Creative Pasts : Historical Memory and Identity in Western India, 1700-1960

235 Pages·2007·1.528 MB·English

by  Prachi Deshpande

CREATIVE PASTS
Cultures of History
CULTURES OF HISTORY
Nicholas Dirks, Series Editor
The death of history, reported at the end of the twentieth century, was clearly
premature. It has become a hotly contested battleground in struggles over identity,
citizenship, and claims of recognition and rights. Each new national history proclaims
itself as ancient and universal, while the contingent character of its focus raises
questions about the universality and objectivity of any historical tradition. Globalization
and the American hegemony have created cultural, social, local, and national
backlashes. Cultures of History is a new series of books that investigates the forms,
understandings, genres, and histories of history, taking history as the primary text of
modern life and the foundational basis for state, society, and nation.
Shail Mayaram
Against History, Against State: Counterperspectives from the Margins
Tapati Guha-Thakurta
Monuments, Objects, Histories: Institutions of Art in Colonial and Postcolonial India
Charles Hirschkind
The Ethical Soundscape: Cassette Sermons and Islamic Counterpublics
Ahmad H. Sa’di and Lila Abu-Lughod, editors
Nakaba: Palestine, 1948, and the Claims of Memory
Laura Bear
Lines of the Nation: Indian Railway Workers, Bureaucracy, and the Intimate
Historical Self
CREATIVE PASTS
HISTORICAL MEMORY AND IDENTITY
IN WESTERN INDIA, 1700–1960
Prachi Deshpande
Columbia University Press
New York
Columbia University Press
Publishers Since 1893
New York Chichester, West Sussex
cup.columbia.edu
This edition is authorized by the original publisher, Permanent Black, for publication and
sale outside South Asia.
Original edition copyright © 2006 Permanent Black
This edition copyright © 2007 Columbia University Press
All rights reserved.
E-ISBN 978-0-231-51143-8
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Deshpande, Prachi.
Creative pasts : historical memory and identity in western India, 1700–1960
/ Prachi Deshpande.
p. cm.—(Cultures of history)
Based on the author’s thesis (Tufts University).
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13: 978-0-231-12486-7 (cloth : alk. paper)
ISBN-10: 0-231-12486-4 (cloth : alk. paper)
ISBN-13: 978-0-231-51143-8 (electronic)
ISBN-10: 0-231-51143-4 (electronic)
1. Maratha (Indic people)—Historiography. 2. Maharashtra (India)—Historiography.
3. Group identity—India—Maharashtra. I. Title. II. Series.
DS485.M349D47125 2007
954’.79025072—dc22
2006023551
A Columbia University Press E-book. CUP would be pleased to hear about your reading experience with this e-book
at [email protected].
References to Internet Web sites (URLs) were accurate at the time of writing. Neither the author nor Columbia
University Press is responsible for URLs that may have expired or changed since the manuscript was prepared.
To the memory of Chaitanya
Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1 Bakhar Historiography
2 Representing Maratha Power
3 History, Print, and Education
4 Historiography and Nationalism
5 Region, Nation, and Maratha History
6 Maratha History and Historical Fiction
7 Caste, Identity, and Difference
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Acknowledgments
It is going to be difficult to adequately thank everyone who has helped in the making
of this book. A dissertation fellowship from the history department at Tufts University,
where this project initially took shape as a doctoral dissertation, and a grant from the
Tarakhnath Das Foundation enabled research in India and England. I am grateful to
these institutions and also to Colorado State University and Rutgers University-
Newark for their generous intellectual, financial, and institutional support.
Sincere thanks are due to the staff of the following institutions and libraries in India:
the Maharashtra State Archives and the Marathi Grantha Sangrahalaya in Mumbai;
the Jayakar Library of the University of Pune; the Marathi Granthalaya, Shasakiya
Granthalaya, the Libraries of the Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics, Bharat
Itihasa Sanshodhak Mandal, and the Mahatma Jotirao Phule Samata Pratishthan, all
in Pune; the Centre for Shahu Studies and Shivaji University Library in Kolhapur; the
Gazetteers Library in Bhopal; the Maharashtra State Archives in Nagpur; the Nehru
Memorial Museum and Library, New Delhi; the libraries and staff of Tufts University
and the Widener Library at Harvard University in the Boston area; Colorado State
University, Fort Collins; Rutgers University-Newark; and the Research Division of the
New York Public Library. I also thank the Garde family for their hospitality and much-
needed help in accessing CP-Berar sources in Bhopal. Fieldwork was made possible
—and much more enjoyable—thanks to the hospitality and good humor of Gouri, Jay,
Swati, Arnab, Amitava, Jit, Tithi, and Richard in Bombay, Delhi, and London.
I would like to thank Sugata Bose, my dissertation advisor, for his unstinting
support over the years and for consistently urging me to think beyond my empirical
context toward wider South Asian and historiographical concerns, and Ayesha Jalal
for inspiring discussions on the importance of revisiting controversial, and often
uncomfortable, aspects of the past. C. A. Bayly gave very valuable advice in the early
stages, helping me widen the scope of my investigation from a study of political
symbolism. I am grateful to Doug Haynes for useful pointers about revising the
dissertation; his suggestions were critical in sharpening my focus on shifts in Marathi
historiographic practice under colonialism. Shahid Amin and Janaki Bakhle read the
entire manuscript and pointed out critical areas for improvement; their close reading
has made the book much more coherent than it would have otherwise been. I also
thank Shahid for many insightful discussions on historiography and much else. I am
deeply indebted to two people, without whose support the successful completion of
the dissertation and its evolution into a book would have been impossible. I have
benefited immeasurably from Sumit Guha’s deep knowledge of Maharashtra and its
history, readiness to share ideas, willingness to listen to long ramblings and give
precious feedback, and generously supplying several important sources at critical
moments. John Rogers has seen this project through from its early stages as a
proposal at Tufts to this final version. His careful and patient reading of many
successive drafts, insistence on my clarifying important concepts and arguments, and
incredible generosity, friendship, and encouragement have been invaluable. Thanks
are also due to several people who have given generously of their time and extensive
knowledge about Marathi history, politics, and sources over the years: Bhaskar L.
Bhole, G. P. Deshpande, Anne Feldhaus, Daniel Jasper, A. R. Kulkarni, Sanjay
Palshikar, Suhas Palshikar, Y. D. Phadke, Lee Schlesinger, and Rajendra Vora. Many
of the ideas and questions raised in this study took hesitant shape during my M.A.
years at the Centre for Historical Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. I
warmly thank Neeladri Bhattacharya, Indivar Kamtekar, Aditya Mukherjee, Mridula
Mukherjee, K. N. Panikkar, Shereen Ratnagar, Satish Saberwal, and Majid Siddiqui
for providing the tools and confidence that enabled me to sharpen my ideas and
questions, and above all, for opening my eyes to the joys of studying history.
I have also benefited greatly from conversations and feedback received during
various presentations at conferences and seminars. I thank Mahesh Rangarajan for
inviting me to present my work at Cornell University and for many stimulating
discussions about the contemporary importance of this study. I am grateful to
Sheldon Pollock and Dipesh Chakrabarty for instructive feedback and searching
questions following a seminar at the University of Chicago, which have been critical to
the clarification of some essential ideas contained in this study. Thanks are also due
to Anne Feldhaus and Raja Vora for inviting me to the Symposium on Regions and
Regional Consciousness in Pune, and to Sugata Bose for inviting me to the New
Perspectives Conference at Harvard University. I was very lucky to find an immensely
supportive atmosphere at the history department at Colorado State University. Many
of the arguments in this book took shape in its Faculty Research Seminar, and during
the two enjoyable years I spent there. I cannot thank enough all my colleagues and
friends there, especially Elizabeth Jones, Alison Smith, Jeff Snodgrass, Thaddeus
Sunseri, and Frank Towers, for their friendship and intellectual companionship. At
Rutgers University-Newark, I thank Susie Carruthers and Jon Cowans for being there
for me at a time when I needed it most; Jessica Roszkowiak, my research assistant,
for help with endless rounds of photocopying; and the incomparable Christina
Strasburger for her friendship and for cheerfully and tirelessly taking care of a million
administrative and computer requests. At UC-Berkeley, I would like to thank my
colleagues Vasudha Dalmia, Eugene Irshick, Tom Laqueur, and Peter Zinoman for
their sustained enthusiasm about the project.
The anonymous reviewers for Columbia University Press and Permanent Black lent
considerable support through their enthusiasm for the project, and their incisive
comments have helped greatly in tightening many arguments throughout the book,
especially in placing my arguments about western India in wider geographical and
theoretical contexts. Thanks are also due to Peter Dimock, Kabir Dandona, and
Leslie Kriesel at Columbia University Press. I am deeply grateful to Rukun Advani at
Permanent Black for being extremely patient and accommodating with my numerous
requests.
Of course, several colleagues and friends—Manan Ahmed, Senthil Babu, Aparna
Balachandran, Eric Beverley, Tithi Bhattacharya, Madhavi Bokil, Indrani Chatterjee,
Kim Frederick, Anjali Gopalakrishnan, Gouri Jaychandran, Rajeev Kinra, Himadeep
Muppidi, Christian Novetzke, Mridu Rai, Modhumita Roy, Pallavi Rastogi, Ramya
Sreenivasan, Jayeeta Sharma, Prithvi Datta Chandra Shobhi, Latha Varadarajan, and
Chitralekha Zutshi—have lent more than they can imagine to the ideas in this work
through long conversations and often heated debates about politics, social theory,
and much else. I am especially grateful to Eric Beverley for reading the chapters very
closely and urging me to clarify my thoughts and sharpen my arguments. I cherish the
memory of Arvind N. Das, whose friendship and guidance was crucial to this project in
its early years. It saddens me greatly that he is not here today to see it completed.
Finally, I owe thanks to my family for being such a rock of support in all my crazy
endeavors. Prama and Vishwamber have helped in innumerable ways and readily
borne complicated requests from across the seas. My in-laws, Benu and Ujjwal
Banerjee, have also been very supportive of my work and interests. My parents,
Bharati and Hanumant Deshpande, have displayed unconditional support, encouraged
me to think critically and independently about society and politics, and had the faith
and courage to simply let me go where my interests take me. To Priyodorshi
Banerjee, for being the best combination of companion, critic, and cheerleader in life
and work, my dearest thanks.