Ijtihad '17

IJTIHAD

Annual Academic Journal
Volume 4, 2017

Department of History

Ijtihad is the annual academic journal of the Department of History, Lady Shri Ram
College for Women. Besides its religious association, “Ijtihad” means the “independent
interpretation of legal sources.” True to its name, the journal seeks to reflect this spirit of
an unhindered, ceaseless quest for the many contemplations of the “historical truth”.
Started in 2014, the compilation invites undergraduate student research papers covering
various historical themes for publication; with an aim to nurture historical imagination
among young scholars.

LADY SHRI RAM COLLEGE FOR WOMEN

Lajpat Nagar IV, New Delhi- 110024

HISTORY UNION (2016 – 2017)
Ayushi Jain, President.
Varenya Pratap Singh, Secretary.
Sonal Sharma, Treasurer.

Published in New Delhi by
A-One Digital Prints

104, Eros Appt. 56, Nehru Place, New Delhi-110019
© A-One Digital Prints, 2017.

The moral rights of the contributing authors have been asserted.
No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
without prior permission in writing of the Department of History, Lady Shri Ram College for

Women, New Delhi.

ADVISORY BOARD EDITORIAL BOARD

Dr Vasudha Pande Editors in chief
Dr Prabha Rani Srishti Sood
Dr Smita Sahgal Sahitya Poonacha

Sub Editors
Mayurpankhi Choudhury
Varenya Pratap Singh
Shreya Dua
Aditi Kumar
Tarini Sudhakar

Cover Art @Sreenidhi

FROM THE EDITORS’ DESK

The fourth edition of Ijtihad has strived to embody the spirit of the student in its every leaf. We
journeyed into the past, shaking loose rigid positions with a challenge posed by fresh perspectives.
It presents the efforts of some exceptionally talented undergraduates who pursued their own
chains of enquiry. As you, dear reader, turn these pages, you will find a host of ideas that not only
push the intellectual lid but possess the enthusiasm to topple the entire intellectual box. It is this
verve to question that Ijtihad proudly associates with. As a journal, it bears no agenda but to hold
a mike to voices waiting to be heard, outside the classroom, in the corridors and definitely in the
students’ minds.

In the light of the recent political developments it has become imperative that we keep the spirit
of questioning alive. The department allowed the student body this chance through organising a
host of events, including a ‘Research Methodology’ workshop which helped young scholars fine-
tune their historical understanding. The editorial board is proud to commend Ms Krishna
Shekhawat on her paper presented at the annual paper presentation, ‘Fault Lines and Flawed
Systems’ before an esteemed panel to high praise. The event received entries from students from
across colleges in India to work with oral sources and tease out narratives of dissent from their
midst. ‘Dissent’ was indeed a buzzword in the academic life of the department, as the theme of
the exciting annual academic fest, ‘Maazi-o-Mustaqbil.’ The breadth of questions posited in this
issue not only spill over to different time periods and themes, but also into another language. We
are delighted to publish in Hindi for the first time, and hope to encourage more students to
further the academic frontier into more languages.

The board will be failing in its duty if it fails to acknowledge the whole-hearted support extended
to it by its staff advisors. They always made themselves available and have proved to be the main
mast of this ship. We also extend our gratitude to the Department Union who gave flight to all
our endeavours, and contributed in cultivating a culture of discussion among the students. We
would like to appreciate the efforts of all those who submitted their entries to Ijtihad’17 for
making it a highly competitive selection process. But this effort would have been incomplete
without the dedication shown by the members of the editorial board. And readers, thank you for
picking up this copy of Ijtihad to peruse.

May we always live in interesting times!

Editors-in-chief,
Sahitya Poonacha
Srishti Sood

CONTENTS

1 इतिहास-लेखन और अस्मििा वििर्श 1
-Deepa Ahirwar

2 Prison and Punishment 4
-Surbhi Vatsa

The Religious Policy of Genghis Khan and the Mongols (1206-1260 12
3 C.E.)

-Shikha Dwivedi

4 1984: Subverting the ‘Truth’ of the Indian Orwellian Year 22
-Krishna Shekhawat

5 Democracy and Dissent at Jantar Mantar 29
- Srishti Sood

The Gorkhas: A Study on the Ethnographic and Historical Identity of

6 the Nepali Communities of Nepal and Darjeeling 36

-Irandati Pal

Power and Piety: The Unheard Voices 45
7 (The Sanskrit Inscriptions and Coins of Delhi Sultanate)

-Madhav Nayar and K.G. Divya

Index 54

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इतिहास-लेखन और अस्मििा वििर्श

- दीपा अटहरिार

अस्मििा वििर्श के इस दौर िें इतिहास शलए भी इतिहास का पुनलेखन आिटयक है|
लेखन के सािने कई चनु ौतियाँा हैं| िसै े भी िुख्यधारा का इतिहास कभी जन
औपतनिेशर्क काल िंे शलखे गए इतिहास के साधारण का इतिहास था ही नहीं| िह या िो
िथ्यों और भारि के प्रति ब्रिटिर् राज के घिना प्रधान रहा है या किर व्यस्र्कि प्रधान|

द्रस्टिकोण पर लगािार सदं ेह ककया जािा आज के संदभश िें जब एक िरफ़ जातियों के
रहा| इसशलए आज़ादी के बाद से ही पनु ः रूप मिणयश ुग की खोज हो रही है, िहीं दसू री ओर
से इतिहास लेखन के प्रयास ककए गए| िगर उनकी िििश ान दयनीय हालि के शलए भी
इस पर अब सिाल खड़े ककए जाने लगे, िे स्ज़म्िदे ारी िय की जा रही है| इतिहास
यह कक स्जस प्रकार अगं ्रेज़ों ने हिारा लेखन के शलए के िल सरकारी दमिािेज़ों पर
औपतनिेशर्क इतिहास शलखा,राटरिाटदयों ने तनभरश रहने िंे भी सिमया है| इन दमिािेज़ों
मिणयश ुग खोजा, िार्कसिश ादी इतिहासकारों ने का अपना अलग नज़ररया है और सदं ेह है
िगश संघर्श से इतिहास की व्याख्या की, कक इन िंे से ककिना सच तनकाला जा
सबाल्िनश इतिहास दृस्टि ने ज़िीनी इतिहास सकिा है| उदाहरण के शलए िििश ान काल के
शलखने की कोशर्र् की नककले प है ककरोआ बदलिे िानदंडों पर दशलिों, आटदिाशसयों,
िटहलाओं, अल्पसंख्यकों का इतिहास शलखने
इन सबके बािजूद दशलि सिुदाय का के शलए सबूि नदारद हैंही ”िौन“ िब यह !
इतिहास रह गया,आटदिासी सिुदाय का सबसे बड़ा सबिू है|
इतिहास उजागर नहीं हो पाया या किर
इतिहास िें उन्हंे तनशित्त िात्र सिझ शलया

गया| आधतु नक भारि का सामं कृ तिक इतिहास

आज के सिय िंे हर सिाज अपना इतिहास सािान्यिः राटरीय आंदोलनों, प्रभािार्ाली
खोजिा है और अस्मििा सघं र्श के इस युग व्यस्र्कित्िों और राजनीति िंे िहत्ि रखने
िंे उसका राजनीतिक िहत्ि भी है| हि इससे िाली चीज़ों के रूप िंे शलखा गया है|
इनकार नहीं कर सकिे कक मििन्त्रिा के आधतु नक भारि के इतिहास िंे स्जिनी बािों
शलए राटरीय इतिहास रचने की ज़रूरि पड़ी| को सिाटहि ककया गया है, उिनी ही बािों
परन्िु उसी प्रकार अब अस्मििा सघं र्श के को छोड़ भी टदया गया है| िखु ्यधारा की
राजनीति से हिकर टहसं ा का रामिा

अस्ख्ियार करने या काँाग्रेस की विचारधारा

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को चनु ौिी देने िाली राजनीतिक गतिविधधयों विभाजनकारी करार टदया गया| िशिलनाडु

को असंगि करार टदया गया| 'दे दी हिें का गरै िाह्िण आदं ोलन हो या सभी-

आज़ादी ब्रबना खड़ग ब्रबना ढाल,साबरििी के टहन्दओु ं का प्रतितनधधत्ि करने के काागँ ्रेस के

संि िनू े कर टदया किाल' के प्रतििान िें दािे पर अबं डे कर का उठाया गया सिाल हो,

िोपला विद्रोह और चौरा-का चौरी 1920 एकिाबद्ध भारि बनाने के नाि पर इस

कांड, सभु ार् चंद्र बोस की गतिविधधयों को सिाल को हिेर्ा से नकारा गया है| आखखर

नज़रअदं ाज़ कर टदया गया है| डॉ भीिराि कु छ भारिीय अछू ि कै से रह गए?

अबं डे कर, िुहम्िद अली स्जन्नाह जसै े निे ा

जो काँगा ्रेस के मिप्रतितनधधत्ि का विरोध - आज़ादी के पटचाि, दशलिों की उपके ्षा,

करिे थे, उन्हें उनकी विचारधाराओं के कारण अल्पसखं ्यकों की असुरक्षा, इत्याटद के कारण

इतिहास की पाठ्य पमु िकों िंे जगह नहीं दी उनकी अस्मििा कु चली गई एिं उनका

गई| अगर कहीं उनकी चचाश हुई भी िो शसफ़श उल्लेख नहीं हो पाया| िलू तनिासी के साथ
असिल विरोधधयों के रूप िंे| इससे भी अस्मििा वििर्श दशलि-, मत्री, अल्पसंख्यक

िहत्िपणू श यह है कक स्जन क्षेत्रों िंे काँगा ्रेस जैसे वििर्श हिारे चारों िरि िै ले हैं| कु छ

का प्रभाि कि था उन क्षेत्रों के इतिहास को सत्तासीन हंै िो कु छ आन्दोलनरितनभयश ा !,

इतिहास की पाठ्य पुमिकों िंे ब्रबल्कु ल जगह दाशिनी, इरोि र्शिलश ा, रोटहथ ििे लु ा

नहीं दी गई, या किर दी गई िो नाि िात्र अस्मििा वििर्श के नए प्रिीक हैं|

ही| इस िरह पूिोत्तर या दक्षक्षण भारि के
राज्यों और से 500ज़्यादा रजिाड़ों को यह अदभुि है कक हर न्यायपणू श अस्मििा के

इतिहास की िुख्यधारा से हिा टदया गया है| सिाल को दरककनार करने के शलए उसका
एक प्रतिपक्ष गढ़ शलया जािा है| उदहारण

यूँा िो भारि िें राटरीय मिाधीनिा आंदोलन हेिु मत्री के विरुद्ध पुरुर्, दशलि के विरुद्ध
के सिय से ही अकाली आंदोलन, िसु ्मलि सिण,श भार्ा के सिाल पर अगाँ ्रेजी बनाि
लीग और अबं डे कर के दशलि आंदोलन िंे टहन्दी अथिा अन्य क्षते ्रीय भार्ाएं बनाकर

अस्मििा वििर्श को देखा जा सकिा है| उसकी धार कंु द कर दी जािी है|

राटरिादी लेखन िंे िहृ द राजनीतिक एकिा हाल के इतिहास लेखन िंे आए बदलाि ने
बनाने पर ज़ोर टदया गया है| इनिंे भारि क्षेत्रों और िहाँा के लोगों के सहायक इतिहास
और भारिीयिा पर ज़ोर टदया गया है| को प्रिखु िा प्रदान की है| आज हि
उदाहरण के िौर पर जाति भेद का सिाल इतिहास,राजनीति और इन साधारण लोगों के
उठाने िाले आदं ोलनों ि विचारधाराओं को

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प्रति बेहिर सिझ विकशसि कर रहे हैं जो
िामिि िंे इतिहास बनािे हंै| ज़रूरी है कक
हि अपने पूिश िचै ाररक वििलिा की पड़िाल
करें और उपेक्षक्षि जनसिूहों और उनकी
अस्मििाओं को इतिहास िंे और िििश ान िंे
भी न्यायोधचि सम्िान दें| र्ायद यहीं से
कोई नयी िैचाररकी प्राप्ि हो जो हिें
बहे िर, न्यायपूणश और िानिीय सिाज बनाने
िें िदद करे|

ग्रन्थ सचू ी

ठाकु र, िणीन्द्र नाथ. "इतिहास लेखन के
खिरे ."
जनसत्ता , अर्किबू र रवििार , 2016 : 7 .

िल्ल, राजरे ्. "अस्मििा वििर्श और
सिकालीन िैचाररकी." जनसत्ता , जनिरी
21,2017:7.

िेनन, टदलीप एि. आधुतनक भारि का
सांमकृ तिक इतिहास . नई टदल्ली : ओररयंि
ब्लकै मिान प्राइििे शलशििेड , 2010 .

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Prison and Punishment

By Surbhi Vatsa

Abstract
“Not so very long ago, the earth numbered two thousand million inhabitants: five hundred
million men, and one thousand five hundred million natives. The former had the Word; the
others had the use of it...In the colonies the truth stood naked, but the citizens of the mother
country preferred it with clothes on.”- Jean-Paul Sartre, from the preface to The Wretched

of the Earth
If one were to believe Foucault, power is not property; it is a relationship, a set of dynamics
constantly at work in ways that can never be unilateral. It is the function of knowledge and
communication systems- the play of signs defines the anchorages of power.1 Such binary
relations of knowledge and power are to be seen across history. Even though historical
narratives and discourses come with an almost detached understanding of events, the micro-
narratives are never devoid of emotional histories. And even if one were to strip narratives of
their emotional and moral responsibility, history is condemned to carry the burden of
explanations. This paper makes an attempt to draw an understanding of one such historical
relationship. This said relationship is itself is a conglomerate of a number of micro-narratives
– the relationship of the coloniser in India with the colonised, within the penal system of
colonial India, specifically so in the Cellular Jail of the Andaman islands.

It is not a matter of great surprise that public display and then the prisoners who
while Foucault makes a case for had been left alive were made to bury
punishment’s spectacle being slowly those bodies.2 An account comes from
replaced by a privatisation of the entire India in 1857 by an Englishman, C. J.
affair, the shift of the aim of punishment Griffiths-

from example and revenge to thought and “A considerable crowd of
justice, a similar shift in ethos is not seen in onlookers watched from the
the colonies of Western powers for the fringes…Griffiths wrote that the
longest time. Even at the beginning of the guns had no backboards and so the
nineteenth century, in the colony of artillerymen were splattered with
Trinidad, ‘slaves’ were being mutilated, flesh and blood. There was, he
branded, their ears being cut off and the added, a ‘sickening, pervasive
they were being deported from the island.1 smell’. Once the men were dead,
In 1865 in Jamaica, after the Morant Bay as was usual after military
rebellion, similar punishments were meted executions, the band struck up and
out to the prisoners- some were shot or

hanged and their bodies left for overnight

1 Clare Anderson, Execution and its Aftermath in 2 Ibid., 4.
the Nineteenth-Century British Empire, University
of Leicester, 2015.

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the witnesses were marched back the gibbet or mutilation in general was a
to the barracks.”3 similar device since most of the South
Asian societies believed that a mutilated
The racial divide between the two body would deprive their souls of all
chances of salvation. Hence, the use of
landmasses and the two sets of people, such methods acted as better deterrent
than something like hanging or
seemingly scientific back then, caused this imprisonment would have had on the
colonised.
differentiation – a racial version of
The colonised, for the coloniser, for a long
Foucault’s ‘individualisation’ of time came under a category very close to
Foucault’s ‘madman’ who was pitted
punishment in order to make it more against the civilized white man, and hence
he got the methods of retribution that he
economic and economical. However, the was supposed to have deserved. Also, if
Foucault’s thesis on the creation of the
implications of this ‘individualization’ to modern soul in the Western setting is to be
applied which finally led to the creation of
maximize the effects of punishment are not the modern prison system to this context,
the existence of the colonised’s ‘soul’ and
of one kind alone. Foucault maintains that his need for its salvation also added to the
ideological economy of the British who
as per the rule of optimal specification in could easily bank on the already existing
‘soul’ of the native in which only needed to
modern penal systems, the law looks not be threatened and not the British’s energies
for reform in order to discipline the native.
only at the kind of crime and its causal Such a “technique of social scientific
discourses of the colonial state was central
factors and surroundings but it optimizes to the maintenance of law and order in
British India. This new field in colonial
the punishment as per the psyche and India promoted a scientific construction of
criminality, where a section of colonised
nature of the criminal himself.4 The were identified and constructed as
‘criminals’ in the colony through the
punishment, as Anderson points out, and

so does Satadru Sen to a certain extent, was

attuned to the traditions and requirements

of these colonies. For, the example of

transportation in India as a form of

punishment was more dreaded than life

imprisonment. Since due to caste norms

that were observed in India whereby

travelling afar via oceanic waters for an

upper caste Hindu was a profane act,

historians believe that the British exploited

such an arrangement as it was supposed to

be a greater deterrent than capital

punishment itself.5 The use of cannons or

3 C.J. Griffiths (1910) A Narrative Of The Siege Of
Delhi With An Account Of The Mutiny At
Ferozepore In 1857 (London: John Murray), pp.42-
50 (quotes 43, 46, 48), cited in Ibid., 5.
4 Foucault, Michel, “Generalized Punishment”,
Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, 99.
5 Ibid.

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conflation of law, of crime and of new militate against the growth of
racial sciences”. 6 consciousness and solidarity of the
participants.”8

It must also be kept in mind, as discussed What needs to be noticed here, in all the
earlier about the exercise of power, such chaos of the different ways in which the
methods of punishment did not merely act native was being punished and the
as deterrents but these were exercises of different strands of knowledge that were
power which were bound to produce a driving them and emanating out of them, is
certain kind of knowledge- while they that while in Europe individualization of
drew themselves from the ideas of the crimes and codification of criminality was
racial inferiority of the native, they also being based on the modern soul that
reinforced the same ideas. Foucault talks about- the soul that could be
reformed, in colonies like India race was
Akin to Foucault’s code-individualization the leitmotif of all penal developments –
race, which was a construct based not on
and taxonomy of species according to an territorial, cultural or linguistic differences,
but on the differences of bodily
uninterrupted gradation so that each constitution of the native. The native or
the racially inferior was supposed to be so
punishable offence and each particular based on biological differences9, in order to
understand which a number of
offence could come under the provisions of experiments were performed on the
native’s body, the crudest examples of
general law without the slightest risk of which come from the Andaman Islands10
which this paper shall soon discuss about.
any arbitrary action7, such a codification of The centrality of the native’s body as the
experimental laboratory of the coloniser
criminality and hence, in colonial India, and his penal system in India shall
continue to be even with the advent of the
the classification of people into typologies colonial prison.

such as ‘docile Hindus’, ‘fanatic Muslims’,

‘effeminate Bengali’, unreliable nomadic

sanyasis, etc. was an

ideologically/seemingly scientifically

grounded ethnological cellularisation of

the native society which would reflect in

the British policies right till the end and

shall persist further in common thought.

The classifications would last- they still do.

It was this “repression through formal

rationality,” which would serve to, 8 Santhosh Abraham, “Colonialism and the Making
of Criminal Categories in British India”, 156.
“depoliticize collective violence and 9David Arnold, “The Colonial Prison: Power,
Knowledge and Penology in Nineteenth-Century
6 Santhosh Abraham, “Colonialism and the Making India”, Subaltern Studies VIII, OUP, 1994, 170.
of Criminal Categories in British India”, NALSAR 10 Satadru Sen, Disciplined Natives: Race, Freedom
Law Review, Vol. 6, No. 1, 151. and Confinement in Colonial India, Primus Books,
7 Ibid., Foucault, M., 99. 2012.

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“One of the few areas where the and an industry.12 David Arnold cites the
colonial state had relatively 1838 Prison Discipline Committee and the
unobstructed access to the body of 1877 Indian Jail Conference both of which
its subjects... Apart from the alarm made it very clear that reformation was
generated by outbreaks of prison only secondary to deterrence in India and
violence and indiscipline, it was that while the idea of reforming prisoners
the high level of sickness and might have held some validity in the West,
mortality-in jails that impelled in India it did not- that the British as an
official inquiry and reform. alien race were not equipped with the
Although no medical men were proper knowledge to be able to intervene
included in the 1838 Prison in the moral fabric of the prisoners13. This
Discipline Committee, by the adds another possible factor to the
1860s the prison was being continued centrality of the criminal’s body
actively incorporated into the in India despite the coming up of prisons.
expanding realm of state medicine. Now that the modern soul was being seen
In the absence of a professional in the native’s body too, as David Arnold
prison service, civil surgeons were puts it, it was beyond the reach of the
being appointed to run district and British.14
central jails…By the end of the
century medical administration ***
had come to be seen as 'the most The Andaman and Nicobar group of Islands
important of all matters affecting have had quite an interesting history of
jail management'.”11 occupation and abandonment and
reoccupation. An almost separate and self-
The above extract is not an exception or a sustained ecological unit from the Indian
rarity in the function that prisoners in mainland, these islands were chanced upon
India served for the British. The native by the hydrographer John Ritchie in 1771
body, for the coloniser in India, till the end who was conducting a survey of the
of the 19th century remained a body – an Ganges delta and the Bay of Bengal. Of
experimental ground to understand racial Ritchie’s interaction with the inhabitants
differences and for medical testing. The of the Islands, Satadru Sen writes-
reformatory role of the prison, as David
Arnold states in his cited essay, weighed “Ritchie’s satisfied exclamation
much lesser against that of the same as mark confirmed a new trope of
punishment and deterrent and at the same colonialism, in which the
time the space functioned as a laboratory wonderment of the civilized
explorer was overshadowed by

11 David Arnold, “The Colonial Prison: Power, 12 Ibid.
Knowledge and Penology in Nineteenth-Century 13 Ibid., 175-176.
India”, 179. 14 Ibid., 175.

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that of the captured primitive, and group of Islands were difficult to access,
the latter wonder- the awe of the inhabited by “savages” and abound in thick
savage confronted by civilization- jungles which these settlers had not even
became a prized colonial trophy.”15 tried to penetrate yet- an uncertain land.
Such an uncertain land was more
Unlike Ritchie, his successor, Archibald conducive to have a penal colony than to
Blair did not merely land on the Andaman have Bazars and vegetable markets.
Islands but also founded a settlement there
in 1789. The colony that he founded there In 1793, the Andamans were projected as
aboard the Viper and the Ranger never got an alternative to Hawaii and Australia
off the beach- Port Cornwallis, the though the idea was soon dropped and
settlement, had to be evacuated in 1796 for modified to create a penal settlement for
reasons, apparently, of adverse climatic Indian convicts.18 However, due to the
conditions and affected health of the difficult climate and diseases that the
people. However, when one goes through colonial settlers were not prepared for, the
the writings of Blair on the Islands, one islands had to be abandoned by 1796.
cannot but see the ambitions of the These Islands would be re-entered by the
coloniser in him already “articulating a same people for the same purpose in the
qualified fantasy of settler-colonialism, wake of 1857 and a surge in the number of
with nature and race as qualifiers.”16 people who would need confinement as
punishment. The pre 1857 interaction of
“I shall...establish a small the “savages” of the Andamans with the
Bazar...which will intirely remove civilized Whites had been merely a
the necessity of supplying them romantic story book one- this interaction
with...Provision and Tobacco...I would become a more ‘scientific’ one with
shall also endeavour to settle some the resettlement of the area in 1858 by the
Fishermen and Gardeners to bring British who would now go back armed
Fish and Vegitables to market, with their eagerness to know the body of
which will...promote a spirit of the racially inferior and the scientific
industry.”17 knowledge and paraphernalia for doing the
same. First the body of the Island itself and
However fancy Blair’s plans, their now that of its inhabitants was to become
execution was not as smooth or lasting as the new laboratory of the British. These
he might have liked it to be. The Andaman new natives of the Island and the natives of
the mainland who were to be deported
15 Satadru Sen, “On the Beach in the Andaman under the sentence of kalapani to the most
Islands: Post-Mortem of a Failed Colony”, formidable jail in Indian territory- the
Disciplined Natives: Race, Freedom and
Confinement in Colonial India, Primus Books, 275. 18 Ibid., 282.
16 Ibid,. 278.
17 Blair to Cornwallis, 8 September 1790, HD 1790-
X, cited in Ibid. 279.

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Cellular Jail, would both be side-by-side Sen says that the explicit intention of
treated as bodies of knowledge systems and performing these experiments on the
nothing more. inhabitants was to figure out a way to
communicate with them in order to come
*** to a political understanding of territoriality
The initial interactions between the settlers and sovereignty of the settlers with them
in post-1857 scene on the Andaman Islands but as Sen mentions, that was only the
with the ‘aboriginal’ Andamanese were “explicit” reason. Such behaviour of the
mostly hostile ones due to issues of British very easily falls in line with their
territoriality. However, as Satadru Sen says, habits of colonization, “civilization” and
the “turning point” came in 1863 when the deployment of these civilized, controlled
British placed two tribal men named populations in their service. Drawn from
Jumbo and Snowball by them in an the Reports of the Superintendent of the
enclosure, on the Ross Island, in order to Andaman Islands (RSAI), 1867-94, the
“bait” other Andamannese, for “friendly excerpts about the Andamanese quoted by
intercourse”.19 Soon the British shifted Sen are quite clear in their intentions for
their focus from the adults on to the tribal trying to understand the tribal populace of
children in order to understand the the Andamans – what Sen calls, “the
“savage”. In 1867 the British authorities governmentality of the good subaltern.”22
from Andaman sent two young tribal boys The entire ethnological project was aimed
to an orphanage in Calcutta for their at amassing racial knowledge which would
“educational training” and “public then be employed to discipline these
exhibition”20. However, neither of the two subjects more effectively. Portman,
boys could survive for long. The British dedicated as he was deeply to this project,
also opened an “orphanage” on the would sniff the bodies of the tribal children
Andaman Islands and also a nursery and to record their smells and he even
“procured” children from their parents and concluded that they could not endure,
put them into these orphanages in order to generally, more than twenty-four hours of
study them. In 1879, M. V. Portman sleeplessness23 post his experiments on
established the Home where they still kept them– the kind of knowledge that would
children but did not separate them from help control, not communication.
the adults. Most of the children who were
born in the Home died in infancy.21

19 Satadru Sen, “The Orphaned Colony”, Disciplined While on the one hand this project of
Natives: Race, Freedom and Confinement in understanding savagery of the body and
Colonial India, Primus Books, 147-148. thence trying to civilize it and soon also
20 M. V. Portman, A History of Our Relations with
the Andamanese, cited in Satadru Sen, “The 22 Ibid., 150.
Orphaned Colony”, 148. 23 Ibid., 151.
21 Ibid.

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discipline the mind of the “savage” was number of lives it took, was a failed project
going on, on the other hand a similar of disciplining the native.
process was at work in the Cellular Jail on
the same group of Islands. And at the same ***
time, the spatial body of the Islands were The modalities of measures of disciplining
being carved to the best use of the British and punishment under the colonial rule in
too. India are certainly not easy to
comprehend- they were expressions of a
The Cellular Jail of Port Blair turned out to complex relationship between very
be in full synchronization with the British different ideas, perspectives and
interaction with the Island- one of taming experiences. However, despite the fact that
bodies and coalescing information for the British punitive measures and penal
better taming of bodies, just as the other setup were peculiar for the native who was
prisons in India functioned. What made also supposed to be a peculiar creature, the
the Cellular Jail stand out were its location peculiarity was not merely a function of
and the inaccessibility of its inmates to the local and cultural adjustments. It is not
world on the mainland. While token very difficult to answer as to why and how
reformation was attempted in certain such a discrepancy of ethics and penal
prisons in mainland India, the Cellular Jail, systems was and could have prevailed
away from the direct gaze of the people, between the colony and the metropole –
did not even wear that facade ever. A the reason is as simple as the
sentence to Cellular jail- even after the differentiation of the nomenclature itself;
stigma of kalapani was long gone from the reason was that Jamaica, Burma, India,
popular concern- was, perhaps, the most Trinidad, etc. were colonies and the
rigorous sentence one could get under the metropole was the metropole.
British. From accounts of Savarkar of how
the inmates had to from early in the Bibliography
morning to eight or nine in the evening
work on the “kolu” or the Oil mill- men Abraham, Santhosh, “Colonialism and the
worked the mill instead of oxen to work on Making of Criminal Categories in British
the mill despite illness, etc., stories and India”, NALSAR Law Review, Vol. 6, No. 1,
legends of the cruelties of Mr. Barry, the 2011.
superintendent at Cellular Jail, and of the
numerous inmates who died due to the Anderson, Clare, “Execution and its
same are rife in public repertoire and Aftermath in the Nineteenth-Century
memory too. However, Cellular Jail, British Empire”, A Global History of
despite the fear its name might have struck Execution and the Criminal Corpse,
in the hearts of convicts or despite the Palgrave Historical Studies, 2015, pp. 170-
198.

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Anderson, Clare, ‘The Politics of Convict Rao, Anupama, “Problems of Violence,
Space: Indian Penal Settlements in States of Terror: Torture in Colonial India”,
Southeast Asia, the Indian Ocean and the Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 36,
Andaman Islands’ No. 43 (Oct. 27 - Nov. 2, 2001), pp. 4125-
4133.
Anderson, Clare, “Convicts and Coolies:
Rethinking Indentured Labour in the Reports on British Prison Camps in Burma
Nineteenth Century”, Slavery & Abolition, and India, Visited by the International Red
30:1, 93-109, 2009. Cross Committee Geneva, T Fisher Unwin
Ltd., London: Adelphi Terrace, 1917
Arnold, David, “The Colonial Prison:
Power, Knowledge and Penology in Savarkar, V D, My Transportation for Life:
Nineteenth-Century India”, Subaltern Original Writings of Veer Savarkar
Studies VIII, OUP, 1994. http://www.savarkarsmarak.com/activityi
mages/My%20Transportation%20to%20Lif
Bentham, Jeremy, “Panopticon; or the e.pdf
inspection-house”, The Panopticon
Writings. Ed. Miran Bozovic, London: Sen, Satadru, Disciplined Natives: Race,
Verso, 1995. Freedom and Confinement in Colonial
http://cartome.org/panopticon2.htm India, Primus Books, 2012

Fanon, Frantz, The Wretched of the Earth, Srivastava, Pramod Kumar, “Resistance
Penguin Books, 2001. and repression in India: the hunger strike
at the Andaman cellular jail in 1933”,
Foucault, Michel, “Panopticism”, Crime, History & Societies, Vol. 7, No. 2,
Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the 2003
Prison, translated by Alan Sheridan, Stoler, Ann L, Race and the Education of
Vintage Books Desire, Duke University Press, 1995
Government of India, Ministry of Law, The
Prisons Act, 1894 (Act IX Of 1894) (As Tulloch, John, “Normalising the
Modified upto The 1st January, 1957). Unthinkable”, Ethical Space: The
International Journal of Communication
R.V.R. Murthy, “Cellular Jail: A Century of Ethics, Vol 2 No 4 2005.
Sacrifices”, The Indian Journal of Political
Science, Vol. 67, No. 4, Oct.- Dec., 2006,
pp. 879-888

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The Religious Policy of Genghis Khan
and the Mongols
(1206-1260 C.E.)

By Shikha Dwivedi
Advisor: Dr. Vijayant Kumar Singh

Abstract
These Tartars (Mongols) do not care what God is worshipped in their lands. If only all are
faithful to the lord Kaan, and quite obedient, and give therefore of the appointed tribute, and

justice is well kept, thou mayest do what pleaseth thee with thy soul.
- Marco Polo

This paper is an attempt to explore the religious realm of Genghis Khan and the Mongols and
to assess the significance of their religious policies in formation, expansion and sustenance of
the Mongolian empire. Ever since the writings of Edward Gibbon, historians have been
intrigued by the religious tolerance shown by Genghis Khan and the Mongols, with one
group attributing it to the high-mindedness of the Mongols and the other adhering to a more
Machiavellian approach and viewing their religious clemency merely as a facade for their
underlying political motives. This paper fuses all these approaches and takes a more eclectic
stance in putting forth the idea that the Mongols' notion of religion was a fusion of both
clemency and diplomacy which not only provided an ideology for their world conquest but
also gave them a tool for effective administration over the conquered multitude of diverse
faith. The scope of the paper is largely confined to the first half of the thirteenth century CE.

The Mongols, under the leadership of His policies were enforced on the newly
Genghis Khan in the thirteenth century, conquered territories through his body of
forged the largest empire the world had law (Yasa); until religious clemency
ever seen with an unprecedented swiftness. became a part of his political agenda. It is
Along with their incredible military tactics also significant that Genghis legitimised his
and efficient leadership, the Mongols also world conquest by claiming a mandate
partly owned their triumph to the ideology from God to rule the world. This may have
of conquest provided by their religious played a prominent role in fuelling the
beliefs, which makes it imperative to Mongols to do what they did. As they
explore their notions of religion and how it carved out a colossal empire in Asia, they
provided the essence to Genghis Khan's exhibited their religious clemency by
policy of toleration towards all religions. giving myriad privileges to various
The first section explores the Mongols' religious groups. Was this tolerance
religious beliefs and its evolution, as well as universal in character, or restricted to some
their interaction with the people of other specific groups? Historians have forever
faith. From 1215, as Genghis' conquests attempted to look for the implicit motives
gained speed, his religious policy took of the Mongols' and specifically Genghis'
shape, emphasising his tolerant attitude. religious forbearance. Was their religious
tolerance a mere facade to a political
theology, or were they actually

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enlightened? These contradictory and “It is ordered to believe that there
often conflicting views are discussed in the is only one God, Creator of
last section. Heaven and Earth, Who alone
gives life and death, riches and
The religion of the Mongols, along with poverty, as pleases Him and Who
the other Steppe tribes, was Shamanistic in has over everything an absolute
nature. They believed in a world of spirits power.”3
influencing the fate of humanity. Most of
the nomadic tribes, along with the forest This crystallization of nebulous idea of God
clans, had their own Shamans (beki) to and the pull of monotheism may have been
whom they turned to on all important precipitated by their contact with
occasions. Their belief system had myriad Nestorian4 Christians and Mohammedans5,
dimensions, manifesting themselves as as also attested by the writings of John of
animism, totemism and ancestral worship, Plano Carpini6.
among other aspects. They were largely
Deist, i.e., they did not believe in the The young Temuchin's (Genghis' boyhood
divine intervention of the God into the name before he became the Khan in 1206)
affairs of mankind. Their conception of idea of divinity seems to have been
divinity primarily encompassed the associated with a mountain. According to
Everlasting-Blue-Sky (MöngkeTengri), The Secret History of the Mongols7, after a
whom they viewed as their sustainer. lucky escape from the Merkit raid when he
had hidden in the mountain, he exclaimed,
According to E. Dora Earthy, the Mongols' “Mount Burkhan has protected my
Deistic view of the divinity slowly evolved miserable life. Henceforward I will ever
into a primeval monotheism,1 whereby the sacrifice to it and bequeath to my sons and
God actively intervened in the affairs of grandsons the duty of sacrificing to it.”8 He
humanity. This realism of divine
intervention is evident in Genghis' 3 Earthy, E.Dora, The Religion of Genghis Khan
worldview when he promulgated the (AD 1162-1227), Numen 2, no. Fasc.3 (1955), 229.
personification of God in the first law of 4 A sect of Christianity believing in the distinction
his Yasa:2 between the human and divine persons of Jesus,
predominant in the East.
1 A hypothesis according to which the original form 5 Ibid.
of religion in the history of mankind was the 6 John of Plano Carpini (1185-1252 CE), born in
worship of one God, first put forward by Wilhelm Italy, was one of the first Europeans to enter the
Schmidt. court of the Great Khan of the Mongol empire. He
2 Yasa was the secret written code of law and is the author of the earliest Western account of
ordinances promulgated by Genghis Khan, Central Asia, Russia and other regions of the
supposedly in the Khuriltai of 1206, which was Mongol dominion.
binding to all the subjects under the Mongolian 7 The oldest surviving Mongol language literary
suzerainty. work written for the Mongol royal family sometime
after Genghis' death in 1227, probably in the
Uighur script by an anonymous writer.
8 Ibid.

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is supposed to have prayed before the Uighurs, as recorded by John of Plano
Burkhan to the Tengri before every Carpini in 1245. Paul Ratchnevsky writes
conquest, which shows his 'belief in God, that, the 'profession of faith did not,
the Supreme Being, and the guardian however, exclude shamanistic practices.
spirits.'9 Genghis did not belong to and did The Naiman rulers, for instance, had a
not believe in any of the organized reputation as great magicians, of associating
religions, though he believed that all with and having influence over demons.'10
philosophies have grasped part of the truth
and respected each of them as aspects of Since steppe was a melting pot of different
the Great All. It is likely that he formed a faiths, Genghis' first contact with the
philosophy based upon millennia-old Asian followers of other religions happened very
philosophies (including shamanistic early, much before his first conquest of the
pantheism) combined with his own sedentary populations. By the end of the
collectivist ideology, formed in a harsh twelfth century, Temuchin had already
environment in which, as he clearly established his hegemony over a
understood, people has to learn to help considerable part of Mongolia, defeating
each other instead of pursuing selfish goals. tribes such as Tartars and Merkits, the
Genghis' idiosyncratic way of looking at latter being Nestorian Christians, as noted
the divinity helped formulate the ideology by William of Rubruck11. No wonder then,
of his political endeavors where he that by this time Temuchin was already
introduced an explicitly religious idea into cooperating and conciliating with the
the political conception of his own people of different faiths, as evident in the
suzerainty. Baljuna Covenant of 1203 wherein he
promised to share his future fortune with
The Steppe was an amalgam of his present adherents in the same way as
heterogeneous nomadic groups with they were sharing his present woe. Among
various religious beliefs, the majority being the adherents of Temuchin were followers
Shamanistic in nature. Nevertheless, they of Christianity, Islam and Buddhism.
were not oblivious to Islam, Christianity,
Judaism and Buddhism, all of which had Atwood believes that Genghis' religious
followers in Mongolia. The Keraits, who policy was formulated during his
enjoyed suzerainty over the largest part of encounter with the non-Mongol religions
eastern Mongolia, had accepted the after he began his conquest outside
Nestorian Christianity by the end of the Mongolia around 1209. The earliest
eleventh century. The Naimans, one of the
most prominent tribes in western 10 Ratchnevsky, Paul, Genghis Khan: His life and
Mongolia, had adopted Buddhism from the legacy, Wiley-Blackwell, 1993, 2.
11 William of Rubruck (c.1220-c.1293) was a
9 Ibid., 231. Flemish Franciscan missionary who traveled
through the lands that the Mongols had conquered
in the west Asia, between 1253-1255.

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evidence of Genghis's encounter with a his father was killed by the Mongols, found
foreign cleric is his meeting with Haiyun, a shelter in the Western Liao Empire (Qara-
Buddhist priest, in 1214, as recorded in a Khitai13). As his influence in the court
Chinese biography of Buddhist patriarchs. grew, he gathered the lost members of his
Later, when he met one of Haiyun's son (a tribe and fraught a secret deal with the
Zen monk), following an initial reluctance, Khwarazmian Shah to bring about the
Genghis allowed him to keep his head downfall of the Qara-Khitans. He finally
shaven in the Buddhist tradition; a succeeded in imprisoning the Gurkhan
privilege which was later granted to all (Universal Ruler) and taking possession of
Buddhist monks. Genghis' Chinese the now devastated empire. As described
biography notes another incident by Paul Ratchnevsky:
demonstrating his generous attitude
towards Buddhism, wherein after the “The Buddhist neophyte Kuchlug attracted
conquest of China, he declared them as the hatred of the Islamic population. He
'men who pray to heaven'12 and granted forbade public religious services, and the
them the status of darqan, which gave Imam of Khotan, who refused to abjure
them the right to requisition food and Islam, was held in chains, naked, hungry
accommodation from the locals; exempted and thirsty for several days before being
them from taxation and ensured their crucified on the gates of the Madrasa.”14
protection on roads.
Kuchlug's misconduct in the Qara-Khitai
Mongols' first contact with Islam was did not escape the notice of Genghis Khan,
presumably in 1211 when the Muslim who saw him as a potential rival. Thus, in
states of Qayaligh and Almaligh voluntarily 1217-18, a Mongol corps of 20,000 men
accepted Mongol suzerainty. Nevertheless, under the command of Jebe (one of the
the first recorded official notice of Islam as Genghis' most trusted commanders)
a religion came in 1217 when Genghis appeared before Kashgar, where Kuchlug
launched a campaign against his old enemy was stationed:
Kuchlug, prince of the Naimans and a
newly convert Buddhist. Kuchlug, who “Jebe proclaimed Genghis Khan's
escaped when his tribe was defeated and perception that every religion should be
respected and that each should follow the
12 Atwood, Christopher P, Validation by holiness or religion of his forefathers. The local
sovereignty: Religious toleration as political population persecuted for their religion
theology in the
Mongol World Empire of the thirteenth century, 13 Qara Khitai was a Sinicized Khitan empire in
Central Asia, founded in 1124 by Yelű Dashi who
The International History Review 26, no. 2 , 2004, led the remnants of the Liao dynasty to Central Asia
after fleeing from the Jurchen conquest of their
244-245. homeland in the modern day northern China.
14 Ibid., 1993 118.

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and brought to despair by the high taxes “It was the idea of fulfilling his divine
exacted from them, saw the Mongols as mission which used to support Chingis
liberators from the hated rule of the Khan in all his major undertakings and
Buddhist Kuchlug.”15 would give him confidence in dealing with
his enemies. Being guided by the feeling of
According to Juvaini, the Mongols his mission, Chingis Khan was ready to
‘permitted the recitation of takbir claim universal recognition of his authority
(glorification of God) and the azan (call to by rulers and nations all over “the
prayer), and caused a herald to proclaim in climates” of the world. It is noteworthy
the town that each should abide by his that potential enemies were but “rebels”
own religion and follow his own from his point of view.”19
creed.’16This demonstrates the Mongols'
liberal attitude towards all faiths, along Genghis Khan's idea of a 'universal empire'
with their conception of religion as a seems to be based on a religious
personal conviction and not subject to law. foundation. Vernadsky believes that
Genghis' Yasa, which essentially contained
The Mongols' religious tolerance gradually his ideology of the Mongol Empire, may
became a part of their political agenda, as have been largely influenced by the
apparent in the Mongols' campaign of Christian idea of the Universal Church
Qara-Khitai. Evidently, by this time based on tolerance, as Genghis formulated
Genghis considered himself to have a his Yasa only after his victory over the
divine mandate to rule the world. Juvaini Naimans and the Keraits, both of which
records Genghis's messages to other rulers: had followers of Nestorian Christianity.
‘If ye will submit yourselves obediently ye Jackson, on the other hand, emphasizes
shall find good treatment and rest, but if ye Chinese or Turkic influence in shaping the
resist- as for us what do we know? (But) Mongols' idea of world domination.
the everlasting God knoweth what will
happen to you.’17 Vernadsky remarks that ‘A conqueror's delusions of grandeur are,
‘from this precept of the Yasa it is apparent however, fuelled by successes’20. Genghis
that Chingis[sic.] Khan, in his international Khan, after seeing the constant decisive
relations, considered himself both victories of the Mongols, would have
protected and guided by Divine become intoxicated by his continuous
Providence.’18 Furthermore: triumph and felt strengthened in his belief
that he had been selected by the eternal
15 Ibid., 119. Heaven and had claim to rule the world. In
16 Ibid., 2004, 246. context of his poor lifestyle and
17Vernadsky, George, The Scope and Contents of unfortunate youth, his rise to the most
Chingis Khan's Yasa, Harvard Journal of Asiatic
Studies 3, no.3/4, 345. 19 Op. cit., Vernadsky, 345.
18 Ibid. 20 Op. cit., 1993, 170.

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powerful man in Asia must have seemed a However, it is worth noting that the
miracle, and unsurprisingly, he ascribed it privileges bequeathed to the men of all
to supernatural powers. religious persuasions were rather restricted
in the initial stage to only the holy men,
Genghis' scheme of religious clemency was especially those who excelled in the art of
enforced through the precepts of the Yasa, healing and performing magic, and were
which was itself assumed to be created not applicable to the religious community
through divine inspiration and was as a whole. Only later did they expand to
intended to be immutable, which bound all embrace the whole religious groups. Even
his successors with the responsibility of in the edicts issued to Ch'ang Ch'un in
ensuring the enforcement of his policies. 1223, it was only the renunciants who got
As per one of the ordinance of the Yasa, no the benefit of tax exemption and corvée
taxes or duties should be imposed upon services23.
fakirs, religious devotees and scholars,
ascetics, healers, muezzins and temples Even though the Mongols did not
that are consecrated to God. Furthermore, persecute their subjects on the grounds of
in the writings of Rashid al-Din21 we find religion per se, sometimes they openly
references to the Yasa in the charters imposed their customs and traditions in the
(yarlyk) issued by Batu's successors (Batu conquered territories, signifying their de
was the first Khan of the Golden Horde) in facto ruler status. For instance, Muslims
favour of the Russian Church which adhering to the laws of the Shari'a found
exempted them from taxation and the Mongol custom of slaughtering animals
conscription to the army.22. Rashid tells us and prohibition to ablutions revolting24.
that Yasa was strictly enforced over the The Mongols' attempt to abolish those
whole populous under the Mongol practices, which contradicted with the
hegemony and any offense against religion, customary laws of the Steppe, must have
morals and established customs was a appeared as supremely intolerant to the
crime punishable by death. Long after the conquered subjects. But to what extent
decline of the empire created by Genghis, these laws were enforced remains disputed.
his Yasa remained the supreme authority
and a source of legislation over the lands Frequently, the Mongols deliberately
where the Mongols had once ruled. exploited the religious sensitivities of their
enemies, as evident in their campaign of
21Rahid al-Din (1247-1318) was a statesman, the Qara-Khitans where the 'conditional
historian and physician in the court of the Il-Khan
Ghazan. He was commissioned by Ghazan to write 23Lane, George and Jackson, Peter, Studies on the
the Jami al-Tawarikh which is now considered the Mongol Empire and Early Muslim India, Bulletin
most important source for the history of the of the School of Oriental and African Studies.
Ilkhanate period. University of London 73, no.2 , 2010, 19.
22 Op. cit., Vernadsky, G., 338. 24Ayalon, David, The Great Yāsa of Chingiz Khān. A
Reexamination (Part A), Studia Islamica, 1971, 107.

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nature of Mongol religious toleration'25 integrated into the Mongols' own origin
became apparent in their later treatment of myths.”27
those Muslim subjects of the Khwarazmian
Empire who resisted the invaders. During Hostility towards other religions was alien
the campaign of the Khwarazm, the to Shamanism and therefore, reason bade
Mongols instigated the flames of the racial Genghis beware of calling down the wrath
and religious rivalries among the of his Gods. Moreover, there was no
heterogeneous population, recently conceptualization of a single 'religion' and
incorporated in a single political unit. Genghis did not think in terms of defined
Later, while on the reconnaissance mission religious communities. Thus, it was not at
in the West Asia under Sübedei and Jebe, all incongruous for a Mongol sovereign to
they sometimes carried a Crosson be inclined towards Islam or Christianity
campaign, leading to a rumour that the while simultaneously continuing the
Mongols were, in fact, Christians and that observation of their shamanistic practices,
they had come to avenge the injuries as their ancestors had done since time
inflicted upon the Christians by the immemorial. This would have made them
Muslims. In a letter to the Pope, Queen more open and acceptable to diverse beliefs
Rusudan of Georgia wrote, “We did not and ideas. Atwood has an interesting
take precautions against them because we theory on the Mongols' eclectic religious
believed them to be Christians.”26 This approach:
might have been wishful thinking on part
of the Christians but these ideas were “The Mongols presupposed a distinctive
certainly reinforced by Mongol tactics. political theology based on the assumption
that the four great religions, Buddhism,
In order to understand Mongols' religious Christianity, Daoism, and Islam, prayed to
tolerance and inclusiveness, it is also the same God, more specifically, to the God
imperative to look for such ideas into their who had given Genghis Khan victories in
own beliefs. Shamanism in the Steppes was the war.”28
itself an amalgam of diverse beliefs:
As Möngke Khan explained to Rubruck,
“A syncretistic approach had long been the “We Mo'als (Mongols) believe that there is
hallmark of the nomads' religious beliefs; it only one God, through whom we have life
is reflected in the Secret History, where and through whom we die, and towards
elements from the mythical history of the him, we direct our hearts...But just as God
early Turks, the Khitans and other steppe has given the hand several fingers, so he
and forest peoples are appropriated and has given mankind several paths.”29 This

25 Op. cit., Lane et al, 2010, 19. 27 Ibid, 7.
26 Ibid.,6. 28 Op. cit., 2004, 252.
29 Ibid.

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idea further raises the question whether their own to which they could devote their
Genghis Khan and his Mongols believe in a unwavering faith, they might have
universal religion. Since they assumed believed that any of the several faiths
people of different faith to be praying to which they confronted might embody the
the same Heaven, is it possible that they Truth and so they considered it prudent to
believed all religions to have the same form court them all.
in essence? The Il-Khan Arghun, in his
response to the letter of Pope Nicholas IV, After conquering the large sedentary
said, “If one prays only to eternal Heaven societies of China and Khwarazm, the
and thinks rightly, is it not like being Mongols realized that they were
baptized?”30 This undoubtedly shows the inexperienced in governing the states
high-mindedness of the Mongols. where they were a minority so that they
needed the support of at least some sections
The Mongol sovereigns had another, more of the society, which they got by using
personal interest in supporting the pious various religious beliefs to their advantage.
men: their desire for preserving their lives Thus, by granting tax exemptions to the
through the intervention of the holy men. clergy and proclaiming religious tolerance,
“They like one to pray for their lives”,31 the Mongols were able to sway the masses
remarks William of Rubruck. The Secret and pacify the conquered people.33
History tells us that after summoning the However, this clemency was not universal
Daoist patriarch Ch'ang Ch'un to his court, in character, in a sense that not all religions
Genghis expressed his hope of learning the were given equal recognition and
secret of immortality. Following this, when protection. Initial exclusion of Judaism and
he granted exemptions to the monk, he Confucianism from royal privileges
was under the impression that he was contradicts the supposed idea of universal
praying for the Khan's longevity.32 Thus, tolerance. Similarly, ruthless extermination
the privileges that were showered upon of the Isma'ili sect out of the belief that
these religious leaders of all faiths were they were politically subversive, challenge
granted on condition that these men would the theory of the Mongols' forbearance
bless the Khan and pray for his long life. towards all faiths.
Some scholars like David Morgan have
conjectured that by being tolerant to Yet undoubtedly, under the Mongolian
diverse faiths the Mongols may have been dominion, different religious groups gained
looking for a “celestial insurance”. Not a freedom of action never seen before.
having a uniform established religion of Muslims and Christians began to propagate
and proselytize freely in each others'
30Ibid., 253. territories. We get the evidence of a
31Op. cit., Lane et al, 19.
32 Ibid. 33 Op. cit., 1993, 184.

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Nestorian monk Simeon Rabban-ata who Buddhists occupied Daoist temples and
was able to build Christian churches and burned their scriptures.36 According to
erect crosses in Muslim Azerbaijan in Ratchnevsky, “The non-observance of
1230s, with the approval of the Mongol Genghis Khan's decree of religious
military.34 As far as in 1251, the Armenian tolerance contributed in considerable
Catholicus Konstantin displayed his measure to the divisions among the
support for the Mongols in his 'Pastoral Mongols and, in the long run, to the fall of
Message' in which he called upon the the Mongol Empire.”37
Armenian people to obey the conqueror
and pray for the well-being of the Khan Religion played a profound role in forging
'who have shown their goodwill towards the Mongol Empire. Religion not only gave
us.'35Thus, the unprecedented level of a divine ordinance to Genghis Khan's
religious liberty vouchsafed by Genghis world conquest but also helped define the
Khan and his descendants became one of ideological foundation of the empire. With
the most significant legacies of the their pre-existing inclination towards
Mongols. religious eclecticism and clemency
inherited from the Steppe tradition, the
It is ironic that Genghis Khan's tolerant Mongols' ideology of religious toleration
religious policies could not prevent evolved, through their interaction with
religious intolerance in the Mongol other faiths, to suit their political interests.
Empire, whose foundation was made up of Through their perspicacity and diplomatic
the ideas of universal tolerance and tendencies, they used religion as a political
stability. After the Great Khan died, weapon to both unite the empire and to
religious strife flared up throughout the break the conglomeration of various ethno-
empire. Under Guyuk's (Genghis's religious groups, whenever desirable. Thus,
grandson) domain, Christianity was the Mongols' policy of religious tolerance
advocated and Islam was discriminated was a perfect blend of high-mindedness
against. Berke, Khan of the Golden Horde, and shrewdness.
proclaimed that religious ties were stronger
than those of blood, and declared his war Bibliography
against the Il-Khan Hulegu who had
destroyed the Caliphate in Baghdad in Atwood, Chirtopher P. "Validation by
1258 against Berke's religious sentiments. holiness or sovereignty: Religious
In the realms of the Il-Khans, Christians toleration as political ." The International
were persecuted. In China, after the History Review 26, no. 2 , 2004: 237-256.
conversion of Khubilai to Buddhism, the
Ayalon, David. "The Great Yāsa of Chingiz
Khān. A Reexamination (Part A)." Studia

34 Op. cit., Lane et al, 17. 36 Ibid., 1993, 208-209.
35 Ibid. 37 Op. cit., 1993, 208-209.

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islamica, 1971: 97-140.

Earthy, Dora E. "The Religion of Genghis
Khan (AD 1162-1227)." Numen Vol 2, no.
Fasc. 3 , 1995: 228-232.

Jackson, George Lane and Peter. "Studies
on the Mongol Empire and Early Muslim
India." Bulletin of the School of Oriental
and African Studies, University of London
73, no 2, 2010: 328.

Jackson, Peter. The Mongols and the West:
1221-1410. Routledge, 2014.

Morgan, David O. "The 'Great Yāsā of
Chingiz Khān' and Mongol law in the
Īlkhānate." Bulletin of the School of
Oriental and African Studies 49, no. 01,
1986: 16.

Peter Malcolm Holt, Ann KS Lambton and
Bernard Lewis. The Cambridge History of
Islam: Volume 2B, Islamic Society and
Civilisation. Vol. 2. Cambridge University
Press, 1977.

Ratchnevsky, Paul. Genghis Khan: His life
and legacy. Wiley-Blackwell, 1993.

Vernadsky, George. "The Scope and
Contents of Chingis Khan's Yasa." arvard
Journal of Asiatic Studies 3, no. 3/4 , 1938:
337-360.

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Ijtihad | Vol.4 | 2017

1984: Subverting the ‘Truth’ of an Indian Orwellian Year

By Krishna Shekhawat
Miranda House, University of Delhi

Abstract
The discussion will begin with an analysis of post-truth- whether the term has been ubiquitous in
history or not. That post-truth is a truth in itself – that it is a construct of the media and therefore
essentially renders truth for the masses by shaping popular opinion. The specificity of 1984 is in
the fact that it is the state perpetrating denial on the victims and survivors of a massacre that
continues to impact us that the surviving generation lives the memory adds to the momentum of
the truth we attempt to investigate in this discussion. What when the witness accounts- with
minimal circulation- present ‘alternative facts’ (reinterpretation of alternative facts).

The main body of the discussion will focus on the commission reports, witness accounts,
newspaper reports and literature (Amitav Ghosh) to reason the role of kinds of media in
circulating information. It will be interesting to identify the liability of the commission reports to
present the truth and the freedom of choice that the media houses enjoy as a privilege to
ownership, here as in innumerable other issues, such freedom is exercised at the cost of the
‘ideals’ by which one consumes their content. How has this formed the popular opinion,
activation of state to face the issue and the extent of circulation of this issue are some issues to
address here. Perhaps Chitra Padmanabhan is right in saying, quote, ‘It is time not to go by the
letters but by the spirit’. Here one will draw the discussion to a close with a comparative analysis
of public outcry explaining the difference in sentiment of revenge and apology and the role of
intellectuals in the civil society when the four pillars of democracy fail to articulate the truth for
us.
_________________________________________________________________________________
_
The Oxford Dictionary has declared ‘post- consumers of this media when the power

truth’ as the word of the year. To define of truth trumps the truth of power?

post- truth: it is the ordinary citizen’s

attempt to redefine politics. Significantly, To discuss 1984 then in the context of post-

in the background of BREXIT, US elections “truth” and “alternative” facts will be a

and the monumental solidarity witnessed humble personal attempt to investigate

during demonetization, the result of such how the media understands and how we

phenomena was found to be shocking. To understand from it the interpretations of

look at the background of this background, truth and alternative. That the surviving

the media and influential interest groups generations of 1984 live, adds to the

were not ready to accept people’s momentum of the truth we attempt to

alienation of the “official” definition of investigate in this discussion. This paper

facts. And yes one agrees that empirical therefore peruses official announcement,

evidence is losing to alternative facts, but media reports , citizen reports,

what when the media offering this post- demonstrations by the youth, commission

truth is not true at all? What do we do as reports, witness accounts and literature and

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Ijtihad | Vol.4 | 2017

is based on light on language first hand the Akalis from the peasant Sikh
narratives to uncover hard-hitting realities. contributed to an atmosphere of increasing
polarization between town and country
Historically situating the relationship which now came to be directly associated
between Sikhs and the centre, between with religious antagonism between Sikhs
Sikhs and non-Sikhs, this paper analyses and non-Sikhs . This was to grow by 1984.
1984 through the theme- Rumours, Sectarian polarization paved the way for
Experience and Reportage; rumours as increased militancy with the call for
spread by perpetrators, experience of Khalistan.2 Bhindranwale joined Sant
violence as by police and victims, and Harchand Singh Longowal in the call for
reportage as by the media and inquiring dharm yudh given at the World Sikh
commissions of the state. Historians on the Conference (in July 1981) Violence
history of Sikhs understand it through four escalated from 1982 onwards.3
periods. This paper concerns itself over
parts of the fourth period by studying the Bhindranwale fearing arrest took refuge in
historiography which has developed in the the Akal Takht of Golden Temple on 15
aftermath of the Bluestar operation and the December 1983. The question of army
1984 massacre. action in Punjab was brought to the table.
To highlight that Indira Gandhi did
Back in July 1946, Jawaharlal Nehru in a negotiate with the Akalis in between is
press conference sounded open to special important when juxtaposed with what
consideration for Sikhs when he said: I see Chand Joshi wrote- the negotiations were
no wrong in an area and a set-up in the not meant to succeed. The action Prime
North wherein the Sikhs can also Minister took – the Bluestar operation-
experience a glow of freedom’. The came out to be ‘too much’ and far ‘too
demand for real federalism had begun back late’.4Uma Chakravarti has discussed the
in 1960s itself.1 By 1980s the ‘Indira wave’ inevitability of Operation Bluestar: ‘even if
had taken over Punjab elections. Congress one accepted that the centre had allowed
deriving its vote from the urban Hindu and things to drift, and to reach the stage when
the army was made to march in, at that
1 Grewal, J.S. 1999. The Sikhs of Punjab. New Delhi: particular time there was no other
Cambridge University Press, 207. Reviewing alternative but to move the army in’. A
political situation post 1968 President rule in
Punjab) the goal of the Shiromani Akali Dal was to 2 Ibid., 219. In 1982, sixty such incidents took
achieve an autonomous status in a well demarcated place.in 1983, the number rose to 140)
territory within free India. More powers were 3 Ibid., 223. According to Chand Joshi, the
demanded for the states because ‘Congress party in negotiations between the Prime Minister and the
power has abused the Constitution of India’. They Akalis failed because they were not meant to
demanded that the Constitution of India ‘should be succeed.
on a correct federal basis and that the states should 4 Op. cit., 227.
have greater autonomy’

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parallel was made by one of her The first investigative account of the
interviewees who was convinced that violence of November 1984 was published
Golden Temple meant far more than a by People’s Union for Democratic Rights
religious center. PUDR and People’s Union for Civil
Liberties PUCL and out in the same month
The Operation Bluestar directly as of the massacre.
contributed to sharpened identities
between Hindus and Sikhs. Uma The report ‘Who Are the Guilty’ found a
Chakravarti carried out first hand survey stereotyped pattern everywhere: “The first
published in her book ‘The Delhi Riots’. phase was marked by the floating of a set of
She discusses the selection of rumours on rumours on the evening of October 31,
part of both parties: the Hindus believed following the announcement of Mrs.
Bluestar to have prevented attack by Gandhi's death. The rumours were three.
Pakistan while Sikhs interpreted it as an First, Sikhs were distributing sweets and
attack on their most sacred shrine and thus lighting lamps to celebrate Mrs. Gandhi's
the cause of indelible personal hurt. And death. (Later during our investigation …we
even as many Sikhs and non-Sikhs did however come across a few people
perceived it as an issue mishandled by the who…had seen in some places some Sikhs
State, it is important to note that the expressing their glee at Mrs. Gandhi's
awareness fell too short to resist the urge to death. We have reports that some isolated
turn against each other. groups of non-Sikhs also exhibited similar
behaviour. Our impression is that such
Operation Bluestar set the trend for cases were few and isolated). The Second
internalizing rumours which was to rumour was that a train with hundreds of
magnify in 1984. It is interesting to note Hindu dead bodies had arrived at Old
the content of Indira Gandhi’s assassination Delhi Station from Punjab. Third, water
announcement wherein Beant Singh and was poisoned by the Sikhs, as for the two
Satwant Singh were identified as Sikh latter rumours, we came across evidence of
bodyguards.5 Reading the implicit, it policemen… announcing through
marked the deliberate singling out of a loudspeakers the arrival of the train and
communal identity to fire the immanent the poisoning of water.”
mutual suspicion.6
These rumours were declared out and out
5 Bal, Hartosh Singh. 2014. "Sins of Commission." lie by the Misra Commission later.
The Caravan. A week earlier, both men had Nevertheless they contributed to the
partaken of ‘amrit’, in a Sikh ceremony usually shaping of a public mind that acquiesced in
reserved for the most faithful. Their fervour was a the attack and murders that took place
direct consequence of Operation Bluestar. soon after. “The second phase began with
6 Hartosh Singh Bal at Amnesty International Youth
Conference, 2017.

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the arrival of groups of armed young over their heads and set them on fire. This
people…from the night of October 31 and will calm the anger of the Hindus. It has
morning of November 1 at various places. started today; it will end on the third”8
A senior police official pointed out: "The The attackers were armed with weapons or
shop signs are either in Hindi or English. inflammable materials like kerosene, petrol
How do you expect the illiterate arsonists and some white powder. Hartosh Singh
to know whether these shops belonged to Bal, Political Editor of The Caravan
Hindus or Sikhs, unless they were questions: the powder is likely to have
identified to them by someone who is been white phosphorous. How come an
either educated or a local person?"” industrial substance became so readily
available to mobs in Delhi? The Nanavati
Pritish Nandy published his accounts in Commission never investigated into this;
the 1984 December edition of Illustrated ladies and gentlemen silence speaks in its
Weekly as, “Marauding gangs went around, own way here. While the top political
reportedly with voter lists in their hands… leaders were on a hunt, what were the
trains reached stations with people lying peace and order keepers doing?
dead inside… trucks and lorries lay charred
on the highways… people were burnt as Darshan Kaur, Daughter of Giani Zail
torches doused in kerosene.” Singh, President of India during 1984
recollects, “My father rang the then Home
Avtar Singh Gill, the then Petroleum Minister PV Narasimha Rao, to call the
Secretary later confirmed that these were Army for help. He rang up the PMO. His
specifically Gurdwara voter lists.7He calls were either not getting through or
disclosed his conversation with Lalit Suri of disconnected. The police were not helping
Lalit hotel: Suri informed, “Clearance has the Sikhs. It looked organized.”9 Amitav
been given by Arun Nehru for the killings
in Delhi and the killings have started. The 8 2016. 32 Years and Waiting: An era of Injustice for
strategy is to catch Sikh youths, fling a tire the 1984 Sikh Massacre. Campaign Digest, Amnesty
International India., “My husband tried to hide in
7 Op. cit., 2014. The lawyer HS Phoolka has been at the kitchen of our house in Trilokpuri. But the mob
the forefront of the legal battle to secure justice for dragged him out by his hair and placed a quilt and
the victims of the 1984 violence. When I told him tyre on him. They then poured oil on him and set
about my conversation with Gill, he immediately him on fire. As a result he was half burnt and later
seized upon the mention of the gurdwara voters’ died.” Darshan Kaur, Survivor. Lost husband and 11
lists, which contain the names of people eligible to relatives during 1984.
vote in elections to the Delhi Sikh Gurdwara 9 Ibid., The Delhi Police commissioner, Subhash
Management Committee. “We had always Tandon, told the Misra commission that there were
wondered how government voters’ lists were not enough army personnel in Delhi to draw on,
sufficient to tell a Sikh from anyone with the last but this was plainly wrong; the commission itself
name Singh,” Phoolka said. “But, of course, the ease found that his contention was entirely “without
with which Sikh houses were identified would basis.” If troops had been called in on the morning
make sense if gurdwara voters’ lists were available.” of 1 November 1984, the commission concluded,
“5,000 Army jawans divided into columns and

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Ghosh reminds us of a tea discussion how irrecoverable the truth must have
among a set of elite women in Delhi who seemed then. What kinds of imminent
deliberately choose not to discuss the danger must the Indian Express have
violence, this way at least they could wish defied to report the killings of 1000 persons
it away from their lives. But are these the from East Delhi and 50,000 victims when
only defense mechanisms we could put up? Doordarshan did not shy from broadcasting
highly provocative slogans- ‘khun ka badla
The two kinds of speech which did emerge khoon’- shouted out by the gathering from
were unfortunately inundated with passive Indira Gandhi’s mourning at Teen Murti.10
rage- first as blatant justification as ‘they While 1984 set the precedent to state-
deserved it’ or as escapism ‘ when a mighty sponsored violence, MS Phoolka, the
tree falls, it is only natural that the earth foremost lawyer for justice to 1984 victims,
around it does shake a little”- these being draws our attention to how differently the
the words of the then new Prime Minister media came out to report 2002. The impact
elect, Rajiv Gandhi. However, how does of private news channels on the response
the falling of a tree shake all 4 pillars of a were particularly evident.
democracy is still an unsettled question in
my mind. In the words of Dilip Simeon, Parallel to Simeon and company was a
“Truth spoken without moderation Congress demonstration shouting out ‘desh
reverses itself.” But when this moderation drohi’. But to reduce this into a rhetoric of
manifested through a demonstration of “Congress killed Sikhs’ entirely would
youth and university teachers on Nov 24, mean pure reductionism, the identity of a
1984, it was blacked out by the media with patriot was at work against ‘anti national
only the Indian Express carrying three Sikhs’ as a pervasive pattern of behaviour.
lines on an inside page and The Statesman The Jain Aggarwal Committee on the other
writing of the dangers of extremism only hand would also implicate RSS cadres in
two weeks later. cases of arson, rioting and murder.
Communal feelings simply cut across
The media usually had unusually milder political affiliations. To multiple parties
stories to present. The Hindustan Times on then lies the onus of pursuing causes so
Nov 11 reported that the official estimate
reached 325 casualties, including 46 10 The channel’s director general explained to the
Hindus. The number is far from the 3000 commission that the, “officers of the Doordarshan
we now know of and one can only imagine never apprehended that a crowd paying respect to
the departed leader would raise such a shout which
moving into the streets properly armed would not on account of the live program would get televised.
have brought about the death of at least 2,000 The moment this was realised the live telecast
people.” In other words, at least two thousand lives arrangement was switched off.” When he played a
were lost because the Delhi administration chose recording of the broadcast, however, “the
not to deploy the army. Commission found that the shout had been repeated
for 18 times spread over 37 seconds.”

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passionately that in the heat of the moment Meanwhile the state’s passivity hurt more.
they endowed upon themselves liberties Chakravarti highlights the use of media by
with law. How does one take into account the state to describe the riots as a ‘natural
these complex actions and reactions and and inevitable’ expression of the
what must be the basis of justice- means or ‘spontaneous anger’ of the people. She
ends? informs us that the Parliament session post
the carnage would not even acknowledge
Let these facts not dilute the cause or let us the violence, “let alone express any regret,
lose foresight, for, whatever humanity or condemn those who had perpetrated it’.
reaches us from those times did come from The conviction of Satwant Singh doused
concerned citizens who united under self- the last hopes for justice even as anger
funded citizen groups. The report ‘Who are continued to burn within survivors who
The Guilty’ is a rare such contemporary asked –‘why is it that not one of those men
investigation of events from Nov. 1 to Nov. who killed our men have been punished by
10. It concludes: the attacks on members of being put in jail?
the Sikh community was marked by acts of
both deliberate commissions and omissions The report of the Ranganath Misra
by important politicians of the Congress at Commission that came out in February
the top and by authorities in 1987 hardly brought any news. In fact it
administration. Although the handiwork of closed any scope for measures to prevent
a determined group unleashed onto streets recurrence of such violence simply by not
was inspired by different sentiments acknowledging that any took place. It did
altogether. point out some Congress leaders but
without any ‘convincing material’ to
Uma Chakravarti informs us how Sikhs convict them of instigating riots. Congress
were most anguished by this unimaginable as a party stood and the Home Ministry
demotion from their ‘martial’ image to were spared any inquiry at all. Veteran
helpless victims. Such emotions were journalist S. Mulgaokar remarked that the
compounded by a nostalgia of pride which report ‘carried no conviction with the Sikh
could now be crushed by even young girls community. Instead of winning its trust in
and boys. School kids could be found some measure it made the community
jokingly answering ‘what is a Seekh Kebab’ more distrustful of New Delhi’s intentions’.
by a quick ‘A burnt Sikh!’11 When the World Sikh Convention passed a
resolution in August 1987 asking for an
11 2016. 32 Years and Waiting: An era of Injustice area in the north where Sikhs could have a
for the 1984 Sikh Massacre. Campaign Digest, ‘glow of freedom’ one is but compelled to
Amnesty International India., ‘I was in depression realize the hard hitting reality that Nehru’s
all through school”- Surjeet Singh, Survivor who
was 7 years old in 1984.

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assurance was vague and now hazier than Bibliography
1946.
2016. 32 Years and Waiting: An era of
The Nanavati Commission made all records Injustice for the 1984 Sikh Massacre.
public in 2005. Evidence was found against Campaign Digest, Amnesty International
Congress leaders -most prominently India.
Jagdish Tytler and Sajjan Kumar- but the
recommendations did not even suggest Bal, Hartosh Singh. 2014. "Sins of
action. A Special Investigation Team was Commission." The Caravan.
setup in February 2015 to reinvestigate Chakravarti, Uma. 1994. "Victims,
cases and file charges against evidence, if 'Neighbours' and 'Watan': Survivors of
found. The report was due to be submitted Anti-Sikh Carnage of 1984." Economic and
within six months. 2 years and multiple Political Weekly.
RTIs later, the report has still not come
out. A PIL against SIT to submit a full Chakravarti, Uma, and Nandita Haskar.
status report awaits court hearing this 1987. The Delhi Riots: Three Days in the
month. ‘The riots are now over. But who Life of a Nation. New Delhi: Lancer
will put out the fires that still burn?’ 32 International.
years later, Pritish Nandy’s question still Ghosh, Amitav. 1995. The Ghosts of Mrs.
rings true. Ghandi. Newspaper, New Yorker.

Thousands lie dead. Many more alive but Grewal, J.S. 1999. The Sikhs of Punjab.
destroyed forever and it is the fact that New Delhi: Cambridge University Press.
they live and their memory lives that I Mukoty, Gobind. 1984. "PUDR-PUCL
urge each of us to rethink the Citizen's Report: Who are the Guilty?"
announcements Government of India has
made, rediscover cries buried under closed Nandy, Pritish. 1984. Who Can Put Out
files. Perhaps it fits the picture to invoke These Fires? Illustrated Weekly of India,
Orwell’s 1984 and Newspeak as the Bombay: Benett Coleman and Co. Ltd.
‘language of truth’ of the novel’s
totalitarian regime- the state language Simeon, Dilip. 2014. "The Broken Middle."
which would overpower all other modes of Economic and Political Weekly.
thought- at least so far as thoughts were Suri, Sanjay. 2015. "Close Encounter." In
put out in words. And, ladies and 1984, The Anti-Sikh Violence and After,
gentlemen there lies the loophole. These by Sanjay Suri. Firstpost.
insufferable thoughts have travelled to us,
since 30 years been speaking to us. Now we
choose, are we ready to listen?

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Democracy and Dissent at Jantar Mantar

By Srishti Sood

Abstract
This paper enquires into the idea of public space being cordoned off for democratically legitimate
dissent and seeks to analyse the nature of protest enabled in this manner. The location to which
the question is pegged is Rashtriya Dharna Sthal, Jantar Mantar. It begins with an understanding
that a culture of criticism is built into any democratic framework with reasonable restrictions
placed on it. The latter is reflected with the regulation of protest in public spaces and the confining
of it to certain enclaves. It traces a brief history of space allotted for protest activity in the capital
city of Delhi and proceeds from there to look at the popular perceptions of some of these
participants through newspaper reportage and PILs filed by Resident Welfare Associations of
nearby localities. The protestors were found to be labelled as encroachers and vandalisers: an
urban nuisance.

The paper also seeks to problematise such depictions in media and its slow transformation into the
only avenue through which dissent is communicated to the larger citizenry. 10-15 groups
congregate in Jantar Mantar daily to seek redressal for a variety of concerns but they do not find
themselves affecting public discourse in any manner because of their invisibility from media.
Media is also a participative space in itself but it is noted that it cannot replace the actual physical
act of protest. The paper ends with the tentative argument that pigeonholing of dissent may
reduce its potency, and hence other avenues of assertion must be sought and nurtured.

When Habermas construes a public sphere views participation as a spatial practice and
of discursive interaction, his notion of accordingly distinguishes between invited
space suggests itself. This may not spaces which are designed for the purpose
correspond to a defined geographical and claimed/created spaces which develop
territory. Similarly, in feminist organically by means of popular
scholarship’s critique of the public-private mobilization.13 I argue that Jantar Mantar,
dichotomy, a boundary is perceived with its prescribed status as designated area
between domains of operation/gender for protest in Delhi, lies somewhere in
performance. Thus, space is an abstraction between- a space which ‘invites’ dissenters
to be experienced as much as it refers to an to organise and ‘claim’ democratic
actual physical location. reparations. This paper attempts to analyse
this supposition and reflects on the nature

of protest14 which is enabled in this
Similarly, political participation is manner.
imagined in metaphors of space, conceived

of as, above all, opportunity available for 13 Andrea Cornwall, "Spaces for transformation?
gain and redressal.12 Andrea Cornwall also Reflections on issues of power and difference in
participation in development." In Participation:
12 Niloshree Bhattacharya and Vinod K. Jairath, From tyranny to transformation, by Samuel Hickey
"Social Movements, 'Popular' Spaces, and and Giles Mohan (eds.), London and New York: Zed
Participation: A Review." Sociological Bulletin, Books, 2004: 85-87.
May-August 2012: 300-302 14 I understand protest to mean collective action in
disagreement with the state which is disruptive by
nature though not necessarily violent.

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Ijtihad | Vol.4 | 2017

India has had a long history of coercive public order determines how legitimate
public protest. The fact that it continues they are considered in a democratic
post-independence implies that democratic society. The frame for several such protest
institutional politics has been incapable of tactics and significant political movements
subsuming the entire range of variegated of recent times is Jantar Mantar.
interests found within its borders. In Interestingly, it was originally a renowned
addition, a representative state has greater scientific landmark, referring to the five
tolerance for protest and as a general observatories built by Maharaja Sawai Jai
response, facilitates it. There is recognition Singh II in 172417. It is a heritage
that dissent deepens democracy by monument and a protected site,
allowing those neglected/disillusioned by refashioned and reclaimed by our
the larger governmental agenda to assert democracy to be associated now with the
themselves. Often, taking to the streets protest area which lies near it, more
would be their only recourse. By forcing accurately known as the ‘Rashtriya Dharna
attention on themselves, they try to create Sthal’ (literally translated as ‘National
bargaining resources which would have Protest Zone’).
otherwise been unavailable.
Protesters from different parts of India
The Constitution of India also arrive here, appreciating the value of a
acknowledges the right to dissent and symbolic show of strength in the country’s
collective action under Article 19(1)(a) capital, recognized also by the sepoys who
which secures the right to freedom of led the Revolt of 1857. It succeeds the Boat
speech and expression and 19(1)(b) which Club Lawns as the official venue for protest
provides the right to assemble peacefully in Delhi. This change was prompted after
and without arms to every citizen of the around 50,000 farmers associated with the
country, subject to reasonable restrictions. Bhartiya Kisan Union occupied the lawns
According to David H. Bayly, the for over a week in October 1988 as part of
repertoire of protest15 which has evolved in a larger farmers’ movement. The politically
modern India includes (1) processions and significant area around the lawns was
public meetings; (2) hartals (work paralyzed and polluted by the agitating
stoppages not aimed at employers), farmers and their cattle. The standoff
boycotts, and strikes; (3) fasts; (4) against security forces led to the shooting
obstruction; (5) courting of arrest; (6) of a policeman.18 Thereafter, and in the
riots.16 The extent to which each disturbs
17 G.S.D. Babu and V.R. Venugopal "Programme for
15 The phrase ‘repertoire of collective action’ was the restoration of the masonry instruments at Delhi
first used by Charles Tilly Jantar Mantar." Bull. Astr. Soc. India, 1993: 481
16 David H. Bayley, "The Pedagogy of Democracy: 18 Shraddha Chhetri. Capital's Boat Club: The new
Coercive Public Protest in India." The American hangout? August 11, 2013 http://www.business-
Political Science Review, Sept 1962: 663 standard.com/article/news-ians/capital-s-boat-club-

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Ijtihad | Vol.4 | 2017

wake of the tumultuous Ayodhya maintaining public order. This is
movement, the Narasimha Rao compounded by the view of these
government prohibited the holding of any protestors as an urban nuisance.
public meeting in Delhi which was not
patronised by political parties or religious For evidence, we turn to a PIL filed by the
organizations. This ban was lifted only
recently in 201119. Jantar Mantar itself Dhawandeep Residents Welfare
became the official area of protest in Delhi
in 1993, accommodating gatherings of upto Association in May 2011 representing the
5,000 people. Rallies and public meetings
of strength less than 50,000 people take residents of Dhawandeep Building located
place in the Ramlila Ground whereas larger
assemblies are given the option to use the at the Jantar Mantar Road and related
Burari grounds20.
newspaper coverage. According to reports,
The quantum of protests is immense. As
per the data compiled by the Delhi Police the disadvantages of living in close
for the period between January, 2006 to
15th August, 2010, 5491 demonstrations, proximity to Jantar Mantar are manifold.
rallies and processions, and 13118
dharnas/hunger strikes were held at Jantar The area is dotted with temporary shelters,
Mantar with prior permission.21 There are
around 10-15 groups who demonstrate and with some protestors choosing to live on
protest at the site daily. Police
intervention, therefore, has been deemed the street for months together. That they
indispensable to the exigencies of
believed their stay here would be long is

evident; they brought among other

possessions, their stoves. Delhi police

expressed their concern over some of them

citing the area as their correspondence

address. They carry out their daily

ablutions under unsanitary conditions.

Among other irritants were listed the noise

pollution resulting from the use of

loudspeakers beyond 10 p.m. and

restrictions from plying to the society

during protest.

the-new-hangout-113081100245_1.html. (accessed A year earlier, a massive ‘sanitisation’
Oct 27, 2015) campaign was launched ahead of the
19 Correspondent, HT. Boat Club now open for Commonwealth Games in 2010 when
protests. June 1, 2011. NDMC officials forcibly evicted protestors
http://www.hindustantimes.com/delhi/boat-club- from their temporary shacks in the Jantar
now-open-for-protests/story- Mantar area. It was cleared in order to
Yn5puOXgXMX6yuQG55uzZP.html (accessed Oct beautify its environs for tourists pouring
27, 2015). into the city. In a charged op-ed on
20 Ramlila Maidan incident dt.4/5.06.2011 v.Home kafila.org around this issue, Akhil Katyal
secretary, Union of India & ors., Writ petition (crl.) and Shalini Sharma argue that dissenters
No. 122 of 2011, Supreme Court Of India February
23, 2012
21 Dhawandeep Residents Welfare Association vs
Union of India & Ors., Writ Petition (Civil) No.
2680/2011, Delhi High Court May 31 2011

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Ijtihad | Vol.4 | 2017

are misunderstood and misinterpreted as Second, our society has a tendency to
“negative avatars of encroachers, traffic- render the homeless invisible. George Will
jammers, illiterate vandalizers” and no attributes it not only to an unappealing
heed is paid to the cause of their aesthetic, but also a visual of disorder and
presence.22 decay that the destitute present, the likes
of which is unacceptable in ordered
I use the authors’ lament to make three society.24 In this regard, protestors living in
observations. First, dissent is inconvenient. Jantar Mantar are doubly persecuted as
It is an economic burden, disturbs public deviants - for their homelessness and for
order, threatens rule of law and constitutes their dissent. Full entry into this
a challenge to the state. It is a tension participative space is conditional. Their
unique to a democracy that while it eviction ahead of the Commonwealth
legitimizes the state, it also upholds an Games in 2010 is one such instance.
environment of dissent and critique. This Demonstrators are quickly conflated with
seeming incompatibility has to be petty squatters and the cause of their
constantly negotiated. For instance, in protest becomes trivialized.
response to the Dhawandeep residents, the
High Court bench condemned the Third, not all protest receives equal
demonstrators for aggrieving the public but attention. If as many as 10 groups of
also upheld their right to freedom of demonstrators congregate in Jantar Mantar
expression while passing instructions for its daily, how many of them do we get to hear
reasonable censorship. It reflects that of? In a conversation with a police
dissent must be regulated in order to be personnel stationed there, one answer was
tolerated, and in doing this the state is able particularly revealing. She suggested that if
to exert control over it. As it were, this the protestors wanted their cause to be
reduces the sting from collective action, known to a large public then Jantar Mantar
perhaps also its potency. 23 was not the place, they should have gone
to the media. The implication here is that if
22 Akhil Katyal and Shalini Sharma, Levelling the publicity is needed for the success of a
playing field before the Commonwealth Games. movement, sheer presence in Jantar
Sept 9, 2015. Mantar will not guarantee it. A protest
http://www.hindustantimes.com/delhi/jantar- movement should be able to communicate
mantar-a-melting-pot-of-protests-politics-and- itself in a way which is considered
more/story-41AcGOhDlRVyLsfTUq2TQP.html newsworthy because media coverage and
(accessed Oct 27, 2015)
23 Sidney Tarrow, Power in Movement: Social 24 George Will, Living on the Street: Mentally Ill
Movements, Collective Action and Politics . New Homeless Contribute to Community Decay.
York, Cambridge and Melbourne : Cambridge Syndicated Column, Washington Post Writer's
University Press, 1994: 92 Group, 1987.

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Ijtihad | Vol.4 | 2017

representation sets the agenda for what is media attention on the Tiananmen Square
talked about. was a result of student occupation of it in
1989. In this sense, media is constrained by
Another way in which media matters to the fact that it is only a lens through which
our discussion is that it itself is a the performance of dissent is viewed and
participative space. In the age of internet, it can only operate when there is a concrete
not only generates opinion but also act to account for.
constitutes a domain whereby we can
represent them. Signing online petitions, The close proximity of Jantar Mantar to the
expressing discontent through social media political heart of Delhi is regarded with
and forming virtual solidarities on the basis some importance for the visibility it is
of common goals are upcoming ways in believed to provide. The protestors are
which individuals can register their protest supposed to be mollified by the chance of
without leaving the comfort of their encounter with the politically important.
homes. The question to then ask is if such a However, I believe that it pigeonholes
brand of armchair activism can render dissent into an area cordoned off for the
physically engaged protest obsolete? purpose. When the area available for
I maintain that the physicality of protest is legitimate protest is defined, it
critical, not only for the spectator but also simultaneously rids other public spaces of
for the participant. The participants’ it. Consequently, it often escapes public
motivation to engage in protest ranges attention unless it is covered by the media.
from the instrumental, as a means to an The general populace confronts dissent
end, to the expressive, satisfying by its very only when it becomes too inconvenient to
performance.25 In both cases, the physical ignore. Media representation is also
act of protest is cathartic and allows an problematic because it is a highly
individual to feel involved. It implies a structured and selective space. 26
higher level of commitment which cannot
be replicated on a virtual platform. We began with the concept that space is an
experience and proceeded to analyse how
We already discussed the role played by protest is experienced in the physical space
the media to determine the publicity of of Jantar Mantar. What emerges from our
protest and its ability to make a dent in discussion is that the state facilitation of
public imagination. However, it is the dissent also serves inhibitory functions.27
physical presence of protestors on the The issue of permits and attempts to bring
street which is reported. International
26 Don Mitchell, "The End of Public Space? People's
25 Peter K. Eisinger, "Protest Behavior and the Park, Definitions of the Public, and Democracy."
Integration of Urban Political Systems." The Journal Annals of the Association of American
of Politics, Nov. 1971: 982, 984 Geographers, March 1995: 123-124.
27 Op. cit., 1994, 96.

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Ijtihad | Vol.4 | 2017

it under legal and institutional channels Cornwall, Andrea. "Spaces for
raises the administrative cost to organise it. transformation? Reflections on issues of
We also noted that Jantar Mantar by power and difference in participation in
enabling protest allows for accumulated development." In Participation: From
discontent to dissipate.28 In this manner, it tyranny to transformation, by Samuel
acts as a ‘safety’ valve, safeguarding the Hickey and Giles Mohan (eds.), 75-92.
state against a turbulent breakdown as well London and New York: Zed Books, 2004.
as a democratic culture of critique. The Correspondent, HT. Boat Club now open
latter, I conclude must be engendered in for protests. June 1, 2011.
various ways and at different platforms http://www.hindustantimes.com/delhi/boat
apart from Jantar Mantar, so that a system -club-now-open-for-protests/story-
of checks and balances exerts itself against Yn5puOXgXMX6yuQG55uzZP.html
overbearing state control. (accessed Oct 27, 2015).

Bibliography Deutsche, Rosalyn. "Art and Public Space:
Questions of Democracy." Social Text,
Babu, G.S.D. and Venugopal, V.R. 1992: 34-53.
"Programme for the restoration of the
masonry instruments at Delhi Jantar Eisinger, Peter K. "Protest Behavior and
Mantar." Bull. Astr. Soc. India, 1993: 481- the Integration of Urban Political Systems."
483. The Journal of Politics, Nov. 1971: 980-
1007.
Bayley, David H. "The Pedagogy of
Democracy: Coercive Public Protest in Foster, Susan Leigh. "Choreographies of
India." The American Political Science Protest." Theatre Journal, Oct 2003: 395-
Review, Sept 1962: 663-672. 412.

Chhetri, Shraddha. Capital's Boat Club: Jairath, Niloshree Bhattacharya and Vinod
The new hangout? August 11, 2013 K. "Social Movements, 'Popular' Spaces,
http://www.business- and Participation: A Review." Sociological
standard.com/article/news-ians/capital-s- Bulletin, May-August 2012: 299-319.
boat-club-the-new-hangout-
113081100245_1.html. (accessed Oct 27, Kohn, Margaret. "Privatization and Protest:
2015) Occupy Wall Street, Occupy Toronto, and
the Occupation of Public Space in a
28 Op. cit., 1962, 666. Democracy." Perspectives on Politics,
March 2013: 99-110.

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Lipsky, Michael. "Protest as a Political 41AcGOhDlRVyLsfTUq2TQP.html
Resource." The American Political Science (accessed October 27, 2015).
Review, Dec., 1968: 1144-1158.
Sundar, Amita Baviskar and Nandini.
Mah, Harold. "Phantasies of the Public
Sphere: Rethinking the Habermas of "Democracy versus Economic
Historians." The Journal of Modern
History, March 2000: 153-182. Transformation?" Economic and Political

Masso, Andrés Di. "Grounding Citizenship: Weekly, Nov 15-28, 2008: 87-89.
Toward a Political Psychology of Public
Space." Political Psychology, Feb 2012: Tarrow, Sidney. Power in Movement:
123-143. Social Movements, Collective Action and
Politics. New York, Cambridge and
Melbourne: Cambridge University Press,
1994.

Mitchell, Don. "The End of Public Space?
People's Park, Definitions of the Public,
and Democracy." Annals of the Association
of American Geographers, March 1995:
108-133.
Ravindran, Shruti. "Who kerbed my
rights?" Outlook, April 28, 2008: 84-85.

Sharma, Akhil Katyal and Shalini.
Levelling the playing field before the
Commonwealth Games. Sept 9, 2015.
http://www.hindustantimes.com/delhi/jant
ar-mantar-a-melting-pot-of-protests-
politics-and-more/story-
41AcGOhDlRVyLsfTUq2TQP.html
(accessed Oct 27, 2015).

Sharma, Manoj. Jantar Mantar: A melting
pot of protests, politics and more.
October 22, 2015.
http://www.hindustantimes.com/delhi/jant
ar-mantar-a-melting-pot-of-protests-
politics-and-more/story-

35

The Gorkhas: Ijtihad | Vol.4 | 2017

A Study on the Ethnographic and Historical Identity

of the Nepali Communities of Nepal and Darjeeling
By Irandati Pal

Abstract

The present article deals with the problem of the identity of the Gorkhas as propounded by the
British military officers and the labelling given to them as the “martial race”, “warrior race”, which
while serving the requirements of the East India Company army and later the British-Indian army,
also led to the stereotyping of a community and the inevitable effacing of other important attributes
of the various communities who constituted the Gorkhas. My first proposition would be to look into
the roots and origins of the Gorkha community and then trace the important political developments
that took place in Nepal and the hilly regions of North India in the eighteenth and nineteenth
century. Then, I will move on to the imperial and colonial discourse of producing knowledge and
categorising social groups and classes into neat labels and how this type of knowledge production is
seeped with contradictions. This has further propelled scholars to question such ideas in recent times
who have provided a different kind of historiography and account of the communities comprising the
Nepali ethnology, which have moved away from the colonial discourse and are grounded in intensive
and exhaustive sociological, historical, political and cultural attributes of the tribal as well as the caste
populations of Nepal and Eastern India. Thus, I will be addressing the problem of the British
construction of “races” and outlining a narrative which is quite distinct from the earlier narratives of
bravery and manliness of the hill Gorkhas. This approach will follow the ones as posited by Bidhan
Golay, Kumar Pradhan and others, where the whole myth of the colonial and imperial discourse has
been deconstructed.

The Gorkhas come into prominence in territories. As Stiller pointed out, the hilly
Nepali history with the conquest of almost kingdoms had always faced acute shortages
all of Nepal and its unification under the of land and revenue base and were always
Gorkhali king, Prithvinarayan Shah. The trying to expand their territories in search
province of Gorkha was thirty miles south of greener and better pastures.
of the Kathmandu Valley and it was a small
mountainous and rugged region with a tiny The Gorkha kingdom under
population and ruled by generations of Prithvinarayan Shah was no exception to
petty kings. It was surrounded on all sides this rule. He rallied his people and soldiers
by the territories belonging to the Chaubisi under the Gorkha banner for achieving
Raja Alliance, Lamjhung Alliance1 and better prospects and the only way to gain
others whose territories and resources were hold of better territories and land was
really vast when compared with the through war. Considering the unenviable
meagre resource base of the Gorkha position that the Gorkhas were at the
middle of the eighteenth century,
1 Ludwig F. Stiller, S.J. The Rise of the House of Prithvinarayan Shah had to employ a lot of
Gorkhas: A Study in the Unification of Nepal 1768- tact, diplomacy and highly-trained and
1816. Ranchi: The Patna Jesuit Society, 1975. efficient soldiers for quick raids and
incursions into forts and maintaining their

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Ijtihad | Vol.4 | 2017

hold over them with his small band of dexterity in fighting in the hilly terrains,
warriors. He could not afford to lose even a he was able to conquer the Valley and
single man in any of these skirmishes. He consolidate the whole of Nepal under his
recruited soldiers from the high-caste thumb. Later, under his son Bahadur Shah
Chettris, Khus and Thakuris and he and the chief minister, Kazi Amar Singh
believed in recreating a thoroughly Thapa the territories of the Gorkhas had
Hinduized and Kshatriya dominated extended to Kumaon, Garhwal and
soldiery. Sirmour in the west and to Sikkim in the
east.
But, lack of sufficient men led to the
enlistment of men belonging to the hill By this time, the boundaries of the Gorkha
tribes such as the Magars and Gurungs. He state touched the territories of the East
also had them trained and disciplined like India Company, whose Governor-Generals
the army of the East India Company and were silently watching the toppling over of
employed the Mughal symbolisms and many chiefs and kings by the Gorkhas in a
imagery. The identity given to both the long series of battles and the annexation of
caste and tribal soldiers was Gorkha, the conquered areas by them. This led to
wherein the army was inculcated with constant brushing between the Company
Hindu norms of behaviour and customs. It and the Nepalese and finally culminated in
also meant that the regiments were given the Anglo-Nepalese War of 1814-15 in
either Hindu names such as Ram Dal or which the Gorkhas were defeated and were
were given local names such as Gorkha forced to sign the humiliating Treaty of
corps which indicated to the local nature of Sigauli in 1816. More than a third of the
the soldiers under that regiment. The Nepali territory was taken over by the
banner was yellow in colour with the Company and the newly conquered
image of Hanuman in the background territories of Kumaon, Garhwal and
which again pointed to the Rajput origins Sirmour also went to the British. When
of the dynasty and the Hinduized character these areas had been under the Gorkhas,
of the army. So, though he might have as a they had imposed exorbitant taxes on the
“rajput” tried to restore the traditional zamindars of those areas and the inability
(brahmanical) balance and order of the to pay the taxes resulted in bondage
universe and created a Hindu nation under slavery. In order to escape such a fate, the
the leadership of Kshatriyas, he also zamindars enlisted their sons in the levies
ensured that his army was organised, or auxiliary corps2 comprising of soldiers
trained and disciplined according to the
contemporary standards of military 2 Alavi, Seema. “The Gurkha Experiment: 1764-
structures. Therein lied his success and 1857.” In The Sepoys and the Company: Tradition
coupled with the advantage of his soldiers’ and Transition in Northern India 1770- 1830, by
Seema Alavi, 264-291. Oxford University Press,
1995. 264-291.

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Ijtihad | Vol.4 | 2017

from the regions of Kumaon and Garhwal European drill and discipline and accoutred
as a substitute for Gorkha soldiers who in English brightly coloured coats with
could not be brought from central Nepal. long tails. But, the troops were also allowed
These troops served the needs of the to practise their own faith and customs and
Gorkha subbas or Sardars appointed in use their traditional weapon, the khukri.
those places for any kind of immediate These soldiers had incorporated a lot of the
military excursions which were belief- systems and customs from their
undertaken from and in those areas. Nepalese compatriots and therefore,
indulged in a variety of practises which
Mostly these reserve armies were used in were an amalgamation of both brahmanical
policing services and when the British took and tribal rites and customs. Illustrations
over the control of this belt, they too include the taboo on using the sacred cow
recruited men for policing and other as a draught animal which was invariably
civilian duties. The perceptions of the an upper-caste value imbibed by the
British were mostly coloured by the soldiers, the celebration of Dussehra which
reports given by the British officers who had never been practised before
had served in those areas and William Prithvinarayan Shah’s lifetime. Dussehra
Fraser, the one-time Resident in the celebrations also incorporated the tribal
Kathmandu Durbar had said that the ritual of sacrificing buffaloes by the best
Gorkhas of the western regions were good swordsmen after chanting brahmanical
only for civilian duties or as foraging incantations. In a way, the Hinduization
groups during war. But, at that time the and Kshatriyazation of the Gorkha soldiers
Company was hardly in need of infantry involved the merging of both caste and
soldiers since they were preoccupied with tribal social and ritual practices, wherein
fighting the mounted warriors, Pathans the calling of a soldier immediately
and Marathas and they agreed that a foot- elevated his social status as Kshatriya in
soldier from the hills would have no use in society.
the plains. But later in the 1820’s the
British did recognise the importance of Recruiting depot was opened up in Dehra
recruiting the Gorkhas mainly because of Dun where the best of the Magar and
the continuous mutinies that were Gurung tribes were enlisted in the
plaguing the Company regiments and Company army. At the same time the
battalions. Company also started eyeing the ferocious
Gorkha troops of central Nepal. This was
The first proper Gorkha regiment to be due to the indispensable requirement of
organised was the Sirmour regiment or the the Company to counterpoise the Indian
2nd King Edward’s Own Gurkha Rifles soldiers in the army with the hill
wherein the hill soldiers were trained in Kshatriyas. Also, the activities of the

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Ijtihad | Vol.4 | 2017

Nepalese chief minister, Bhim Singh Thapa immigrants from eastern Nepal. Thus, the
did not endear the soldiers to the loyal standardisation and stereotyping of the
cause of the ruling house. This invariably Gorkha soldiers in popular culture as well
led to their absorption in the Company’s as in the regiments occurred after 1857.
regiments; the British found it lucrative to
enlist these Dhakhili troops because they ***
had been trained according to the military The West, according to Edward Said, had
standards of the day and then disbanded always portrayed the Orient as essentially
because there was no need to keep a large feminine and hence, the people of the East
army during peace-time. But regular were viewed as effeminate as against the
militarization and the system of Punjanee masculine West. This perception was
kept the male population of Nepal well- carried to India by the British in the same
trained in armed activities and the reward way as they had carried diseases and lice
of a steady and good income in the East with them across the high seas and they
India Company led many of the Gorkha applied that hypothesis in a careless and
soldiers to desert their own army and join thoughtless manner to categorise people in
the services of the Company. the subcontinent. While the natives of the
plains were sloth like and effeminate with
In fact, the British looked forward to no admirable attributes, the hill people
tapping such useful and cheap mercenaries were seen as robust and masculine.
and soldiers and Hodgson, the British
Resident at Kathmandu wrote extensive Masculinity was correlated with martial
letters to the Governor-Generals praising qualities of a particular race and the
the martial qualities of the hill people. He Gorkhas could be termed as a “martial
also warned against the possible threat to race” just because a few British officers had
the Company’s boundaries due to this seen their aggression in battle-fields and
regular militarization drive in Nepal and considered that as a commendable trait in a
urged them to utilise their services. While “race” which was far inferior to the Anglo-
his requests were initially ignored, the only Saxons. Since, the term “race” was in vogue
proper source of information on the during those times, the British were of the
Nepalese was through him and his writings notion that martial attributes could only
were usually taken as the ultimate word on develop and grow in hilly and
the admirable martiality and masculinity of mountainous regions whereas regions like
the Gorkhas. Then 1857 happened along South India and Bengal were the “sloth
the way and the necessity to recruit belt”3 because the humid and hot climate of
Gorkhas became even acute and later these zones produced people who were of a
another depot was opened at Darjeeling
(Jalapahar cantonment) for enlisting the 3 Caplan, Lionel. “Martial Gurkhas: The persistence
of a British Military Discourse on "Race".” In War
and Society in Colonial India, edited by Kaushik Roy,
Oxford University Press, 2010, 225-245.

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Ijtihad | Vol.4 | 2017

lazy disposition and languorous in speech original habitat was much purer than the
and appearance. Only a few communities blood which had been contaminated by
could come up to the yard-stick as inter-marrying between different tribes or
standardised by the British. In spite, of by a shift in the location of the tribe from
their praise-worthy feature, the British its place of origin4.
would never concede that the “martial
races” had the capability to discipline and Initially, the line-boys or the children of
command over their own men. Their soldiers who used to live in separate lines
valour, glory could only come to limelight or garrisons within the cantonment where
under the British, hence the Gurkhas could the regiment/ battalion was posted (the
be good and loyal soldiers but they could soldiers could bring in their families along
never become officers which was the sole with them to the garrisons where they
prerogative of the Europeans, primarily the were stationed) were also recruited by the
British. Company army because these urban-
educated boys were intelligent and quick
As mentioned in the previous section, the to follow and execute the commands of
only source of British knowledge on the their superiors, but after 1857, the British
Gorkhas were the regimental histories, war officers became aware of the dangers of
memoirs, autobiographies and official employing youths who had learnt a lot of
reports written by the officers radical ideas within an urban setting.
commanding the Gorkha regiments and
these were highly biased accounts which Thereafter, preference was given to the
did not have a kernel of truth in them. illiterate youths from the mountainous and
Until the mid-1800s, the only reliable rural areas of Nepal. This also made the
spring of information on Nepalese British eager to accept any Gorkha from
ethnography, linguistic and cultural values the heart of Nepal who dissatisfied with his
was Hodgson’s reports and letters. His lot decided to get employed by the better-
observations became the hand-book for paying Company (there were strict
subsequent generations of officials and injunctions laid by the Kathmandu Durbar
they depended on it to a very large extent. against any sort of interference in their
The hill-plain division of races, martial internal affairs, including direct
tradition being a blood inheritance, etc. recruitment of troops from their heartland
were all inventions of that time. Even more by the British, the soldiers too joined the
preposterous were arguments about the Company corps at their own peril because
Magars and Gurungs of Western Nepal they had been forbidden by their
being more courageous than the ones of government from being employed by any
the East which was apparently because foreigner). Since, that door was closed to
“martial traits” evolved and nurtured in its
4 Ibid.

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the British, they found an open window in its apparatus in collecting facts and
the eastern territories ceded from Nepal information about the people and the
and many Kiratis (Rais, Limbus) were environment in which they lived through
enrolled in the Gorkha corps of the British- what Bernard Cohn terms as “investigative
Indian army from the new conscription modality”5. These technologies of rule
depot in Darjeeling. Again, the British helped the British to demarcate frontiers in
prejudices came to play in the popular terms of internal and external boundaries;
tropes about the “broad-chested and flat- wherein the external zone was beyond the
nosed” hill-man and they appreciated the British jurisdiction and the areas falling
terse speech of the Gorkhas which under the internal jurisdiction of the
according to them, demonstrated the need British was strictly regulated and governed
of a martial race for a language with according to the British idea of governance
prerequisite vocabulary with no on the basis of the information collected by
requirements for literary ornamentation or their representatives through surveys,
flowery imageries. censuses and field reports. Now, these
official reports never took cognisance of
The absurdities went to such heights that the multi-layered undertones of society, its
the British proclaimed the Gorkhas to be fluidity in terms of mobility and its own
either free small land-holders or cultural values. This fallacy led to the
independent pastoralists before their taking inscribing of a “martial race” on the body
up of arms during and after the unification of the Gorkhas6.
of Nepal. This accounted for their taking
up of occupations of either a sipahi or a Their identity which had hitherto been
tea-plantation coolie in the colonial times. plural and heterogeneous was now
These ideas were perpetuated over almost a dismissed or deliberately cast aside in order
century and may account for the annual to impose a single identity on the polyglot
recruitment of “Gorkhas” from Nepal to communities called the “Gorkha”. The
the British Army as infantrymen and not colonial state also tried to legitimise its rule
officers in recent times as well. The by establishing the institution of civil
colonial ideologies have persisted like society where it could only offer subject-
microorganisms even after the formal end hood to its subjects and not citizenship.
of imperialism and colonialism in a neo- This civil society as formulated by the
colonial setting. imperial masters was rejected and the

*** 5 Cohn, Bernard. "Colonialism and Forms of
The scientific racism or biological racism Knowledge: The British in India."New Delhi: Oxford
propagated by the British was a product of University Press, 2002.3-15.
colonial methodology of knowledge 6 Bidhan Golay, Rethinking Gorkha Identity: Outside
production. The colonial state made use of the Imperium of Discourse, Hegemony and History
(2006), 24-49.

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Ijtihad | Vol.4 | 2017

colonised decided to form a society of their was based on the idea of kinship or Nepali
own which was unlike what the colonial daju-bhai.
state had envisaged. The Nepali
community of Darjeeling too fashioned an Another significant way through which
identity of their own through the common Nepali self-identity was created was
bonding to each other on a linguistic plane. through the standardization and
Kumar Pradhan has stressed the universalisation of the Nepali language.
importance of a common Nepali language The above mentioned organisations had a
that cut across the barriers of social, big hand in ensuring that the myriad jatis
economic and cultural cleavages among the which constituted the Gorkha community
various Kirat, Mongoloid and Tagadhari led to “pluralistic synthesis of cultures and
(Chhettri, Bahuns) populations residing imaginations”. Colonialism, in a rather
and working in Darjeeling. weird way became the “unconscious tool”
for the creation of a new self-identity. In
While he believed that it was the private addition, the writings of the Nepali literary
needs of the people, (since each janajati luminaries, Surya Bikram Gewali, Dharani
had their own dialects or kuras) to Dhar Sharma and Paras Mani Pradhan
communicate with each other which made evoked feelings of Nepali nationalism on
them adopt Nepali as their lingua franca; the basis of language. They gave a clarion
Swatahsiddha Sarkar has refuted this point call to the Nepalis to arouse from their
on the ground that Nepali was endorsed slumber and wake up to the requirements
and promoted as the official language by of the times and ensure that their unity be
the government at the cost of formed through their one common
discriminating local creoles, pidgins and language, the development of which they
kuras. In fact, the land revenue records should all endeavour for.
during the early twentieth century was
made in Nepali and the University of Golay cites Agam Singh Giri’s poems to
Calcutta had recognised Nepali as the make it clear that the identity of the
language for medium of instruction and Nepalis was also related to their diasporic
writing from the primary school level up tendencies of romanticising their homes
till Masters level. But, the Nepali social and hearths in their native Nepal which
groups too devised ways to mould their they had abandoned in search of better
self-identity through the establishments of livelihoods in Darjeeling. But, Kumar
civil society organisations such as Nepali Pradhan had long before criticised such
Sahitya Sammelan (1924), Gorkha Dukha theories of de-territorialisation and argued
Nirwarak Sammelan (1932), Sri Hitkari that the Nepalis of Darjeeling did not
Sammelan (1945), Himalaya Kala Mandir harbour any immigrant-mentality and had
(1950) and many others where the identity shed their old notions of customary

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behaviour and practices as enumerated in sense) took a divergent trajectory from the
the Nepalese Dibya Upadesh. While such one being endorsed by the Nepalese
sentiments may have been a part of the government in Nepal7. The leading literary
psyche of seasonal immigrants who did not figures of the time were not upper-caste
really invest his time in interacting with Bahuns or Chhettris, but consisted mostly
the people of Darjeeling, most of whom of Kirats. The same went for political
were alien to him; the rest did not wear activists most of whom were either of Kirat
such emotions on their sleeve. or Mongoloid background. This was an
indication of a secular and culturally
The presence of pluralistic communities in heterogeneous identity formation which
Darjeeling as well as the colonial was not bound to the yokes of either feudal
atmosphere of the hill-station did not allow or Brahmanical hierarchies, as was the case
the growth of feudal hierarchies in society. in Nepal. While the presence of substantial
Furthermore, the Nepali coolies, bhariyas numbers of Kirat and Mongoloid groups in
were financially at the lowest rung of the Darjeeling as against tagadhari groups, as
monetary scale and this might have led to a given in O’Malley’s Darjeeling District
feeling of commonality among the Nepalis, Gazetteer cannot be wholly discounted, it
whose members distanced themselves from is noteworthy that the lead in identity
the middle class Bangali babus, the construction was taken up by Rais,
madhesi baniyas and their white masters. Gurungs and Tamangs who were all
The economic parity among the Nepalis matwalis.
was consistent with the cultural division of
labour as well as status that they had It also needs to be mentioned that Nepali
attached to themselves vis-á-vis the identity formation in Darjeeling happened
outsiders to their community, which in the context of anti-colonial discourse
Pradhan elaborates on the basis of and the surge of Indian nationalism. This
Hechterian models of cultural division of in a sense affected the identity formation
occupations, that is metropolitan culture process and Nepali identity was therefore
led to high-paying jobs whereas construed in terms of anti-colonial
folk/marginal cultures led to less-paid jobs. struggles and within an Indian- Nepali
ethno-geographical context. I.B. Rai and
There was the profusion of intra- later Kumar Pradhan had articulated that
community solidarity among the Nepali- Nepali nation in India may have had
speaking groups as a result of such a Nepalese ancestry but within the Indian
situation prevailing in the society. Kumar
Pradhan, further argued that the 7 Sarkar, Swatahsiddha. “Nepali Nation and
development of Nepali identity and Nationalism in Darjeeling:Kumar Pradhan in
nationalism, (in a cultural- ethnographic Perspective.” Studies in Nepali History and Society
(Mandala Book Point) 20, no. 1 (June 2015): 31- 68.

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state they constituted not a separate nation Dasgupta, Atis. “Ethnic Problems and
but a linguistically and ethnically diverse Movements for Autonomy in Darjeeling.”
group bound together by shared Social Scientist (Social Scientist) 27, no.
experiences, a common language and the 11/12 (November- December 1999): 47- 68.
idea of a united brotherhood. Also, the idea
of bir Gorkhas had not exactly evaporated Golay, Bidhan. “Rethinking Gorkha
from the scene. This does not imply that Identity: Outside the Imperium of
the Nepalis had no earlier notions of Discourse,Hegemony and History.” Peace
bravery; they had such an ideology which and Democracy in South Asia 2, no. 1 & 2
had been created during Prithvinarayan (2006).
Shah’s time and such ideas percolated
down the generations. The problem lied Khalidi, Omar. “Ethnic Group Recruitment
and still lies in the fact that notions of in the Indian Army: The Contrasting Cases
bravery are somewhat linked to the of Sikhs, Muslims, Gurkhas and others.”
colonial discourse of biological racism and Pacific Affairs (Pacific Affairs, University
the fresh identity so created invariably is of British Columbia) 74, no. 4 (2001-2002):
explicated and understood through a 529-552.
metropolitan lens which does not do
justice or give credit to the self-identity Ludwig F. Stiller, S.J. The Rise of the House
reformulated and remade by the Nepalis of Gorkhas: A Study in the Unification of
for the last one century. Nepal 1768-1816. Ranchi: The Patna Jesuit
Society, 1975.
Bibliography

Alavi, Seema. “The Gurkha Experiment: 1764- Sarkar, Swatahsiddha. “Nepali Nation and
1857.” In The Sepoys and the Company: Nationalism in Darjeeling:Kumar Pradhan
Tradition and Transition in Northern India in Perspective.” Studies in Nepali History
1770- 1830, by Seema Alavi, 264-291. Oxford and Society (Mandala Book Point) 20, no. 1
University Press, 1995. (June 2015): 31- 68.

Cohn, Bernard. "Colonialism and Forms of
Knowledge: The British in India."New Delhi:
Oxford University Press, 2002.

Caplan, Lionel. “Martial Gurkhas: The
persistence of a British Military Discourse
on "Race".” In War and Society in Colonial
India, edited by Kaushik Roy, 225- 245.
Oxford University Press, 2010.

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Power and Piety: The Unheard Voices

(The Sanskrit Inscriptions and Coins of Delhi Sultanate)
By Madhav Nayar and K.G. Divya

(This Paper was written by the authors as part of their internship in National

Museum (Numismatics and Epigraphy Department) under Ms. Komal Pande
(Assistant Curator, N&E Department). The authors express immense gratitude to
National Museum and Ms. Pamde for guidance in research for this paper.)

Abstract

This paper explores the relationship between religion and the socio-political identity of rulers

during the Sultanate period through numismatic and epigraphic evidence. It takes into

consideration Sanskrit inscriptions found in and around Delhi which have been long neglected in

historiographical literature. The aim of the paper is to showcase the fact that understanding of

Sultanate polity is far more complex than the mere rhetoric of religious animosity and bigotry. This

view has emerged due to the preference accorded to literary sources which fail to take cognizance

of wider realities. The evidences cited in the paper help us to discern various threads of

interpretation regarding this issue. While analysing the sources and their perception of Sultans, one

gets a view that religion was only one of the components of social identity, and did not necessarily

define or characterize the identity of the rulers. In fact, sources frequently refer to their ethnic

differentiation and political feats. However, religion was not entirely out of the purview of polity

either. It was manipulated to confer legitimacy and divinity to their rule. As a result, the difference

in the religion of the ruler and the ruled led to a situation between complete theocracy and seamless

integration.

___________________________________________________________________________________

_ British periods1. Even for many nationalist
historians or right-of-the-centre scholars,
Introduction: Challenging enduring Turkish conquests and establishment of
perspectives Delhi Sultanate heralded the ‘Muslim’ or
Historiographically speaking, Delhi medieval period. In his preface to volume
Sultanate is one of the most contested five of the twelve volumes of the avowedly
periods of Indian history. In conventional nationalist History and Culture of the
historiography, the advent of Turkish rule People of India, K.M. Munshi provided an
in India is regarded as an Islamic intrusion even earlier date for the commencement of
into Indian history. It is contended that the medieval India. He writes that, “AD 1000
arrival of the Turks inaugurated the was a fateful year for India. In that year,
‘Muslim era’ in Indian history and the Mahmud of Ghazni first invaded it. That
beginning of confrontation between event, in my opinion, divides ancient India
Hinduism and Islam- two monolithic from Medieval India”2.
religions. This tendency to view Hindus
and Muslims as two mutually exclusive
identities arises in the 19th century due to

colonial historiography, which provides a

communal periodisation of Indian history 1 James Mill, The History of British India ,volume 2,
and divides it into Hindu, Muslim and (New Delhi: Associated Publishing House,1972
reprint)
2 KM Munshi, ‘Preface’: The Struggle for Empire in
Vol 5 of The History and Culture of Indian People,

45