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SWATAHSIDDHA SARKAR

B

hanubhakta, a literary figure born in Nepal, did never come to Darjeeling even then the educational institutions of the Darjeeling district remain close on 13th July for the celebration of Bhanu Jayanti(the birthday of the Adi Kavi). Why the Nepalis of Darjeeling should celebrate Bhanu Jayanti when Bhanubhakta happened to be a poet from Nepal? Awkward it may seem but ques-tions of this sort occur in the minds of the non-Nepalis every now and then whenever the day - July 13 comes in. Such questions were even raised by the Gorkha National Liberation Front (GNLF) men who allegedly demolished the bust statute of Bhanubhakta (located at Chowrasta, Darjeeling on July 11, 1992) labeling him as the 'national poet of Nepal'. The attempt here is to demystify this position as to why Bhanubhakta or for that matter why Bhanu Jayantihas been a matter of celebra-tion for the Indian Nepalis too.

Bhanubhakata Acharya took his birth in 1814 (July 13) at Rangkha (Ramkha)village located in the Tanhu (Tanahu) region of Central Nepal. His father Srikrishna Acharya was an acclaimed Sanskrit pundit. By virtue of his parentage he got an opportunity to become familiar with Sanskrit language and literature at a very tender age. Much like his father he started his career as a royal official yet he remained busy mostly in literary activities. He was not widely published nevertheless he has innumerable unpublished verses, lyrics, Sloka, and stanza written in colloquial Nepali to his credit. Most notable among his literary works include the Nepali translation of Ramayana, Badhu Siksha, Prasnottori, and Bhaktamala among others. One distinctive trait of Bhanubhakta's literary genre was the sponta-neous use of prosody in all possible ways. It is said that Bhanubhakta did even write a protest letter in the form of a verse to higher officials soliciting mitigation of a long standing prop-erty dispute. The importance of Bhanubhakta has to be judged not on the basis of the volume of his literary works. In fact, Bhanubhakata's contributions had made huge socio-cultural impact that went beyond the literary appeals the pieces actually contained. Bhanubhakta's poetic creations did actually fulfill the require-ments of time and they brought forth a pro-gressive direction of change in the existing social order of the then Nepal.

As a translated work Bhanubhakta's Ramayana can be considered as one among the major Nepali classics. Although Bhanubhakta's Ramayanais not very different from the ones prepared by Tulsidasa or Krittibasa, but the recognition and admiration that his Ramayana has fetched was hardly attributable either to Tulsidasa or to

Krittibasa. This was so only because of the fact that the rise of Bhanubhaka and his Ramayana along with his other literary works - all were contextually relevant; and this con-textual relevance is linked with the require-ment of the then socio-political order of Nepal, which Bhanubhakata's Ramayana has well met. Translation of BalkandaRamayana was over by 1841, followed by Yuddhkanda and Uttarkandaby 1853. Motiram Bhatta has published the Balkanda Ramayan as translat-ed by Bhanubhakta in 1884. Soon after his demise (in 1869) complete Ramayana was published in 1887

posthumously. Much like other translated

w o r k s

Bhanubhakta's Ramayana also shares some uniqueness of its own. Folk approach to trans-lation and the judicious use of local Nepali idioms did project Bhanu's Rama as more 'humanitari-an', Sitaas 'daunt-less' and Bharata as 'flexible'.

Colloquial Nepali translation also helped Bhanubhakta substitute the 'doctrine of devo-tion' of original Ramayana for the 'cult of heroism'. This was how the cultural artifact of the Hindu great tradition was brought into the everyday life of the poor down trodden mass, most of whom were outside the pale of Hindu caste structure even. What is worth recalling here is the fact that all this had happened at that period of time when Nepal was yet to be a nation in cultural terms though political uni-fication has already taken place. Prithwi Narayan Shah though was successful in polit-ically consolidating his empire spread throughout length and breadth of Nepal but the process of cultural homogenization in gen-eral and linguistic solidarity in particular did not start until Bhanubhakta appeared on to the scene. Bhanubhakta's Ramayana fuelled the process of linguistic homogenization amongst the polyglot population and therefore played a major role in the nation building process of the then Nepal. Researchers like Mary Des Chene has aptly remarked that, if Prithwi Narayan Shah is to be credited for the political unifica-tion of Nepal then the credit for cultural unifi-cation of Nepali nation goes to Bhanubhakta.

Bhanubhakta and Darjeeling

It is fascinating to note that though Bhanubhakta's life and work was confined in

Nepal but the 'literary excavation' of Bhanubhakta was made not in Nepal but in Darjeeling, a place where he never arrived. Despite the fact that Bhanubhakta's Ramayana was available since the late nineteenth century in Nepal but the efforts to recognize Bhanubhakta's contribution as the 'nation builder' did originally start in Darjeeling dur-ing the mid twentieth century. Pratyosh Onta, a well known historian of Nepal, mentions that Nepal was a late starter in recognizing Bhanubhakta's significance while in Darjeeling concerted endeavours were taken by the Nepali S a h i t y a S a m m e l a n (founded in 1924) and the famous literary trio - Surya Bikram Gewali, Dharani Dhar Sharma and Paras Mani Pradhan (popu-larly known as S u - D h a - P a ) since the 1940s. Similar attempts were made a decade later in Nepal during 1950s. Soon after the Darjeeling initiative took a concrete shape Bhanubhakta has gradually become sig-nificant in Nepal too.

Cumulative efforts of Nepali Sahitya Sammelanof Darjeeling and the instrumental role played by Surya Bikram Gewali has resulted in the commemoration of Bhanubhakta's 70th death ceremony for the first time in Darjeeling. In the same occasion Gewali has also published a commemorative volume Bhanubhakta Smarak Grantha (1940), which included two articles and the introduction written by him and several other contributions made by the then prominent Nepali literary figures of both India and Nepal. The various articles included in the col-lective had a single message - to situate Bhanubhakta as the 'father of the Nepali nation'. Gewali represented Bhanubhakta as the 'hero' of poor downtrodden Nepali folk. However, Bhanubhakta's heroism was not referred to the military prowess of a 'colonial-ly derived Gurkha' but to the ability of enabling the mass 'invent a national identity' through the contributions that he made. The image of Bhanubhakta that emerged out of the 'literary excavation' made in Darjeeling during 1940s portrayed him more than a literary fig-ure. At best such efforts have constructed a new image for Bhanubhakta as the 'father

fig-ure' whose contributions prepared the cultural basis of 'Nepali nation'.

Institutional measures of Nepali Sahitya Sammellanand the personal initiatives taken by Dharani Dhar, Parasmani and Surya Bikram Gewali highlighted Bhanubhakta as the 'ideal icon' of a fledging Nepali nation whose roots and branches were spreading with a great pace in Darjeeling. Besides taking earnest attempts to popularize Bhanubhakta's poetic genius Nepali Sahitya Sammelan has also taken initiatives to popularize Bhanubhakta's figurative image. In 1945 for the first time Bhanu Jayantiwas celebrated in Darjeeling with due preparedness. This was how the yearly tradition of observing Bhanu Jayantias one of the most significant cultural occasion of the Indian Nepalis got started. In Nepal, however, the attempt to organize cul-tural festivities for commemorating Bhanubhakta was taken for the first time in 1952. Another pioneering effort to propagate the figurative image of Bhanubhakta was taken by Nepali Sahitya Sammelanby putting up the bust statue of Bhanubhakta at Darjeeling. For the first time such a statute (made by the British sculptor Thompson) of Bhanubhakta was erected in 1949. Dharani Dhar did play instrumental role in this regard. Bhanubhakta Acharya was regarded as the 'national poet' of Nepal since the early 1950s but in Darjeeling he has been projected as the 'icon' of Nepali nation and not merely as a poet of Nepal. The political project of identifying nation within the territorial limits of a State cannot help us understand why Bhanubhakta's life and works are a matter of celebration for the Darjeeling Nepalis. If we acknowledge that the idea of nation is in fact, a fluid notion that often defies the territorial limits of a State we can possibly understand the need and jus-tification of celebrating Bhanu Jayantiby the Nepalis of Indian origin located in the Darjeeling hills or elsewhere in India. It is to be noted in this context that the West Bengal government's declaration (such a declaration was made during the reign of the Left Front and the tradition is still continuing) of 13th July as Bhanu Janyantiin the holiday list of educational institutions of Darjeeling district is indeed an attempt to recognize the distinc-tiveness of Nepali nation in India besides pay-ing homage to the Adi Kavi.

*Dr. Swatahsiddha Sarkar is on the Faculty, Department of Sociology, University of North Bengal, Darjeeling (ss3soc@gmail.com)

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H I M ALAY AN M I RROR

GAN GT OK , SU N DAY 1 3 J U LY 2 0 1 4

EDI T ORI AL

ENGLISH DAILY PUBLISHED FROM GANGTOK

H I M ALAY AN M I RROR

J U LY 1 3 2 0 1 4 V OL 8 N O. 2 9 7

My idea of good company is

the company of clever,

well-informed people who have a

great deal of conversation;

that is what I call good

com-pany.

-Jane Austen

Bhanubhakta and Nepali Nation in Darjeeling

Team Germany vs

Lionel Messi

Changing terms of

engagement

Whatever happens at the Maracana in Rio de Janeiro on Sunday (early Monday morning for the bleary-eyed in India), history will have been made. Either the World Cup will have its first European champion on South American soil, or world football will have a new king to place beside Pele, Diego Maradona and Zinedine Zidane. Team Germany versus Lionel Messi: the narra-tive writes itself, a rematch 24 years in the making. While it isn’t without truth, it suffers from a reduction in nuance. German football has evolved since 1990, when an Andreas Brehme penalty won the Cup. Efficiency and collective play remain the substance, but there has been a refinement of style. Under Jurgen Klinsmann and then Joachim Low, a new German generation has showcased skilful, tactically fluid football while continuing the tra-dition of going deep in tournaments. But without a tro-phy, patience has begun to wear thin in Germany. Argentina, on the other hand, appears not to have escaped the personality cult. It was Maradona in 1990 when he nearly managed a repeat of 1986; it’s Messi now. Much as with Maradona, the opposition’s extra-defensive attention limits Messi, but it extracts a cost: the other team can’t commit to attack without risking a match-turning moment of Messi magic. It can only work, however, if the rest of Argentina privileges an individual for its greater good.

The finalists could not have taken more contrasting routes. Argentina has managed eight goals in six match-es, often leaving it very late; Germany nearly scored that number against Brazil, and has 17 in total. Argentina and the Netherlands set out not to lose their semi-final, two cautious, disciplined sides cancelling each other out. Neither could seize the initiative over 120 minutes. Germany and Brazil, in the other semifinal, went out to win, even if the host did it with absurd recklessness, “running into an open knife” as a German writer described it. In a sense it was surprising to see Brazil play thus. It had led the tournament in fouls, yellow cards, and tackles per game: this was a pragmatic unit, which despite the gaps at the back was capable of churn-ing out results. But without Neymar, its creative force, and Thiago Silva, its leader and defensive organiser, the five-time champion crumbled. Despite inflicting such a heavy defeat, Low’s men can count on Brazil’s support in the final; not only has Germany’s football captivated the spiritual home of the game, Brazilians will rather see anyone win it but Argentina. Alejandro Sabella has sought to lessen the pressure on his side by portraying Argentina as the underdog. But big finals know no favourites. All one can hope for is a contest that a thor-oughly enjoyable World Cup can be remembered by.

Hind Swaraj vs Hindu Rashtra

ANANYA VAJPEYI

T

he 2014 national elec-tion, resulting in a deci-sive victory for the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), seems to have thrown the Indian com-mentariat into ideological disarray. Intellectuals and opinion-makers who have professed particular beliefs and held certain positions for the longest time, appear now to be changing their views. This began happening during the campaign, continued through the election, and has become routine in the new dispensation.

Larger changes in the media, in institutions of research and higher educa-tion, and the electoral rout of the Congress and Left parties add to the general climate of confusion and mistrust. Each day it appears that one more person whose voice carries weight comes out to endorse Narendra Modi's regime. Criticism is replaced with qualified support, while in some cases the reverse is true - heartfelt enthusiasm is replaced with bitter condem-nation of the Prime Minister and his team. Nobody knows any more who is with us and who is with them; who is on the left and who is on the right.

Fading secular opinion

In an earlier piece in The Hindu (April 9, 2014), I had suggested that the "euphemistic contract" lead-ing some commentators to pass over Mr. Modi's Hindutva agenda and turn a blind eye to his complicity in the violence of Gujarat 2002 needed to be broken if there was to be some chance of curbing or defeating the BJP at the hustings. Others argued that his veiled and explicit

stances against minorities worked in his favour, and increased his popularity rather than damaging his image. Whatever the case, his party won the majority of seats and he was able to form the government.

Mr. Modi has begun appointing individuals who are adherents or sympathisers of the hardline Hindu funda-mentalist Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) to serve as ministers and as heads of cultural and educa-tional institutions. He has shown little interest in the services of former secular-ists, liberals and feminists who had indicated their will-ingness, even eagerness, to work with him once he took office. The fact that neither the Congress nor the Left seem any longer to be con-versant with or proud of the left-liberal political traditions that dominated Indian poli-tics since independence, dri-ves the final nail into the cof-fin of secular opinion.

A face-off between majori-tarians and egalimajori-tarians, between the Sangh Parivar and secular-liberal parties, has been a long time coming. This election may have turned the tide, but the build-up began close to a century ago. The RSS was founded in 1925. The Bharatiya Jana Sangh was founded in 1952. The BJP was founded in 1980. Considerable gains were made by the Hindu Right during the Ram Janambhoomi movement, climaxing in the demolition of the Babri Masjid at Ayodhya in December 1992 and nationwide Hindu-Muslim rioting.

The National Democratic Alliance, headed by the BJP, had its first substantial stint in government from 1998 to

2004. Seen in this chronolo-gy, Hindu nationalism punc-tuates the entire 20th century at intervals of 20-30 years, but it is never able to deci-sively transform the mindset of most Indians. Even today, when the BJP polled 31 per cent of votes cast, it is not clear whether it is the party's Hindutva face or its face of economic growth that appealed to voters.

The problem with Hindutva

The problem with Hindutva, which has imped-ed its capture of the average Hindu's political and cultural imagination, is that it is the outcome not so much of hatred for others, especially Muslims, but rather of Hindu self-hate. It's a historic and possibly doomed attempt to change everything about Hinduism that makes it what it is - its ability to accommo-date mind-boggling diversity, its avoidance of strict defini-tions and boundaries, its amorphous, heterogeneous, tolerant and fluid character.

Hindutva wants to "Semitize" Hinduism, giving it a god, a book, a revelation, a prophet, an ecclesiastical order, a pontiff, a race, a lan-guage, a country (or a holy land), a history, a canon, doc-trinal stability and missionary zeal. It's an attempt to stan-dardise, essentialise, codify and systematise a vast uni-verse of incommensurate beliefs, practices, rituals, the-ologies and narratives - to render Hinduism modern and modular.

Vinayak Savarkar's mani-festo for Hindu nationalism, Hindutva (1923, 1928), was conceived and written over several years of solitary con-finement and hard labour in British jails on the Andaman islands and in coastal

Maharashtra - Savarkar was sentenced to two consecutive life-terms for anti-govern-ment activities. His sentence was later commuted but the trauma never left him. Hindutva opens with its most definitive claim: "A Hindu means a person who regards this land of Bharatvarsha, from the Indus to the seas, as his Fatherland as well as his Holy Land, that is, the cradle of his religion." Savarkar wants to imbue Hinduism with all the qualities it lacks -and thus his coinage, Hindutva. A true Hindu, in his estimation, has in him something better than and apart from mere Hinduism -he has Hindu-ness.

In order to possess Hindutva, a man (because Hindu nationalists tend to think in rigidly gendered, masculinist and patriarchal terms) must regard India as his "fatherland" (the land of his ancestors, pitr-bhumi) and his "holy land" (the land where he accumulates the fruits of good karma, punya-bhumi); he must be attached to this land, this territorial expanse called "Bharat" through the fact of his birth there, through ties of blood to his family, his forefathers, his race of fellow-Hindus, and moreover through a love for Hindu "civilization" (sanskri-ti) "as represented in a com-mon history, comcom-mon heroes, a common literature, a com-mon art, a comcom-mon law and a common jurisprudence, com-mon fairs and festivals, rites and rituals, ceremonies and sacraments." His insistence on what is "common" between the innumerable "Hindu" cultures of the sub-continent comes precisely from the impossibility of stat-ing where exactly lies this commonality, so fervently

desired by Savarkar. If Hinduism is centrifugal, Hindutva is centripetal. Savarkar responded to the demands and pressures of modern nationalism - he was not only disinterested in, but perhaps even averse to, the religious life of millions of Hindus. It's interesting and entirely reasonable that Savarkar was a thorough atheist. For him, being a Hindu was a political identity, not an identity based on reli-gion. Even Muslims, Christians, Sikhs and Buddhists, so long as they are born and raised in India, and follow the Indian way of life, are thus de facto "Hindus." Hindutva is a pure construct, a completely empty envelope that Savarkar creates from his own mind as he spends decades locked away, utterly segregated from the shared collective life of his fellow-Indians.

Gandhi vs Savarkar

Mohandas Gandhi's vision for the future was swaraj or self-rule, where the "self" was at once each individual strug-gling to master inner demons, and a vast aggregation of mil-lions in search of India's inde-pendence from British rule. Gandhi himself was deeply religious, but he never defined the "self" of "self-rule," the swa- of swaraj, as Hindu, Muslim or even Indian. It was Gandhi's quest for the self and for its sover-eignty that carried the day, creating the decades-long struggle which eventually lib-erated India. Savarkar became president of the Hindu Mahasabha - the pre-cursor to the BJP - in 1937, firmly opposing Gandhi's non-violence, his "Quit India" movement, the rise of the Muslim League and the cre-ation of Pakistan through

Partition. When Savarkar's acolyte Nathuram Godse shot at Gandhi on January 30, 1948, at the Mahatma's daily public prayer meeting, ironi-cally, Gandhi's dying words were those of a devout Hindu: "Hey Rama!" In the wake of the Mahatma's assassination, Savarkar had to retreat from public view for the remainder of his life. He was regarded with intense dislike, suspicion and contempt by Nehru and other leaders who constituted the top echelons of the Congress administration. Nobody from the Maharashtra government attended his funeral in February 1966.

Today, for the first time the RSS can dream of a restitu-tion of Savarkar in the mod-ern national pantheon. The question is, have decades of official secularism made Indians, more than 80 per cent of whom are Hindu, receptive or hostile to the father of the Hindu Right? Can ordinary Hindus look upon him with a fresh per-spective, or has history left him behind in the dust?

Recently, I was startled to see in the Central Hall of Parliament a portrait of Savarkar staring at Gandhi's portrait directly across the length of the room, symbolis-ing a foundational antago-nism written into the very genealogy of our nation-state. It is Hind Swaraj pitted against Hindu Rashtra. Indian intellectuals, understandably feeling bruised and buffeted by enormous political changes, would do well to remember that the roots of their present ideological con-flicts go back to the begin-nings of organised nationalist politics, and that questions of ideology are unlikely to be settled in a hurry.

Hindutva is a historic and possibly doomed attempt to change everything about Hinduism

that makes it what it is — its ability to accommodate mind-boggling diversity, its avoidance of

strict definitions and boundaries, its amorphous, heterogeneous, tolerant and fluid character

The visit to India by British Foreign Secretary William

Hague and Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne is part of a growing trend of major powers stepping up their engagement with the Narendra Modi government before the new administration imparts decisive direction to its external policies. Ahead of the arrival of the visitors from London, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin was in New Delhi to give fresh direction to a deep-rooted but complex special relationship between Russia and India. Significantly, the guest from Moscow signalled Russia’s intent to rope in India as a strategic energy partner — as a consumer of Russian gas that would be transited through China.

The other visits have been less ambitious in scale, but the French Foreign Minister, Laurent Fabius, who followed Mr. Rogozin, pursued an ambitious agenda, pushing for the pos-sible sale to India of Rafale fighter jets as well as French nuclear reactors. The high-profile John McCain, the Senator from Arizona in the United States, also landed in the nation-al capitnation-al — his visit preceded by his powerful advocacy for Washington’s active participation in India’s perceived mili-tary rise. The defence element also seemed strong during talks between the two British Ministers and their Indian coun-terparts. The British evidently have still not lost hope in upstaging the French by trying to convince their Indian inter-locutors that the Typhoon jets that the British are involved in producing, would better protect Indian skies than the French Rafale. However, it will be erroneous to brand the Hague-Osborne visit as a window-dressed exercise in military sales-manship. Though trade between India and the United Kingdom has not picked up sufficient steam, and pales in comparison to New Delhi’s commercial relationship with many other countries, India along with China remains central to Mr. Cameron’s economic revival strategy. Besides, the terms of India’s engagement with the U.K. are rapidly evolv-ing. Unlike as in the past, Indian companies have become major investors in Britain, the mutation amplified by the stun-ning success in the turnaround in Britain of the ailing Jaguar Land Rover venture by the Tata Group. Even during the lat-est visit, India’s Cipla announced it would invlat-est $171 mil-lion for drugs research in the U.K., while the Mahindras will pump in a little over $34 million to develop electric cars in Britain. London remains a leading financial centre, and no country in the world can ignore its importance to global com-merce. As India diversifies its diplomatic and commercial ties, a thriving relationship with Britain can be leveraged to bolster its finely nuanced relationships with other major con-stituents of a multi-polar world.

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