कवायती सैन्य, बाजारबुणगे आणि बुलशिट...Misplaced Passion For Plassey

 मे २५ २०१९ रोजी भारताच्या नवनिर्वाचित पंतप्रधानांनी हिंदू-मुस्लिम ऐक्यासाठी कुठला मंत्र दिला असेल तर ज्या एकजुटीने भारतीय १८५७चे युद्ध लढले ते spirit समाजात पुन्हा निर्माण करण्याचा ... त्यांच्या भाषणात १८५७चा उल्लेख २-३ वेळा आला... आणि योगायोगाने ज्या भारतीयाने १८५७चे युद्ध सर्वात जास्त भारतीयांपर्यंत आपल्या गाजलेल्या पुस्तकातून पोचवले त्या वीर सावरकरांचा उल्लेख सुद्धा त्यांनी केला....

१८५७चे स्वातंत्र्य युद्ध या ब्लॉग वर पूर्वी आले आहे पण आज वाटले या निमित्ताने काही दिवसापूर्वी लिहलेली १७५७ प्लासीच्या लढाईवर लिहलेली फेसबुक पोस्ट ह्या ब्लॉग वर आणू.

 श्री. भाऊ तोरसेकर यांनी श्री सुनील तांबे यांच्या पोस्ट ('प्लासी ते सांगली') चा आधार घेत सप्टेंबर २० २०१८ रोजी ही पोस्ट लिहली होती: "बाजारबुणगे आणि रा. स्व. संघ".

मी ती एप्रिल २४ २०१९ रोजी वाचली. किती अनैतिहासिक ती आहे हे पाहून खूप आश्चर्य वाटले. 

श्री. तोरसेकर म्हणतात : "बंगालचा शेवटचा नबाब सिराज उद्दौला मातला होता. नबाबाचं सैन्य ब्रिटीश सैन्याच्या दुप्पट होतं. नबाबाचा वझीर, मीर जाफर ब्रिटीश ईस्ट इंडिया कंपनीला फितूर झाला. ५० हजार सैनिकांची फौज घेऊन तो ब्रिटीश सैन्याला येऊन मिळाला. ब्रिटीशांच्या कवायती फौजेपुढे नबाबाच्या सैनिकांची दाणादाण उडाली....
ब्रिटीश इस्ट इंडिया कंपनीचे मोजके, पण कवायती सैन्य आणि सिराज उद दौलाची बाजारबुणग्यांची विस्कळीत बेशिस्त फ़ौज, यांच्यातली ही लढाई आहे. शिस्त असलेले कार्यकर्ते व त्यांची कायमस्वरूपी उभी असलेली खडी फ़ौज, कुठल्याही चौपट पाचपट मोठ्या संख्येच्या जमावाला पांगवू शकत असते....
... शिस्तीची फ़ौज त्यात कुठल्याही प्रसंगाला सामोरे जाण्यासाठी पुर्ण तयारीनिशी मैदानात उतरलेली असते. ब्रिटीशांची फ़ौज आणि नबाब सिराज उद दौलाच्या सैन्यामध्ये हा नेमका फ़रक होता आणि त्याचीच पुनरावृत्ती आज भारतीय राजकारणात होत आहे."

हे असल ऐतिहासिक गोष्टीच सुलभीकरण (simplification) मला मुळात आवडत नाही. प्रत्येक मोठी ऐतिहासिक घटना गुंतागुंतीची असते आणि त्याचा मान आपण ठेवला पाहिजे.

मागील काही वर्षातील इंग्रजांच्या भारतातील राजवटीबद्दल सर्वोत्कृष्ट पुस्तक आहे, जोन विल्सन यांचे "India Conquered: Britain's Raj and the Chaos of Empire", २०१६, ज्याचा उल्लेख मी पूर्वी केला आहे.

डॉ विल्सन यांच्या पुस्तकात प्लासीच्या लढाईवर एक प्रकरण आहे ("Passion at Plassey"), ते जरूर वाचा, मी त्यातील फक्त थोडा अंश देतो आहे.

"Since 1757 historians have tended to play down the importance of ‘the Battle of Plassey’, as it became known. They have suggested it was the lucky result of political negotiations, ‘the successful culmination of an intrigue’ as Percival Spear put it, rather than a real fight. Such judgement depends on an unrealistic idea of what determines the outcome of normal wars. There was nothing particularly unusual about the fact that Plassey was shaped by forces off the field. Until mass mechanized warfare, most battles were determined by who didn’t fight rather than the capacity of those who did. Siraj lost because his forces reflected his own limited capacity to assert authority over the constituent parts of Bengali society. Defeat was a consequence of the breakdown of political authority caused by the social upheaval that followed the invasion of Nader Shah. In June 1757, the East India Company was better able to hold a fighting force together than its enemies. The important point, though, is that the real British ability to lead a small body of men on the battlefield did not give them the capacity to command the submission of the province’s twenty million people afterwards. Plassey did not found an empire. It merely ensured that political chaos endured in Bengal far longer than it would have done otherwise."

कुठून काढले श्री. तोरसेकर यांनी कवायती सैन्य आणि बाजारबुणगे? एक शब्द सुद्धा तसा जोन विल्सन यांनी लिहला नाहीये. किती गुंतागुंतीची कारणे पराभवासाठी विल्सन देतात ते पहा. उदा: नादिर शहाच्या आक्रमणामुळे ब्रिटिशांचा फायदा झाला होता...

१७५७ ची लढाई भारत हरला. त्यानंतरच्या वर्षांत त्याहूनही दोन जास्त महत्वाच्या गोष्टी भारत हरला :  १७६१ ची पानिपत लढाई आणि १८५७ चे पहिले स्वातंत्र्य युद्ध. मग ते हरलेले पण असलेच "बाजारबुणगे" होते काय? १७६१ साली थोडेफार कवायती सैन्य कोणाकडे होते तर मराठ्यांकडे. ती लढाई हरल्याची कारणे अनेक व गुंतागुंतीची. (त्र्यं शं शेजवलकर, 'पानिपत १७६१', १९६१) आणि १८५७चे युद्ध भारत जिंकू शकला असता. It was a close call.  (William Dalrymple, "The Last Mughal', 2006).

प्लासीच्या लढाईचे भवितव्य ठरले ते कवायती सैन्यामुळे आणि बाजारबुणग्यांमुळे नव्हे तर लाचखोरीने, बनावट दस्तऐवजाने, विश्वासघाताने....त्या संबंधातील गेल्या फक्त काही वर्षातील थोडी अवतरणे देतो:

K. P. Fabian: "It is fairly evident that if Robert Clive had not won the Battle of Plassey by bribing, Joseph-Francois Dupleix, the Governor General of French India, might have captured India."

म्हणजे क्लाईव्हने लाचखोरीने प्लासीची लढाई जिंकली होती.

William Dalrymple: "... After the Battle of Plassey in 1757, a victory that owed more to treachery, forged contracts, bankers and bribes than military prowess, he transferred to the East India Company treasury no less than £2.5m seized from the defeated rulers of Bengal – in today’s currency, around £23m for Clive and £250m for the company..."

म्हणजे बनावट कागदपत्रे, विश्वासघात , लाचखोरी आणि बँकर्स यांच्यामुळे इंग्रजांना जास्तकरून विजय मिळाला.

George Trefgarne:  “...the East India Company was the first recognisable multinational and claims that Plassey is a classic example of a large corporation becoming too un-wieldy and being hijacked by greedy, egomaniacal executives....” 

Richard Cavendish: “The confrontation came on a cloudy morning north of the village of Plassey on the bank of the Hughli river. Clive’s army was drawn up in three divisions, as was the Nawab’s army of perhaps 40,000 men with its war-elephants and more than 50 cannon. One division was commanded by Mir Jafar. After an opening cannonade, a crash of thunder at noon heralded a torrential downpour of rain that lasted half an hour. The British artillerymen quickly covered their cannon and ammunition with tarpaulins, but the enemy failed to do the same and their artillery was put out of action, so that when the Nawab’s army moved forward, assuming that Clive’s cannon were also out of action, it was met with a withering storm of fire. The enemy withdrew and Siraj, who distrusted his generals and had already been warned of impending defeat by his astrologer (who had possibly been bribed), lost his nerve when Mir Jafar advised retreat. When Clive’s army attacked again, Siraj fled on a fast camel. His demoralized army followed suit and when the British entered the enemy camp at about 5pm, they found it abandoned.”

कुठेही कवायती सैन्य, बाजारबुणगे यांचा उल्लेख नाही. 

(मध्ययुगीन युद्धांमध्ये बैलगाड्यांचा वापर logistics साठी भरपूर होत असे, त्यामुळे शीर्षकातील बुलशिट अर्थपूर्ण आहे!)

Clive meeting with Mir Jafar after the Battle of Plassey, 1762

oil on canvas 

Artist: Francis Hayman (1708- 1776)

Pulling Fifty-Nine...

I turn 59, if at all,  today.....

Artist: Bob Mankoff

किती पुतळे आहेत गोळवलकर गुरुजींचे?...Pygmalion Falls In Love

खालील पोस्ट मी मे १६ २०१४ साली पहिल्यांदा प्रसिद्ध केली, ती  इथे पहा ... आज कमीतकमी फेरफार करून पुन्हा प्रसिद्ध करतो आहे....

Narendra Modi, 63, a card-carrying member of  Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), for which he started volunteering at the age of eight, is all set to become India's Prime Minister.

Luis Buñuel, 'My Last Sigh':

"I also remember being struck by de Sade's will, in which he asked that his ashes be scattered to the four corners of the earth in the hope that humankind would forget both his writings and his name. I'd like to be able to make that demand; commemorative ceremonies are not only false but dangerous, as are all statues of famous men. Long live forgetfulness, I've always said—the only dignity I see is in oblivion.”

Financial Times, May 13 2014:
"The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh or RSS believe that India is the Hindu holy land and that it needs protection from outside cultural influences including the country's Muslim and Christian minorities. The organisation has mobilised behind Narendra Modi in the current election in the hope that he will further their aims for the nation."

Marc Bloch, 'The Historian’s Craft', 1953:
"Are we so sure of ourselves and of our age as to divide the company of our forefathers into the just and the damned …? When the passions of the past blend with the prejudices of the present, human reality is reduced to a picture in black and white."

Dr. Ramachandra Guha, 'Makers of Modern India', 2011:
"...There were important Hindu right-wing thinkers before (M S) Golwalkar, such as V.D. Savarkar and Madan Mohan Malaviya. These may have been more subtle or sophisticated, but scarcely as effective or influential. Through his three decades as the head of the RSS, Golwalkar exercised a deep influence on the society and politics of modem India. A lifelong brahmadtari, or celibate, he acquired, in the fashion of a typical Hindu guru, a cult of younger male acolytes. These went on to become chief ministers of large Indian states. Others acquired even more power, directing the affairs of the Central government in New Delhi. Thus, Atal Behari Vajpayee, prime minister of India between 1998 and 2004, and Lai Krishna Advani, home minister and deputy prime minister during the same period, were both, in a personal as well as ideological sense, disciples of the long-time head of the RSS... "

Simon Critchley, review of John Gray's 'The Silence of Animals', 2013:
"...Today’s metaphysics is called “liberal humanism,” with a quasi-religious faith in progress, the power of reason and the perfectibility of humankind. The quintessential contemporary liberal humanists are those Obamaists, with their grotesque endless conversations about engagement in the world and their conviction that history has two sides, right and wrong, and they are naturally on the right side of it..."


John Buchan, Greenmantle, 1916:
"Some day, when the full history is written – sober history with ample documents – the poor romancer will give up business and fall to reading Miss Austen in a hermitage."

I am often amused by the shallowness of what I read in most Indian newspapers or see on most Indian TV news channels.  I often recall what Nicholas Taleb says: “To be competent, a journalist should view matters like a historian, and play down the value of information he is providing…Not only is it difficult for the journalist to think more like a historian, but it is, alas, the historian who is becoming more like the journalist.”

I have largely stopped writing about it. But here I make an exception with an example from a Marathi newspaper.

डॉ. सदानंद मोरे, लोकसत्ता, Loksatta, April 11, 2014:
"...१९२० साली लोकमान्य टिळकांचे निधन झाले आणि १९२२ साली शाहू छत्रपतींचे. मात्र त्यानंतर त्यांची जागा घेऊ शकेल असा एकही नेता त्यांच्या अनुयायांना लाभला नाही. परिणाम म्हणून तोपर्यंत भारतात अग्रेसर असलेला महाराष्ट्र राजकारणात एकदम मागे फेकला गेला, तो अद्याप आपले पूर्वीचे स्थान परत प्राप्त करू शकला नाही..."

"...१९२५ च्या दरम्यान टिळकांच्या अनुयायांनी पुण्यात चिपळूणकरांचा पुतळा बसवून त्याचे खुद्द गांधींच्या हस्ते अनावरण करवले. जेधेप्रभृती सत्यशोधकांच्या फुल्यांचा पुतळा बसवण्याच्या मागणीला वाटाण्याच्या अक्षता लावण्यात आल्या.
आज शतक पूर्ण व्हायच्या आतच चिपळूणकरांचा पुतळा बहुधा एकुलता एकच राहिला आहे. फुल्यांचे पुतळे मात्र असंख्य आढळतील..." (लोकसत्ता, Loksatta, March 28 2014)

I have now read this argument- 'Maharashtra lost political leadership of India after 1922'- for many years.

The argument is cliched and all it does is strengthening of  parochial tendencies in urban middle-class Maharashtra and their political leaders. (Perhaps it also is the objective of a large part of the Marathi media.)

The argument is simply not true. Here is an attempt to explain why.

According to Amazon.com: "Makers of Modern India collects the work of nineteen of India's foremost generators of political sentiment, from those whose names command instant global recognition to pioneering subaltern and feminist thinkers whose works have until now remained obscure and inaccessible..."

Six out of those nineteen are Maharashtrians/ Marathi speaking- Jotirao Phule (1827-1890), G K Gokhale (1866-1915), B G Tilak (1856-1920), Tarabai Shinde (1850-1910), B R Ambedkar (1891-1956), M S Golwalkar (1906-1973).

Of the six people above, who do you think India's soon-to-be Prime Minister is closest to in his ideology? Dr. Guha's verdict, quoted above, leaves nothing to the doubt:

"...Golwalkar exercised a deep influence on the society and politics of modem India...Thus, Atal Behari Vajpayee, prime minister of India between 1998 and 2004, and Lai Krishna Advani, home minister and deputy prime minister during the same period, were both, in a personal as well as ideological sense, disciples of the long-time head of the RSS..."

I have no doubt Mr. Modi too is, in a personal as well as ideological sense, a disciple of Golwalkar guruji,  just like Vajpayee and Advani  (read Mr. Modi on M S Golwalkar in Caravan Magazine dated May 31 2014 here).

Golwalkar was born in Maharashtra and died there as late as in 1973.

How can then one say that 'Maharashtra fell far behind in politics' (महाराष्ट्र राजकारणात एकदम मागे फेकला गेला) after the deaths of Tilak in 1920  and Shahu Chhatrapati in 1922?

Read what Dr. R. Guha further says about Mr. Golwalkar: "...Golwalkar saw three principal threats to the formation of a Hindu nation-—Muslims, Christians and communists. All three were foreign
in origin, and the last were godless to boot. Golwalkar saw Muslims, Christians and communists as akin to the demons, or rakshashas, of Indian mythology, with the Hindus as the avenging angels who would slay them and thus restore the goodness and purity of the Motherland. The RSS itself was projected by Golwalkar as the chosen vehicle for this national and civilizational renewal of the Hindus..."? (page 371)

Is Dr. More ashamed to acknowledge Maharashtra's political leadership in 21st century India just because it is NOT  in the hands of "liberal humanists"?

I also feel this "fell far behind" argument does not do justice to the posthumous rise of Dr. B R Ambedkar as a political figure as 'tall' as Mahatma Gandhi.  Arguably Ambedkar is now more important than Gandhi in India's electoral politics.

Let me now turn to the second quotation, above, of Dr. More. There,  he sort of implies that Mahatma Phule has 'trumped' Chiplunkar because he has more statues!

The comparison is not fair, although it is funny.

Chiplunkar lived for only thirty-one years to Phule's sixty-three. Chiplunkar's thoughts influenced B G Tilak,  who in turn influenced M S Golwalkar. (Dr. Guha: "...Golwalkar also admired Bal Gangadhar Tilak, 'THE MILITANT NATIONALIST',  for making culture so central to national identity and self-assertion...".  Guha  could have as well said Chiplunkar instead of Tilak.)

Therefore,  the fair comparison is that of Phule with Tilak or Golwalkar- all three from Guha's list. If Dr. More makes that comparison, I doubt if  he will give the decisive 'victory' to Phule.

By the way, I wonder how many statues of Golwalkar exist in India. I could NOT locate a single image of his statue on Google image search while Phule has got dozens of them.

But does it prove anything one way or the other?


More than the Indian National Congress, 'liberal humanists' of  India belonging to the writing/ talking community have been defeated in India's 2014 federal elections. They, of course, will continue to think that they are on the right side of history and will cling on to their own Galatea. 

(Galatea is a name popularly applied to the statue carved of ivory by Pygmalion of Cyprus, which then came to life in Greek mythology.)

Artist: William Steig, The New Yorker, 14 November 1964

p.s.

Narendra Modi on May 20 2014 at the Central Hall of Parliament, New Delhi

"...Whatever we have achieved today, is because of sacrifices made by past five generations. Jan Sangh was not known to the people, some thought it is a social, cultural organisation. Today, I salute all those generations who made sacrifices for nationalist causes. We should not forget that we are here today because of sacrifices made by the past generations..."

Narendra Modi on May 23 2019 at BJP headquarters in Delhi:

"There was such a tag which was in fashion wearing which all sins would get washed. That fake tag was called secularism. Slogans would be raised for the unity of secular people. But you would have witnessed that from 2014 - 2019 that whole bunch stopped speaking."
 "In this election not even a single political party could dare to mislead the country by wearing the mask of secularism," 

ताहितीच्या नागड्या मातीशीं / रंगरेषांचं मैथुन केलं ! ...Gauguin's Renegade Quality

 Wayne Andersen , ‘Gauguin's Paradise Lost ‘, 1971:

“....His decision to abdicate from business and focus on painting was the inevitable end of a long, wracking process. His renegade quality hastened the dissolution of his home life. Mette had no passion for art, but was sufficiently broad-minded to have an understanding of it. She could not bear the kind of painter he chose to be. He was no gentleman artist but a ruffian in his art, which was fast losing a sense of balance. He was impatient. If Paris wouldn’t accept him, he would move on. He had decreed that the family vacate their Paris lodgings and follow him to Rouen, where the wealthy population would surely subscribe to his art. The departure from Paris in November 1883 marked the tenth year of marriage. Mette was pregnant with their fifth child....”

   \
या आधीची "१ - व्हॅन गॉव" पोस्ट इथे पहा.

२- पॉल गोगॉं

मी
                                पॉल गोगॉं...

मी
माझा संसार
मातीत कालवला
अन् त्याला आकाशाच्या थडग्यांत पुरून
ताहितीच्या नागड्या मातीशीं
रंगरेषांचं मैथुन केलं !

(पृष्ठ १२, 'निवडक सदानंद रेगे', १९९६/ २०१३)

टीप - या कवितेचा आधीचा, व्हॅन गॉव वरचा भाग,  कांहीं दिवसांपूर्वी प्रसिद्ध केला होता.

Artist: Paul Gauguin, 'The Day of the God', 1894

चित्रकार दीनानाथ दलाल आणि कवी/ चित्रकार सदानंद रेगे एकेकाळी अतिशय जवळचे मित्र होते, त्याच्या खुणा 'अक्षर गंधर्व: सदानंद रेगे', १९८७ ह्या त्यांच्या मुलाखती , डायरी वर आधारित पुस्तकात...

पण नंतर हे दोन प्रतिभावान चित्रकार मित्र दूर झाले (भांडणातून नव्हे), तो दुरावा बहुतेक दलालांच्या अकाली मृत्यूपर्यंत गेला नाही...

सदानंद रेगेंनी पर्वतासारख्या महान प्रतिभावान पण दुरावलेल्या दोन युरोपियन चित्रकारांना एका कवितेत एकत्र आणले आहे ...
.
त्या संबंधात माझ्या मनात आलेले विचार verse च्या रूपात :

व्हॅन गॉव ने एक कान गमावला
कसा?
माहित आहे, पण सदानंद रेगेंच्या शब्दात ऐकायला मजा येते ...
व्हॅन गॉव ने दुसरा कान पण जवळजवळ गमावला
(काहीतरीच) कसा?
दाखवेन लौकरच ....
पॉल गोगॉं ने स्वतःचा संसार मातीत कालवला
आणि केले ताहितीच्या नागड्या मातीशीं रंगरेषांचं मैथुन
आपले भाग्य की ते पाहिल सदानंद रेगेंनी
कशी होती त्यावेळची ताहिती
दाखवेन लौकरच ....
व्हॅन गॉव आणि पॉल गोगॉं काहीकाळचे जिवश्चकंठश्च मित्र, एकत्र राहिलेले, नंतर दुरावलेले.... म्हणून त्यांना पुन्हा एकत्र आणले रेगेंनी,
२०व्या शतकात रेगेंनी स्वतः असे मित्र केले आणि गमावले
त्यामुळे कलेच्या बरोबरीने मानवी संबंधांबद्दलची उत्सुकता