of only two students(one Hindu, one Muslim) have been found; BhagalpurRiots,12.
However,in the disturbedand dangerous conditionof the cityand districtin the first
fewdays afterthe outbreakof violence,many studentsappear not to have been able
to reach their homes directly.During this time,and indeed for long afterward,the
storyof the massacreof studentswas neitherinvestigatednor counteredbythedistrict
In Defense of the Fragtnent
53
29.
30.
31.
32.
33.
34.
35.
36.
37.
38.
39.
40.
41.
42.
43.
44.
54
itwas publicizedin the press,even aired
or the universityauthorities.On the contrary,
on the radio (both local and BBC), and was readilyand widelycredited. It was still
widelybelieved when we visitedBhagalpur at the end ofJanuary1990.
See Asghar Ali Engineer,"On the Theory of Communal Riots,"in Engineer and Moin
in India (Delhi, 1985), 62; and leafletsand pamphlets colShakir,eds., Communalism
lected by the PUDR team in Bhagalpur. The two preceding quotations in this paragraph are froma leafletentitled"Bhagalpur ka Sampradayikdanga kyon?"issued in
the name of the "People of Bhagalpur"; and VinayakDamodar Savarkar,Six Glorious
trans.S. T. Godbole (Bombay,1971), 175.
EpochsofIndianHistory,
"Hindu bandhuon, socho aur sambhlo," by Dr. Rajeshwar, Akhil Bharat Hindu
Mahasabha, whichis among the leafletsmentionedin note 29 (translationmine).
The English word is used in the Hindi text.
Cf. A. Shankar,Chetavni2: Desh kokhatra(n.p., n.d.). On some of the logical problems
arising out of the declaration that Indian Muslims are converts(forciblyconverted)
and the descendants of Babar at the same time,see Alok Rai, "Only Bigots Feel That
ConversionsFollow Invasion,"TimesofIndia (Lucknow ed.), 13 August 1990.
oftheAryaSamaj (1915; New Delhi, 1967), 120 (emphasis added).
Lajpat Rai, A History
Ibid., 120n.
On the impact of the Gait Circular,whichsuggestedthatseparate tablesbe drawn up
in the 1911 census for"debatable Hindus," forexample, see ibid., 124-25; and Kenneth W. Jones, "Religious Identityand the Indian Census," in N. G. Barrier,ed., The
Censusin BritishIndia: NewPerspectives
(Delhi, 1981), 91-92.
Cf. Vinayak Damodar Savarkar,Hindu-Pad-Padshahi;
or,A ReviewoftheHindu Empire
of Maharashtra(Madras, 1925), 272-73. The words in quotation marks are from
Savarkar,Six GloriousEpochs,154, 188, 192-93, and passim.
J.T. F. Jordens,DayanandSarasvati:His Lifeand Ideas (Delhi, 1978), 170, 322n.
For some reportson these,see Engineer,Communal
Riots;Engineer and Shakir,Communalismin India; PUCL and PUDR, WhoAre theGuilty?:Reportofa JointInquiryinto
theCausesand ImpactoftheRiotsin Delhifrom31 Octoberto 10 November
(Delhi, 1984);
Uma Chakravartiand Nandita Haksar, TheDelhiRiots:ThreeDaysin theLifeofa Nation
and theDismantlingof
(Delhi, 1987); StanleyJ. Tambiah, Sri Lanka: EthnicFratricide
Riots,
(London, 1986); and Veena Das, ed., MirrorsofViolence:Communities,
Democracy
Survivorsin SouthAsia (Delhi, 1990).
InterviewwithShri Arun, Bhagalpur, 20 January 1990.
Budaun and Bhagalpur provideinstancesin 1989.
"5 RallyistsCrushed to Death," HindustanTimes(Delhi), 9 October 1990, 5.
The protestsfollowedfroma governmentannouncementon 7 August 1990 reserving
a percentage of governmentjobs for the "Other Backward Classes," in addition to
those already reservedforthe "Scheduled Castes and Tribes."For detailed reportson
and PoliticalWeekly,
India Today,and
the agitationand protestimmolations,see Economic
1990.
for
September-October
newspapers
kodekhne
kebaad
Manaazir Aashiq Harganvi,Ankhondekhi:Bhagalpurkebhayanakfasad
(Bhagalpur, 1989); translationsmine.
Cf. Antonio Gramsci: "Is it possible to write(conceive of) a historyof Europe in the
nineteenthcenturywithoutan organic treatmentof the French Revolutionand the
Napoleonic Wars... ? One can say,therefore,that [Croce's] book on the Historyof
fromthePrisonNotebooks
of
Europe is nothing but a fragmentof history";Selections
AntonioGramsci(London, 1971), 118, 119. It willbe clear of course thatI cannot advocate the kind of "objective,""integral"historythatGramscicalled for.
REPRESENTATIONS
if not impossibility,
of translating
45. I might add that, given the very great difficulty,
culturesand consciousnessinto alien languages, a new historiographyalso requires a
more concerted effortto recoverwhat we continue in India to call the "vernacular"
(and also the dialect) in termsboth of sources and of the medium of historicaldebate.
Along withthat,there is the need to recognize thatthe "vernacular"may also be the
"national,"in more waysthan one.
46. Constitutionof India, preamble.
55

In Defense of the Fragment

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