|
|
|
|
|
||
The Akali and Dravidian Movements
A Preliminary Enquiry for Comparative Studies
- N.Muthu Mohan
Introduction
This paper is an attempt to articulate a few preliminary
remarks regarding the possibility of conducting comparative studies between the
Akali and Dravidian movements that have considerably contributed to the course
of politics in the Indian subcontinent in the 20th century. The
Hindu political theorists are often inclined to portray the 20th
century politics in terms of the pan-Indian nationalist movement implying a
strong Hindu element in it. Even the secular nationalist writers depict the
same historical period as the origination and development of modern politics in
India. However, the real picture is more complicated. Neither pan-Indian
nationalism nor secular modernity single handedly contributed to the making of
Indian politics in 20th century. Construction of cultural
subjectivities of the type of Sikh and Tamil identity, and their political
articulation have played vital role in the making of Indian politics in recent
times. More over, the cultural politics of the Sikhs and the Tamils has become significant
in the post modern context to meaningfully understand the course of politics
India has inherited and to set right certain shortcomings India has accumulated
during the period of colonial and post colonial modernity.
The present paper is dedicated to commemorate the worthy
contribution of Professor Kirpal Singh whose works on the history of Sikhism
and the regional history of Punjab inspired the author to take up the present
venture.
At the Wake of Constructing the Traditional Identities
As it has been already mentioned, it is in the habit of
nationalist historiographers to render the course of modern history neatly in
terms of birth and growth of Indian nationalism. However, a peep into the 19th
century would inform us a different picture. The history of 19th
century is important to us because it contains the responses of the traditional
groups of people all over Indian subcontinent to the dominant British Raj. It
was the local peoples and the rulers of the regions who first registered their
protests to the British colonialism, not at all on the strength of any
ideologically constructed nationalism but under the spell of concrete forms of
exploitation imposed upon them by the British. The local people resisted
spontaneously when their land was occupied, when their culture was insulted and
when their folk were abashed upon. Many a people responded violently when their
lands were confiscated or when the traditional kingdoms were brought under the
colonial yoke. The history of 19th century also witnesses the fact
that the spontaneity of resistance soon yielded to local mobilizations in terms
of traditional identities. The beginnings of the Akali and Dravidian movements
are associated with such mobilizations of traditional identities during 19th
century. It has to be categorically stated that when these traditional
identities were in the process of construction, no modern Indian nationalism
was there to articulate itself. On the other hand, it is interesting to note
that the pan-Indian nationalism appeared threatened by the local traditional
identities and thus it came to do away with the traditional identities.
Although the making of Akali movement could be traced
from the birth of Sikhism in 15th century, we are inclined to
describe it from the post-Ranjit Singh period of Punjab history in the second
half of 19th century. The cultural memory of the Sikhs regarding
their Guru period and the fall of the Khalsa Raj of Maharaja Ranjit Singh in
the middle of 19th century became powerful sources of Sikh
mobilization during the same period. The Namdhari movement can be sited as one
of the first attempts of Sikh mobilization on the basis of collective cultural
memory and of Sikh response to the British intrusion into the cultural space of
the Sikhs. In no way we want to describe the Namdhari movement as a mass
movement with clear-cut socio-political alternatives. However, the Namdharies
registered their protest and it was rooted in the cultural values broadly
shared by the Sikh community. “The Namdhari movement was a purely religious
movement aiming at the revival of the Sikh faith which, Baba Ram Singh felt,
was fast declining not only among the masses but also among the custodians and
managers of the Sikh shrines. With the inspiration received from Bhai Balak
Singh of Hazro, Bhai Ram Singh, as he was originally called, preached the faith
of the Gurus Nanak-Gobind Singh and brought back large numbers of lukewarm
people to the Sikh faith with rejuvenated enthusiasm. With the zeal of new
converts, thousands of people gathered round him and attended his congregations
both at his village and at the fairs and religious centers visited by him.” [1]
The cultural rootedness of the Namdhari protest contained the confidence and
optimism of the Sikhs in their own religiosity without yielding to the European
values represented by the British. In other words, the politically violent
‘modernity’ represented by the British was rightly perceived by the Sikhs as
colonialism, as cultural colonialism. The way Namdhari movement was put down
again proved the violence involved in the European ‘modernity’.
The ultimate roots of the Dravidian movement too could be
traced to the ancient cultural heritage of the Tamils. However, we start from
the more recent period, the 19th century. Towards the middle of 19th
century, the British introduced the printing press among the Tamils. The Tamils
got an historical opportunity to re-edit the palm-leaf manuscripts of the rich
Tamil literary works and spread them among the reading public of the time. The
literary works of the Tamil past are of three kinds, the first is the
non-religious or pre-religious literature of the Sangam period, the second is
the epics and didactic literature of Jainism and Buddhism, and the third is the
Saivite literature of the medieval period. Truly, the three kinds or layers of
cultural past have their discrepancies among them and they remain the source of
different forms of constructing the Tamil cultural identity till date. However,
the interesting aspect of Tamil mobilization in 19th century is that
the Tamils preferred to articulate their cultural memory through assertion of
their linguistic identity. The unearthing and spread of Tamil literary corpus,
and construction of Tamil history on the basis of it show the confidence and
optimism the Tamils exhibited in the face of the British entry into their
cultural space. “All these writings of Tamil scholars about the glorious past
grandeur of Tamil culture, literature and history inculcated the Dravidian
consciousness in non-Brahmins and gave them a new identity and sense of
cultural superiority and confidence.” [2] Although the Tamil discourses of mid
19th century do not contain explicitly any anti-British
articulation, the implicit self confidence of the Tamils in their cultural past
should not go unnoticed.
Towards the end of this part of our discussion, let us
assert that no pan-Indian nationalism inspired the Sikh or Tamil identities at
this stage of recent Indian history.
Responding to the Brahmanic and Hindu Grand Narratives
The next phase in the history of the Sikhs and the Tamils
in the recent period is associated with the threat of Brahmanic and Hindu
mobilization that became conspicuous towards the late half of 19th
century.
The Brahmanic construction of its identity explicitly
started with Raja Ram Mohan Rai founding the Brahma Samaj. Raja Ram Mohan took
the inspiration from the Upanishads and the Vedanta philosophy. The suggestion
to this type of construction came from the Christian monotheism and to some
extent from European rationalism. Scholars indicate the amount of inspiration
Raja Ram Mohan received from the United Christianity propagated in Bengal.
K.N.Panikkar informs that the initiatives of Ram Mohan Rai were of secular
rationalist type and it could not be continued unhindered after the Raja. How
to understand the inspiration the Raja received from Christianity and European
rationalism? Is it not yielding before the cultural colonialism of the British,
broadly the Europeans? Does it not show the lack of confidence the Raja was
having in front of the colonial cultural assaults? However, the fact remains
that Brahma Samaj was Brahmanism reconstructed under the influence of colonial
modernity.
The Arya Samaj founded by Dayananda Saraswati was less
modern than that of the Brahma Samaj. But it was more aggressively Brahmanic
than the Bengali Samaj. The slogan of ‘Back to Vedas’ had a determined program
of Brahmanic revivalism and preparing the Brahmanic leadership to the modern
Indian politics. Dayananda’s exclusion of the Sikhs from his Brahmanic
discourse and the practice of ‘Suddhi’ showed the aggressiveness of the
emerging Brahmanism. “The Arya Samaj did commendable work in the field of
education, the spread of the ancient Vedic ideas and in the eradication of many
unhealthy practices that had crept into the Hindu society. But the technique
developed and followed by it for its propaganda, by running down the teachers
and teachings of other faiths and sects in the country, has been gradually
responsible for communal tension and mutual suspicion and hatred among the
various sections of the Indian population.” says the historian Ganda
Singh[3].
The Brahmanic revival had a powerful support from the
European invention of Indo-European linguistic affiliation. The idea of
Sanskrit as the proto language of the Europeans brought together the colonizers
and the Brahmanic horde in India to assume the civilizing role in Indian
history. The Brahmanic revival in 19th century exhibited its total
program, it had a religious platform, it had a linguistic platform, it had
ultimately a political platform. The Arya Samajists proclaimed Hindi as the
‘national’ language supposedly replacing the Moghul court language that was
Urdu. Hindi was proposed as the new ‘national’ without taking into account the
regional peoples’ languages such as Punjabi, Tamil, Bengal, Marathi or Assami.
The Arya Samajists desired only a sanskritic language to lead the newly
constructed Hindu or Indian nation, thus religiously inclined towards
Brahmanism.
The Brahmanic revival in the South Indian region was
spearheaded, apart from the Brahma Samaj and the Arya Samaj, by the
Theosophical Society founded in Chennai. The Theosophical Society celebrated
the Sanskrit culture and the philosophical Vedanta, and had the program of
bringing together of European religious philosophy with that of the Vedanta.
Writing about Annie Besant, a leader of Theosophical Society, E.F.Irshik
said,”By exalting everything Brahmanical, by giving esoteric meaning or
scientific explanation to every unjust and oppressive custom prevailing among
the Hindus, Mrs. Besant made an attempt to give a new lease of life to
Brahmanical domination and oppression of other castes.” [4]
The Brahmanic revival reached its political project when
it at last agreed to play the majority card of Hinduism. The Brahmanic
acceptance of the discourse of Hinduism is the result of the realization by the
Brahmans of the significance of majority in the modern politics of India. The
Brahmans who all the time declaring the exclusiveness of their caste have now
come to recognize the majority needed in the modern India. At the wake of the
20th century, the new greater idea of Hinduism was propagated
vigorously by the Brahmans. Hinduism as assumed majority was posed against the
Muslims, Sikhs, Christians and all other minorities. The term Hinduism acquired
more political meaning apart from its religious connotations.
The Sikhs and the Tamils were compelled to respond to the
challenges thrown upon them by the grand narratives of Brahmanism and Hinduism.
The Singh Sabha movement responded promptly to the
challenges of the Arya Samaj in Punjab. Its central aim was to construct the
Sikh identity. “The Singh Sabha undertook to (i) restore Sikhism in its
pristine purity; (ii) edit and publish historical and religious books;(iii)
propagate current knowledge, using Punjabi as the medium, and to start
magazines and newspapers in Punjabi; (iv) reform and bring back into the Sikh
fold the apostates; and (v) interest the highly placed Englishmen, in and
ensure their association with, the educational programme of the Sikhs.” [5] The
Singh Sabha movement was headed by the educated urban Sikhs and it had
reformative and revivalist programs. The objectives of the movement were
holistic including religious, social and linguistic aspects combined. It meant
that the Sikh leaders were trying to work out broader platform for Sikh revival
and reform. The works such as “Hum Hindu Nahin” (Bhai Kahan Singh of Nabha,
1899) clearly inform that the Sikh leaders were aware of the construction of
Hindu narrative all over India. The Sikh intellectual initiative to attract the
westerners to Sikh studies, particularly to the original Sikhism and its Scripture,
tells us that the Sikhs were confident of the progressive potentialities of the
Religion of the Gurus.
The response of the South Indians to the growing threat
of Brahmanism and Hindu construction appeared in the form of constructing the
Tamil literary and linguistic identity. It had certain religious undercurrents
too. The later part of 19th century witnessed the Saivite revival
and the Neo-Buddhist revival. The Saivite revival was from the quarters of
non-Brahmin upper castes of Tamilnadu and the Neo-Buddhism was from the Dalits
of the region. The Neo-Buddhist awakening was led by scholars like Iyothee Dasa
Pandithar whereas the non-Brahmin movement culminated in the formation of the
South Indian Liberal Federation (1916) in Chennai. It was headed by the urban
non-Brahman intellectuals of the then Madras Presidency. The South Indian
Liberal Federation also started publishing an English Daily by name “Justice”.
The newspaper became so prominent that the Federation soon acquired the title
“Justice Party”. Two more regional newspapers in Tamil with the name “Dravidan”
and in Telugu by name “Anthraprakasini” too were started. [6] The South Indian
Liberal Federation or the Justice Party became the parental organization of the
Dravidian movement. The main thrust of the Justice Party was to bargain
educational and job opportunities from the British. “When there was no
constitution promulgated in this country and the concept of Social Justice was
almost unknown in this country, the Justice Party raised the banner of Social
Justice and insisted in its manifesto that every caste according to its
numerical strength, should receive due representation in Government service and
should be given a more effective voice in the management of the affairs of the
Government.” [7] The non-Brahman movement was aware of the Hindu and Brahmanic
constructions that were going around and consequently made special efforts to
show that the Tamils or the Dravidians were culturally different from the
Brahmanic Hinduism. The Tamil Saivism and the philosophy of Saiva Siddhanta
were focused as the religion and philosophy of the Tamils. Thirukkural, a
secular ethical treatise of the ancient Tamils was made prominent to represent
the casteless and secular worldview of the Tamils. Based mostly on literary
sources, the Tamil scholars reconstructed the history of the Tamils for the
last 2000 years. The activities of the Tamil non-brahmins too combined so many
aspects to create a broad platform for Tamil identity and Tamil assimilation of
modernity.
The Singh Sabha in the Punjab and the South Indian
Liberal Federation were not only identity oriented but were also
uncompromisingly against the construction of grand narratives such as
Brahmanism and Hinduism. The latter constructions were to be effectively
confronted because they expressed the new design of creating a
medieval/modernity alliance specific to Indian context. Indian modernity did
not decide to go forward abolishing the feudal structures of Indian medievalism
but have opted to remobilize the medieval symbolisms organically associating
them with modern colonial opportunities to acquire power. It has to be
mentioned that Sikhism in the late-medieval age was a powerful voice against
the medieval structures of Brahmanic caste system and a unique experiment in
inter religious relations along with an anti-establishment thought pattern
against any form of oppression. With the Brahmanism and Hinduism coming up
again, it would be not only a great set back to the original ideals of Sikhism
but also diminishing the rights of the minorities and the oppressed, an attempt
to colonize (internal colonization) them in the emerging new set up. The leadership of Brahmanism and the
pan-Indian construction of Hinduism were in no way democratic but on the other
hand, were a political build up of new rulers. The politics of power was
obviously in play, not modernizing or democratizing the populace of the
country. The Sikhs and the Tamils encountered
the emerging situation each in their own way positively contributing to
democracy in this country.
The Akali and Dravidian Movements
The first two decades of the
20th century witnessed the coming into existence of the Akali and
Dravidian movements. The grounds for the movements were laid down by the
happenings of the late 19th century and the Sikhs and the Tamils
responded to them appropriately.
The Singh Sabha movement
traveling through the Gurdwara Reforms reached its culmination in the Akali
movement. The ideas of the Singh Sabha became a mass and material force in the
Gurdwara Reform movement. The Singh Sabha initiative was more of the urban
elite and the Gurdwara movement differed from it particularly by its mass
appeal. The Sikhs centered their reforms around the Gurdwaras by which they
cleansed the Sikh religion from the medieval practices that have engulfed the
Gurdwaras in the post-Guru period. Through the Gurdwara Reforms the Sikhs
recommitted themselves to the anti-feudal and post-medieval ideals of the
religion of the Gurus. The Sikhs were eager to show that theirs was a religion
no less bound to ideals such as equality, brotherhood and social dynamism than
what was propagated by, say, the European modernity. The Gurdwara Reform
movement also proved that the social adaptability of the Sikhs. Due to the
religious commitment, the Akalis won their wide support among the rural
peasants, rich and poor. The major victory of the Akalis is associated with
recovering the Gurdwaras and legislating the Gurdwara Act of 1925. The latter
guaranteed the democratic function of the Gurdwaras and reconstructing the Sikh
community life. In other words, the Singh Sabha, Gurdwara Reform and Akali
movements reconstructed the Sikh civil society. The Sikh peasants and the Sikh
soldiers exhibited the highest amount of vitality and vigor during the
period.[8] The Sikhs vibrantly withstood the onslaughts of the orthodoxy and
conservatism. The interesting aspect of the Akali movement is that it was
extraordinarily peaceful despite its stubbornness and consistency. The inbuilt anti-establishment and
self-respecting nature of the Sikhs made them the best of the races Indian
subcontinent had produced.
The literary activism and
reconstruction of Tamil History that were undertaken by the Tamil elites of 19th
found a material force in the Justice Party. In the year 1917, eight district
conferences were organized by the Justice Party and towards the end of the same
year the State Conference too was called in Chennai. The program and strength
of the Justice Party were tested in the First General elections (1920) that
were conducted under the Montegu-Chelmsford reforms. The Home-Rule Party headed
by the Theosophite, Annie Besant contested the elections against the Justice
Party. The Justice Party came out of the battle as the winner and formed the
First Government.
The entry of Periyar EVR
into the leadership of the Dravidian movement was a major event in its history.
Periyar EVR laid the sound foundations of the Dravidian ideology that comprised
the moments of atheism, anti-Brahmanism, Self-Respect, Social Justice, critique
of Hindu and Indian nationalism. Periyar distinguished himself by keeping the
Dravidian movement away from the nationalist politics as well as the
parliamentary politics and wholly dedicated his propaganda work to capture the
civil society. The anti-Hindi agitations in the 1930s were important milestones
in the history of the Dravidian movement that led Periyar to declare the slogan
of “The Tamil Country belongs to the Tamils”. The anti-Hindi agitations made
the Dravidian movement the most popular among the students, youth and the
regional intellectuals (mainly the teaching community and the writers) and
consolidated the linguistic community of the Tamils. The mass base of the Dravidian
movement was not the rural peasants. Indeed, Periyar had an aversion towards
the rural masses whom he considered to be conservative and superstitious. On
the other hand, the main attention of the Dravidian movement was towards the
populace that was fast undergoing the process of urbanization through education
(Students and teachers) and job seeking , in other words the new citizens of
the emerging civil society. This became the strength of the Dravidian
movement.
Conclusion
Indeed, the Akali and the
Dravidian movements have significantly differing courses of development. The
Sikh movement took religion as its focal point for cultural rejuvenation
whereas the South Indian movement made language its focal. Apart from the
literary activism, the Tamils showed special interest in proportional
representation in Government jobs and education. The Sikh revival paid
increased attention in institutional reforms in the Gurdwaras and peasant
mobilization for the same. Many more
such differences could be discussed in all their implications. But both the
movements were aimed at constructing and safe-guarding their cultural identity.
Both the movements were anti-feudal and anti-Brahmanic. While having certain
problems with the modernist paradigm, the Sikhs and the Tamils truly
represented a type of politics that now has acquired the nomenclature,
postmodern.
References
Copyright© N. Muthu Mohan. About the author
Print this Article
Email this Article
Comment on this Article