Rethinking the Local in Indian History

Kaustubh Mani Sengupta, Tista Das, Kaustubh Mani Sengupta, Tista Das

• Publisher: Routledge India
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781000425529
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Indian & South Asian History
• Index: History

This volume looks at the concept of the 'local' in Indian history. Through a case study of Bengal, it studies how worldwide currents—be it colonial governance, pedagogic practices or intellectual rhythms—simultaneously inform and interact with particular local idioms to produce variegated histories of a region. It examines the processes through which the idea of the 'local' gets constituted in different spatial entities such as the frontier province of the Jangal Mahal, the Sundarbans, the dry terrain of Birbhum-Bankura-Purulia and the urban spaces of Calcutta and other small towns. The volume further discusses the various administrative as well as amateur representations of these settings to chart out the ways through which certain spaces get associated with a particular image or history. The chapters in the volume explore a variety of themes—textual representations of the region, epistemic practices and educational policies, as well as administrative manoeuvres and governmental practices which helped the state in mapping its people.

An important contribution in the study of Indian history, this interdisciplinary work will be of great interest to scholars and researchers of science and technology studies, history, sociology and social anthropology and South Asian studies.

Part I

Textual representations, public discourses

1
Dynastic time

A chronology for memories in Bishnupur

Paulami Guha Biswas

The canonisation of cannons

In 1901, Babu Nilmoni Singh Deo, the Raja of the Malla dynasty of Bishnupur,¹ a feudatory state in the Bankura district of western Bengal (geographically it is called the Rarh region), was told by the Bengal Government to return the cannons in his possession for the renewal of his license.² The Indian Arms Act of 1878 made license mandatory for the possession of firearms by Indians. The resonance of the 1857 Revolt was still fresh in the memories of the colonial state. However, in 1896, the Babu was granted a license to retain four out of the eight cannons in his possession and was requested to return the rest.³ Out of the four, one burst, one turned useless and the other two were slightly broken, hence not fit for use. After the death of his father, Babu Ram Krishna Singh Deo, Babu Nilmoni expressed his wish to continue with the tradition of firing during the Durga Puja festivities and retained the other four cannons which were in good condition.

The Raja of Bishnupur possessed four cannons in 1901. But as he refused to renew his license, the Government of India allowed Raja Sourindra Mohan Tagore of Calcutta to get hold of two out of the four cannons of Bishnupur. It was a sort of punishment for the Bishnupur Raja. Accordingly, the Bishnupur Raja’s persistent denial to return the cannons led to the cancellation of his license. An officer of the Government of Bengal expressed his annoyance thus—‘I suppose the Babu is piquant at losing two of his four cannons, and that a false sense of pride accounts for his acting in this foolish way. It could be a pity to hurt his feelings more than can be helpful.’⁴ He further added that if the Commissioner or the District Collector personally met the Babu, he might ‘change his mind and give up the license without feeling any loss of dignity.’

What led the Raja to act in such a ‘foolish way’? What was this ‘false sense of pride’ that caused the loss of his license? Why was the ‘loss of dignity’ more humiliating for him than the loss of license? Where did this ‘sense of pride’ and dignity come from? What was the cultural significance of cannons in Bishnupur? Were they as anonymous as they appear in the British archival records? Were they just a bundle of ‘firearms’ subject to prohibition under the 1878 Act? Or did they have a sacral role to play in the myths and memories of Bishnupur? How much were they instrumental in reviving the memories of a ‘glorious past’? What was their place in the history of Bishnupur?

Bishnupur, now known as the historical temple town of Bankura district, West Bengal, is famous for its beautiful terracotta temples built by generations of the Malla rulers. The fine terracotta and mortar sculpture on the temples, the Rash Mancha (a huge structure with a pointed tower and small towered cubicles where rash was celebrated during holi, see Figure 1.8), a number of huge tanks, the stone chariot and the local craft of Dashabatar tash (cards on which the pictures of the ten avatars are painted; it is said that the Mughal Emperors used to play in their court with the Bishnupur cards) gave Bishnupur a unique identity in the map of historical and archaeological sites of India. The extensive practice of Vaishnavism by the Malla rulers connected Bishnupur to Vrindavan and other Vaishnava centres of north India. The diverse religious traditions, the flourishing music gharana, the local craft of Baluchari sari and thriving trade and transport gave Bishnupur more of a cosmopolitan character and established it as one of the most famous regional kingdoms during the Mughal era.⁵

Cannons, for the people of Bishnupur, were symbols of power, authority and religious supremacy. Each canon had its specific name and a story around it. The Dalmadal, the Gorak, the Jhuljhara, the Charakbijli, the Baghmua and many more enriched the cannon family.⁶ Local inhabitants believe that centuries back the Bishnupur Raj possessed around 1,200 cannons. During the reign of Raja Gopal Singhadeb I (1712–1748), the number of cannons was as high as 2,200. The local artisans belonging to the Mridha community, who are said to have learned the art from Turk Muslim experts in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, continued to be the architects of cannons till the last one was made.⁷ The massive cannon known as the Dalmadal (that is displayed in Bishnupur and maintained by the Archaeological Survey of India) was probably manufactured during the reign of Raghunath Singha I, the son of Bir Hambir, in the seventeenth century (see Figures 1.3 and 1.4).⁸ From the Persian engravings on the cannon, it seems that an amount of 1 lakh 25,000 rupees was spent on its making. According to local legends, the name Dalmadal derived from Dalmardan, meaning the destruction of enemies. Another myth tells us that two cannons named Dal and Madal were joined together in order to create the giant one. But Priyabrata Dasgupta holds a different opinion. He thinks that Raja Raghunath Singha wished to pay respects to his father’s army general Dalamardan Malla.

Figure 1.1 Cover of a local pamphlet on the temples of Bishnupur, Bankura district, West Bengal. All images in this chapter were taken by the author during her trip to Bishnupur in September 2017.

Figure 1.2 Cover of a local book on the legends, tales and history of Bishnupur.

What was the role of this cannon in the ‘history’ of Bishnupur? Fakir Narayan Karmakar, in his Timeless Tales of Bishnupur (Bishnupurer Amar Kahini),⁹ details the mythical story. The Malla state was attacked in 1742 by the Maratha plunderer (locally known as bargis) Bhaskar Pandit and his troops. Raja Gopal Singha, a devout Vaishnava, left arms and ordered all his subjects to chant the name of Madanmohan, the patron god of Bishnupur. The air of Bishnupur echoed with the name of the god and the water was resonating with the holy chants. Amidst the tunes of the divine hymns, everybody was overwhelmed for a while by a deafening sound, the uproar of a cannon all of a sudden! What was its origin? Who fired the cannon? Karmakar carries on with the local story that a poor farmer ran towards the royal palace and told the Raja that he saw a young boy on a white horse. The boy was radiating a blue halo and was heavily sweating. Listening to this, the Raja and his courtiers ran to the Madanmohan temple and witnessed with surprise that the idol was sweating! What could one say after this? The news spread like fire that the young boy was Madanmohan himself. He lifted the Dalmadal cannon and fired it to save his devotees from the bargi attack! According to another legend, the god appeared in the dream of Bhaskar Pandit and instructed him to leave Bishnupur.

Figure 1.3 The Dalmadal Cannon, Bishnupur.

Figure 1.4 Signboard describing the popular history of the Dalmadal Cannon.

The mythical story described above finds a space in all ‘local histories’ of Bishnupur. Now, how do we define the genre of ‘local history’? What are its characteristics? Do local histories have a synchronic relationship with ‘national histories’? Or is it diachronic? Like the one mentioned, do all ‘local histories’ blur the borders between history, legend, myths and memories? Are local histories subject to fallacies of antiquarianism, as they are often blamed for, or do they serve to strengthen the discourse of metanarratives? Have local histories adopted the rules of modern history writing? What is the role of local histories in the construction of modern historiography in India? In the next section, I have summarised the history of ‘local histories’ in an international context and have placed the local histories of Bishnupur in a wider perspective.

Do memories have origins?

This research began under a project on ‘public history.’ The aim of the project was to trace historical writings that circulate at the margins of academic institutions. The focus was on tourist manuals, pamphlets, bazaar histories and the narrations of trained and untrained tour guides in various historical monuments. Based on the assumption that these narratives would often be drastically different from historical research produced at universities and formal academic circles, the project required the collection of pamphlets and leaflets and the recording of the narration of the tour guides. These pamphlets are often full of local myths, colourful love stories and shaded local memories that never secure any space in recognised academic histories (see Figures 1.1 and 1.2). Following the references given in the pamphlets and getting some information from the authors of these local histories, I began to trace back the origins of these memories. And that opened a Pandora’s box!

There is an obvious lack of formal academic work on Bishnupur. Kumkum Chatterjee in her article has mainly traced the roots of Vaishnavism there. She placed the history of Vaishnavism in Bishnupur in a broader context and noticed a confluence of Mughal culture and Vaishnava devotional traditions. She termed it the cosmopolitan culture of Bishnupur.¹⁰ But my concern was to unravel the local myths and memories. The history one gets in the pamphlets of Bishnupur is a history of a dynasty, the Malla dynasty that operated in and around Bishnupur for a thousand years. With its faded importance since the middle of the eighteenth century, Bishnupur collapsed into the category of the ‘local.’ The history of the Malla dynasty is now the ‘local’ history of Bishnupur. The pamphlets are talking about a ‘glorious past.’ This past is probably located in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries when the Malla Rajas were sharing a cordial relationship with the Mughal Emperors of Delhi and were often favoured by them. The pamphlets are mainly quoting from books written in the last three or four decades. Books by Fakir Narayan Karmakar and Manoranjan Chandra are the ones most frequently referred to.¹¹ I collected those books and got references to older texts from them, written either by Bengali authors or British administrators, district magistrates, etc. Gangagobinda Roy’s book preceded Karmakar’s and told the same stories, sometimes with small variations.¹² Sequentially as I moved backwards, I reached LSS O’Malley’s district gazetteers and finally the monographs by JZ Holwell written between 1765 and 1771 (Interesting Historical Events)¹³ and WW Hunter’s Diary of 1876 where he collected the narration of a Brahmin pandit of Bishnupur about the history of the place.¹⁴ Surprisingly, I found that the narrative of the pandit and that given by my tour guide were not much different. Almost the same legends about the Rajas, Ranis, gods and miracles by gods were circulating in Bishnupur for centuries. But how much of this history has been noticed by the so-called formal academia?

Histories of small places, lesser spaces, such as a particular dynasty ruling in a certain region, were common in India since ancient times. Genealogies of families and achievements of tribal chiefs or religious preachers are preserved with great care and serve as important sources for research. But the genre of ‘local history,’ featuring the characteristics of modern historical methods, began to appear in the middle of the nineteenth century. Works were produced both in the vernacular and in English. In Bengal, there was an upsurge in recording the local legends of dynasties, chronicles of heroism, mythical stories of miracles, romances between kings and queens and anecdotes involving common people.¹⁵ But surprisingly, this genre has received only marginal attention from historians to date. Ranajit Guha questioned the authenticity of the early nineteenth-century histories as they drew ‘indiscriminately on myths and unverified local legends and folklore.’¹⁶ The early colonial histories produced by British administrators, in his opinion, ‘had the material and colonial interests of the emerging colonial state.’¹⁷ He certified Ramram Basu’s Raja Pratapaditya Charitra (published in 1801) as the first historical work in Bengali that had a secular character, ‘In our culture the demolition of the absolute past of the Purana began with historicization rather than with novelization.’¹⁸ Guha identified some features of the newly invented ‘world-history’ of the early nineteenth century and showed that Basu’s work, though did not fully fit that genre, was the first instance of historical work in vernacular that could be placed at the margins of ‘world-history.’¹⁹

The point he missed is that a world of ‘local histories’ began to unfold in the mid-nineteenth century that combined Puranic legends with the new idea of chronology that arrived along with the Western methods of historiography. Both Ranajit Guha and Partha Chatterjee noticed a gradu...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of figures
• Contributors
• Acknowledgement
• Introduction
• PART I Textual representations, public discourses
• PART II Pedagogic practices, local articulations
• PART III Administrative imperatives, governmental manoeuvres
• Index