TABLE OF CONTENTS
List of Abbreviations
Introduction - Dipesh Chakrabarty
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226240244.003.0001
[Jadunath Sarkar, G. S. Sardesai, public and cloistered lives of history, Aligarh school, Mughal historiography, post modernism, Irfan Habib, Satish Chandra, M. Athar Ali, R. P. Tripathi]
The Introduction explains why and how this book came to be written and introduces Sarkar and Sardesai, the two main historians at the center of the narrative. It situates their historiographical endeavours and debates with their contemporaries on historical methods within some general propositions regarding the tensions that characterize what may be described as the two lives of the academic discipline of history: its regulated life in educational and research institutions (described here as the discipline’s “cloistered” life); and its relatively unregulated life in the world of “amateur” historians, here described as history’s “public life.” From a general discussion of the distinction proposed between the “public” and “cloistered” lives of all social-science disciplines, this section argues that history remains specifically vulnerable to the pressures emanating from its “public life,” and proposes that methodological debates in history should be viewed not only in their own abstract terms but also in the context of the tensions that exist between the two lives of the discipline, something that varies across time and geographical regions. This section also explains the colonial context in which Sarkar and other nationalist-minded Indian historians debated various versions of history in public, which shaped the academic discipline of history. (pages 1 - 37)
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1. The Popular Origins of Academic History - Dipesh Chakrabarty
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226240244.003.0002
[Jadunath Sarkar, William Irvine, C. H. Philips, nationalist histories, colonial administrative, histories, Indian Historical Records Commission, School of Asian and African Studies London]
This chapter recounts the history of the emergence of modern South Asian history in the hands of colonial officials and Indian nationalists, some of them actually mentored by colonial officials, in an overall context where the official policies of the British Indian government made it difficult for Indian scholars to have access to records in the custody of the government. Public enthusiasm for history, however, developed in India in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as nationalist sentiments gained momentum leading to the foundation of many amateur research organizations that focused on investigating various aspects of India’s pasts. In the absence of proper archives, research in history often focused on papers held privately by Indian families. The Government of India responded to the situation by establishing the Indian Historical Records Commission (1917), meant to advise the government about the preservation and selection of records in the government’s possession for publication to facilitate research. The chapter details how it was the public enthusiasm for history, and not any institutional progress, that provided the main context for debates between Indian historians about the nature of their discipline, its basic concepts, its institutions, and its practices. (pages 38 - 65)
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2. Debating Research - Dipesh Chakrabarty
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226240244.003.0003
[historical research, historical truth, historical fact, Kamshet research seminar, Jadunath Sarkar, G. S. Sardesai]
This chapter tracks the history of the practice of “historical research” in India. From the seventeenth-century origins of the word “research,” which assumed different meanings at different times long before it became a particular form of activity undertaken by specialized personnel in particular institutions, the chapter discusses the significance of historical writing to early modern Indian historians of India. It also discusses how European writers on India and Indian history used the word “research” in the eighteenth century, then documents how the word took on very different meanings for Indian researchers in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when Ranke’s name and ideas became popular. It mines the Sarkar-Sardesai correspondence to document debates between Indian historians about what constituted research, historical truth, and proper methods of investigation. It shows how, to Sarkar, Sardesai, and many others of their generation, research in history came to be associated with certain youthful ideals: hard physical labor in discovering sources; capacity to verify authenticity by comparing and contrasting diverse sources; the acquisition of necessary linguistic competence; and a spirit of disinterested judgment. But, above all, research came to mean the process of reconstructing the past on the basis of “unassailable facts.” (pages 66 - 102)
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3. Hunters and Gatherers of Historical Documents - Dipesh Chakrabarty
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226240244.003.0004
[envy, Bharat Itihas Sanshodhak Mandal, archives, public sphere, historical documents, Jadunath Sarkar, G. S. Sardesai, A. D. Parasnis, D. V. Potdar, V. K. Rajwade]
In the absence of access to official documents, Indian researchers turned their attention to securing access to private papers held by formerly ruling families. While this produced a frantic search for historical sources, especially in Bombay and Bengal, it also produced a culture of rivalry and envy among historians who sometimes tended to “hoard” such records as they found and thus block other scholars’ access to them. The chapter documents such rivalry between Sarkar and Sardesai on the one hand, and the Puna historians associated with the Bharat Itihas Sanshodhak Mandal (1910) on the other. The chapter also discusses, conceptually, the conditions under which old papers come to be treated as historical documents. It details three processes by which old papers acquire historical value: commodification (when such papers can be bought and sold); reification (by official archives and museums, for instance); and fetishization (when old papers are hoarded for their historical value). The chapter explains how these processes worked out in India. (pages 103 - 132)
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4. The Politics of “Unquestionable” Facts - Dipesh Chakrabarty
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226240244.003.0005
[Pratapaditya, Shivaji, Bharat Itihas Sanshodhak Mandal, facts as value, authenticity, sources, identity, histories]
The tension between the demands of “unquestionable” facts and popular histories appealing to various social identities and their pasts forms the core of this chapter. The tension is illustrated through debates between Sarkar and many Bengali chroniclers of the past over the figure of a sixteenth-century landlord, Pratapaditya, and between Sarkar and Sardesai and their rivals in Puna on particular points to do with the history and sources for the history of the Maratha king Shivaji (1627/30-1680). The chapter ends by documenting the persistence of this tension, even between the intellectual positions held by Sarkar and Sardesai, who were otherwise united in their battles against the Puna school. The chapter thus demonstrates the early beginning of histories relating to identity-movements in colonial India and their impact on public debates about historians’ methods. On the latter questions, Sarkar had to make concessions even to his comrade-in-arms, Sardesai. (pages 133 - 166)
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5. The Statesman as Hero: An Imperial Aesthetic for a National History - Dipesh Chakrabarty
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226240244.003.0006
[history, literature, John Dryden, Francois Bernier, Mughal rule, tragedy, Oliver Goldsmith, The Traveller, heroes, heroism]
Sarkar’s views on the Mughal rule as a “tragedy” are traced back in this chapter to the influence of the British-imperial themes of heroism and character, classical questions mediated here by the writings of Macaulay, Carlyle, and other authors. But Sarkar’s views were also rooted in the particular variety of his patriotism that determined his reading of these authors. This is demonstrated by a close analysis of Sarkar’s narrative of the fall of the Mughals and his use of Oliver Goldsmith’s poem, “The Traveller,” in the construction of this narrative. The reception of this poem in India in the nineteenth century was clearly influenced by the presence of the Empire. This chapter characterizes Sarkar’s views as deriving from a liberal-imperial imagination of India’s past and future. The closeness of Sarkar’s and Bernier’s respective discussions of the deficiencies of the Mughals also demonstrates the value that Sarkar put on the historical experience of absolutist monarchies of Europe in the story of European modernity. (pages 167 - 205)
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6. Between Providence and Character: The Historian Himself - Dipesh Chakrabarty
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226240244.003.0007
[character, providence, character, Muslim history, English history, merit, caste, historian’s character]
Sarkar’s emphasis on heroism and character as determining forces in history is demonstrably related to his nationalist faith, not uncommon in his compatriots, in the originally-Christian idea of history as the unfolding of (Divine) Providence. The chapter clarifies how Sarkar’s conception of “character” as a motive force in history and his use of it as an analytical category were fundamentally different from the treatment the idea of character received in the hands of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century historians of India, though it is also true that Sarkar sometimes used the voices of contemporary historians and observers to make his own points. The idea of providence, the chapter argues, is what saves Sarkar from the charge of anachronism; it was also (as the discussion of “merit” shows) part of his imperial-liberal patriotism. The chapter ends by demonstrating how Sarkar made “character” into a fundamental part of the historian’s method: only a historian with a heroic character was able tell the whole truth about the past. The chapter loops back to some of the themes discussed in the Introduction and in Chapters 2 and 5 and looks forward to the last chapter. (pages 206 - 240)
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7. Archiving the Nation: Sarkar’s Fall from Grace - Dipesh Chakrabarty
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226240244.003.0008
[Imperial Record Department, National Archives of India, Jadunath Sarkar, S. N. Sen, D. V. Potdar, Second World War, Partition of India 1947, partition, violence]
This chapter tells the story of the transformation of the Imperial Record Department of the colonial Government of India into the National Archives on the independence. But the story is also a continuation of the tale of rivalry between Sarkar and Sardesai and their younger Puna and Calcutta opponents on questions of access to and control of historical sources. This was a battle that Sarkar and Sardesai lost. The final section of the chapter charts Sarkar’s life in its last decade or so and his gradual eclipse in discussions of Mughal history after independence. The discussion is linked to previously-raised issues about “public” and “cloistered” lives of the discipline of history, thus connecting back to issues taken up in the Introduction. (pages 241 - 277)
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8. The Author and the Historian: A Conversational Reverie - Dipesh Chakrabarty
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226240244.003.0009
[Sir Jadunath Sarkar, providence, historical truth, empire, nationalism, patriotism, historical research, historians, generations, historiography]
An imaginary conversation is staged here between the author and the spirit of Sarkar, situated at what used to be Sir Jadunath Sarkar’s last residence in Calcutta (a building now belonging to the Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, where the author began his early years of apprenticeship as a historian). The imaginary conversation recapitulates the main arguments of the book. But it also builds on other scholars’ reminiscences of Sarkar, their memories of small anecdotes from Sarkar’s life, and their sense of the historian’s austere, self-denying, and yet affectionate scholarly persona. The conversation takes up the question of how historiography has changed since Sarkar and ends by making some points about remembering and forgetting historians of past times. Returning to notions from the Introduction, methodological debates in history have to be understood not only in terms of something abstract and global (like history-in-general), but also in the background of specific contexts in which particular histories are written. The discipline, when considered in specific contexts, often reflects tensions generated by the interaction between public/cloistered lives. The book thus contributes to the debates about history that have rocked history departments since Hayden White’s interventions in the 1970s and 80s. (pages 278 - 288)
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Acknowledgments
Index
