After the violent incidences at Bhima-Koregaon, followed by a Maharashtra bandh and media and social media warfare, it has become almost impossible to understand the truth and give an opinion on the issue, fearing retaliation from one or other group(s).
It is your history versus my history versus his history. Truth is not the issue; in fact, it is the casualty. Manipulation of truth for cultural and electoral politics is the key to understand this mess.
January 1 2018 marked the 200th anniversary of the famous Bhima-Koregaon battle, where the British defeated Peshwa Bajirao II. Soldiers from the Mahar Regiment played a major role in this. In recent years, Bhima-Koregaon has become the point of assertion for the belligerent Mahar community in their battle against the hegemony of Brahminical values.
When multiple narratives claim authenticity and legitimacy, protagonists of a narrative may treat the opposing narrative as conspiracy theory. There has been an attempt by subaltern historians to challenge the popular historical narrative of medieval Maharashtra, where Chhatrapati Shivaji is projected as Gobrahman Pratipalak i.e., protector of cows and Brahmins.
The popular and so-called mainstream narrative is Brahminical and Hindutvawadi, so the counter-narrative has to be Bahujanwadi. However, there are multiple counter-narratives and multiple claims to ownership of Chhatrapati Shivaji.
The non-Brahmin movement, led by the Maratha elites, looks at Shivaji and Sambhaji as protagonists challenging Brahminical hegemony. They look at Peshwai or the dominance of the Brahmin Peshwas in the 18th century as ascendancy of Brahmins over the Marathas. The regime beginning from Balaji Vishwanath and ending with Peshwa Bajirao II is described either as Peshwai or as Maratheshahi (Maratha confederacy) depending on one’s ideological location.
Practically, even the Brahmin Peshwas considered themselves Marathas because at least then the word Maratha was not used to denote a caste, but people belonging to a region.
The defeat of Peshwa Bajirao II is celebrated as the collapse of the Brahminical regime, which suppressed the aspirations of the non-Brahmins.
Erstwhile Mahars and a section of the present neo-Buddhists claim the legacy of the Maratha regime under Shivaji and Sambhaji but detest Peshwai. A dispassionate reading of the available documents on Maratha history would tell us that none of these narratives tell us the complete truth.
Shivaji wanted to become a king and overruled the Brahmins of the Deccan when they refused to recognise him as emperor, citing religious scriptures. However, to say that Shivaji developed a counter-narrative to Brahminical hegemony and was therefore a champion of anti-Brahminism is too loose an interpretation of history.
A similar loose interpretation is to treat Shivaji as the protagonist of the Hindu cause. It is possible to point out incidences in his life that show allegiance to both.
Maharashtrians, like the rest of Indians, are bad at maintaining records. The Mughals and the British destroyed Raigad and other forts and valuable documents were lost. This leaves room for all kinds of speculation, Brahminical or otherwise. For playing contemporary politics, documents help but lack of documents helps more, because it provides more room for collective imagination and manipulation. Bhima-Koregaon is a manifestation of competitive negotiations and imagination.
It is pointless to argue that the Mahars of that time should not have fought on the side of the British.
The British wanted local soldiers who were cheaply available and who could be possibly easily trained to take on the last mighty power in India, the Marathas. The most important question is: after the defeat of Peshwa Bajirao II, did the British gratefully acknowledge the contribution of Mahars in this battle beyond building a memorial?
Looking at the minuscule minority of Brahmins in Maharashtra, it would be improper to say that the defeat of Bajirao’s army is the defeat of the Brahmins. In fact, it was the non-Brahmin army led by the corrupt Brahmin elite. Peshwai like all political regimes of medieval India had its own serious problems. However, from Peshwa Bajirao I to Malharrao Holkar to Mahaji Shinde to Nana Fadnis, it had its own share of competent people; not everyone was involved and fascinated by the ideas of Ramana and Dakshina (where Brahmins were patronised and eulogised) popularised in later Peshwai.
Therefore, while celebrating the defeat of Peshwa Bajirao II, one must understand that from the time of Shahaji to Savai Madhavrao, there is a linkage in the Maratha regime and Shivaji has been revered not by the Maratha sardars but also by the Brahmin Peshwas because they understood that he was the pioneer of the empire. What is needed now is to overcome the uninformed debate from all sides and accept that multiple historical narratives are going to coexist and as long as they coexist, without baying for each others’ blood, it is fine in a democratic set-up.
Bhima-Koregaon has something to do with the political process evolved in Maharashtra post-1960. As the dominant caste, Marathas have controlled power for a long time.
The economically weaker sections among the Marathas have realised of late that the so-called Maratha-Kunbi caste cluster is not a monolith and the dominant groups among the Marathas are the real beneficiaries of controlling the state apparatus. This frustration of being part of the dominant caste,but still being underprivileged and unrecognised has to be factored in to understand the agitations of the Jats, Thakurs, Patidars and Marathas.
In the case of Maharashtra, when the unemployed rural Maratha youth are craving for employment, and when the system has failed to engage with them, the easiest way to divert attention is to give a history pill and discover enemies who could be responsible for everything that has gone wrong with the community. This explains the emergence of the Sambhaji Brigade, Maratha Seva Sangh and other Maratha organisations patronised by the ruling political parties in last two decades. This has contributed to the constant rewriting of history and attempts to stake exclusive ownership of Shivaji and Sambhaji for the Maratha caste.
This would explain the disproportion influence of two Bhosale rulers from Kolhapur, Satara, and the attempts by major political parties to patronise them. One may argue that this has contributed to the democratisation of the legacy of Shivaji. However, the embedded feudal component of this leadership is hard to ignore.
Ambedkar created a movement of the subaltern classes of people across India and he has a pan-Indian appeal even today,not just as a political strategist but also as one of the architects of the Constitution of India.
When he converted to Buddhism, the community that responded the most was the Mahar community to which he belonged. It is the dominant dalit community in Maharashtra. From conversion till date, Mahars and the present day neo-Buddhists have dominated the anti-caste discourse in Maharashtra.
In terms of the advantages of affirmative action, they have been the biggest beneficiaries in the state. It has brought them face to face with the middle-class Brahmins and Marathas; on the other hand, it has also antagonised other dalit castes in Maharashtra because they fear the monopolising of the anti-caste space by the neo-Buddhists.
The Congress, and its sibling NCP, have used the politics of co-option for a long time to co-opt the dalits, especially the Mahars, thereby paralysing the dalit movement.
Discourse-changing efforts like the Dalit Panthers were defeated by insecure leaders of the RPI and the megalomania of the Panther leadership. The RPI today is a multi-fractured family, with leaders having local and pocket influence claiming national status.
With the emergence of the Bharatiya Janata Party on the national horizon and its successful deployment of the co-option strategy, the dalit movement in Maharashtra is further marginalised, with maverick leaders like Ramdas Athawale surrendering to the NDA and rationalising the surrender.
The four comparatively relevant groups of the RPI—Athawale, Prakash Ambedkar, Jogendra Kawade, and R.S. Gawai—are all at loggerheads with each other. This has resulted in jeopardising of the dalit movement. More so, the non-Mahar dalit castes who feel that they are not represented by the Mahar-led dalit movement have joined hands with the Shiv Sena or the Bharatiya Janata Party. Thus, Mangs, Chambars and Dhors have joined hands with different political parties to get their share of the cake in affirmative action and the politics of the depressed classes.
There is antagonism between educated Brahmins and Mahars because both look at each other as competitors in the bureaucratic sphere.
The Maratha-Mahar rivalry on the other hand is based on the relationship in villages and has a lot to do with control of land and local politics. More so, a section of the Marathas is unhappy with the dalit movement sharing the connect with Shivaji and his legacy because the politically frustrated unemployed Maratha youth has only one thing to emotionally cling on to—the pride in Chhatrapati Shivaji’s history and the exclusive connect of the Marathas with him.
Ambedkar and many others who led the anti-caste movement visualised the end of the caste system, with progressive 'decasting' of individuals. With due respect to the protagonists of the anti-caste movement, they failed to understand that electoral politics in a democracy would be a booster dose for caste politics and electoral mobilisation would contribute to caste consolidation.
Elections—local, state and national—are a major trigger for this mobilisation and therefore, the violence at Bhima-Koregaon and the Maharashtra bandh should also been seen in the context of the 2019 elections and political preparations leading to that.
Prakash Ambedkar, who led the Maharashtra bandh has come out of hibernation after a long time. Despite having the Ambedkar tag, he has not been able to do much of what was expected of him. The socialists and the communists, collectively called the progressives, are a marginalised lot in Maharashtra today. It is their own doing because they have followed the politics of untouchability for a long time, leading to organisational fragmentation and electoral 'peripheralisation'. The communists failed to understand and recognise the caste dynamics in India.
Both the groups are stereotypical in their criticism of the establishment, which includes the country being sold to the IMF and the World Bank and the present dispensation being fascist in nature. Although they lack organisations on the ground, they have a vocal crowd on social media and this virtual 'chatterati' class (which the Sangh Parivar also has in abundance) has contributed a lot to the incidents in Bhima-Koregaon and later in Mumbai.
The progressives, with limited or no organisation, look at Prakash and the dalit masses as their mercenary army, although it is not said in so many words. Prakash gets legitimacy from the progressives and the progressives get organisational might from the dalit masses. This way, the politics of emancipation is going to remain predictable.
I am not sure whether Prakash will be able to break this mould. As long as he is not able to do it, I don’t see much future to his politics beyond prime-time news. More importantly, hiring the likes of Jignesh Mevani and Umar Khalid is not going to help beyond a point. It may in fact jeopardise the future of some dalit youth in Maharashtra. Prakash also has to take care to not align with the Naxals. Both the Hindutwawadis and the Naxals are part of the problem.
The Sangh Parivar and the Bharatiya Janata Party has very successfully capitalised on the fault lines between Brahmins and Mahars and Marathas and Mahars. Thus, Sambhaji Bhide, Milind Ekbote and the Hindutvawadi brigade, through their network of paid trolls, have been able to successfully confuse people and use it for enhancing the credibility of Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and his government.
I do not agree with the argument that Fadnavis is a Brahmin and therefore logically a Peshwa. There is more to Fadnavis’ strategy than what meets the eye. Fadnavis and his team are following Modi’s disruption model in the state.
On the one hand, they have imported almost every influential political leader from the Congress-NCP against whom they had campaigned from 2009. This process, aptly described on social media as Valmikikaran, has certainly affected the so-called clean image of the Bharatiya Janata Party.
We have a one-man government at the Centre, and we have a one-man government in Maharashtra.
Surprisingly even senior mediapersons do not understand the contradiction when they argue that the chief minister is good, but the system is bad. When this one-man system fails to deliver, you need Bhima-Koregaon to divert attention from core issues.
The core issues are that of employment, housing, infrastructure, quality education, health and environment. Battles for asmita (identity) reflecting through history are a challenge to this. Keeping people engaged in the battle of 1818 is an intelligent strategy of the present dispensation when 2018 is not going to be happy enough.
The mercenary army led by Bhide, Ekbote and others does its job quite well and people forget questioning why the government cut short the duration of the Winter Session, why the supplementary demands are going higher and higher and why is it that the Fadnavis cabinet is showing symptoms of policy paralysis. We will be able to see through this only when we are willing to look beyond the binaries.
This is how I think the way forward could be. Don’t get ecstatic by the success of the Maharashtra bandh and don’t allow yourselves to get offended every now and then because the establishment has many more Bhima-Koregaons in store and don’t expect a revolution with fossilised minds and fossilised ideological set-ups.
Challenge the Hindu right but let that phobia not make you individually and collectively immobilised. Engaging with the establishment and developing a new critique is the key. The Brahmin, non-Brahmin, Peshwa-Maratha, secular-communal and fascist-progressive is the very binary division the establishment is comfortable with because they have come to power exploiting these fault lines.
If you want to really make them uncomfortable, you have to change the discourse. It is only a fresh outlook that looks beyond the false unsettling of the status quo that is going to help us evolve a new initiative, a new Maharashtra initiative if I may call. The need for such an initiative is the real lesson of Bhima-Koregaon. After the dust settles down, I hope we will move in that direction sooner than later.
Dr Deepak Pawar is a faculty member of the Department of Civics and Politics, University of Mumbai.
