Banjegere's controversial book
Banjegere Jayaprakash's essay (now brought out as a book, published earlier in the Agni magazine) 'aanudEva horagaNavanu', an inquiry into Basavanna's jaati caused great controversy and debate in Karnataka, India. The author claims that Basavanna, (the 12th century figure mostly anachronistically understood as a social reformer) was in fact a maadiga and not a brahmin, as textbook history and commonly held, 'established truth' has had it for sometime now. Really, it is a claim, for there is no justification or basis provided in the book to prove that Basavanna is a maadiga. In fact, there is no basis in any of the archives to prove that Basava was a maadiga. But Banjegere would not know this, since his work is not historical at all. Throughout the book, however, he insists that different theoretical presuppositions will yield different shasanas ('facts'). As if, the shasanas exist to tell us the stories we would like to hear! As if history is out there waiting to be told!
The book fell into controversy when members of the Basava Dal sought its ban on grounds of 'hurt sentiments' and identity politics and the ban was passed in the State sessions. As usual, a number of people who spoke through newspapers on this occasion had not read the book! So the public reception of the book was not exactly extraordinary. The state set up a committee of scholars who were supposed to examine the issue of Basava's jaati. They came up with a statement that it was not possible to say anything decisively about the issue. Read on for my analysis of the book's contents.
Let me start from the beginning of the book and list its problematic aspects. Banjegere does not declare any consistent commitment to any version of dalit politics anywhere in the book. Yet he notes that there are sentiments among people that want to claim Basavanna for their own jaati. This he does not take up later anywhere in the book. In the name of giving importance to local remembered histories, Banjegere takes a sentiment to be a true record of local history, pretending it has nothing to do with contemporary identity politics and politics of labeling and naming that nation states bank their very existence upon. Thus begins his attempt to articulate the importance of the question: what was Basava's jaati?
Banjegere says a few things about history, quoting from E H Carr and such others, provides us with the Kannada translation of the quotes that are all without reference. The point made here is that history writing is not an ahistorical endeavor, the 'made' nature of which we often overlook etc. By urging us to read the historian rather than the history that is written, Banjegere fails to see the larger questions involved --of objectivity and third person narratives of reality as a problem in epistemology and reduces the issue to that of reflecting upon the identity/subjectivity of the historian.
Establishing the importance of the problem: Banjegere gives the example of Gautama Buddha and tells us that we were mistaken that he was a prince, while later historical research shows that he was the son of a chieftain only. Now again, Banjegere only suffers from more archive fever, for here too evidence for many theses make themselves available. Banjegere fails to see the problem as being that of an inadequate understanding of historicity in India, in general and at all times. He accuses bad scholarship of floating theories that lack rigour and logical conclusions in the case of our epic writers, Vyaasa and Valmiki. Both of whom were not brahmins and belonged to the fishing and hunting professions respectively. Banjegere, of course, assumes here that their professions indicate their 'jaati' In other words, the occupational theory of caste, which again could be problematic given his own later statements on jaati and its achievement through sadhana.
He accuses Indological scholars and social scientists of believing that only brahmins are capable of producing works in Sanskrit and that Sanskrit was a language that was the privy of the Brahmins, and therefore believing Vyasa and Valmiki to be brahmins. The thesis about the vachanas too was that they arose in resistance to Sanskrit, which is just not true, because many vachanas have longish Sanskrit phrases in them. This only shows that the mode of understanding our past in terms of movements for or against social structures has been faulty. That such an attempt was actually the result of the west's quest for the history of the 'others' is perhaps now increasingly clear. Such an attempt at the history of other civilizations on west's own terms, resulted in the vachanas looking like the protestant revolution of corrupt Indian societies. Further, what Banjegere does not even address is the historicity of either Vyaasa or Valmiki or the Mahabharata, since both of them also have roles in both the epics. The question of history here is completely ignored and Banjegere speaks of them as if they were legitimate objects of history, while clearly the debate is rather large and quite deep.
Banjegere does not see why or how these 'opinions' or badly argued theses gained popularity or even why they were floated in the first place. Here somehow he does not see the handiwork of local remembered histories at play!
Banjegere talks of Kanakadasa who though actually a kuruba was easily believed to be a maadhwa brahmin replaying the mistaken identity as prejudice argument as with Buddha's case. Towards the end of the book, Banjegere is ready to acknowledge that brahminess across Indian history was something one could 'achieve' and therefore it was different to be brahmin by birth and different to be brahmin via sadhana. However, at this point in the book, Banjegere does not even consider the possibility that the bhaktas including Basava may have been assumed to be brahmins, not so much due to historical fallacies and bad research but because they were indeed brahmins, or achieved Brahminhood by their actions and through their sadhana. The jaati question that Banjegere so passionately sets out to research thus takes on dimensions that he is not even ready to acknowledge. The facts that he himself provides us with as the book proceeds only shows that every assumption that he has made about the functions of jaati have been wrong and that counter-evidence has been found. However, he consistently distorts each of these counter-evidences by assuming that they were exceptions to the main story of jaati he presumes all along. The story of jaati that Banjegere believes in is actually the story of caste system! A system based maybe on colour, maybe on race, maybe on occupation, maybe on power, well, take your guess, all of these or more! Banjegere does not clarify.
A little further in the book, Banjegere starts to speak of 'purvashrama' and sets out in search of Basava's parents, forgetting all the while that he had set out to write a social history in which neither purvashrama nor prayer are significant objects of research.
Banjegere tells us that the 15th century understanding of the 12th century was already a compromising one, because the so-called call for equality that the vachanakaras gave out in the 12th century had been diluted by the biographers of the 15th century. He mourns that about 1500 vachanas that talk of equality are not to be found in the shunyasampadanes of the 15th century! Here the author does some typical conspiracy theory stuff rather than actually telling us what and how the vachanas talk about equality, and in what spirit, or are they about the human condition? My own research shows that the vachanas did not talk about the social world as the real one and therefore there is always a gap in the action-consequence between the world of say, intentions and actions. The social world here was not an independent realm. Neither was it a reflection of the world or of the realm of human effort. Thus the social revolution and discourse of equality that Banjegere and other scholarship on vachanas talk of, misses the point of the vachanas altogether. Let me give an example from the book to show the lack of connection between the realm of the social and other realms that were seen as real. Banjegere naturally mourns that even the most spiritual Appanna was still known as a barber. But what Banjegere is assuming here is that such a thing was bad, and that the more one was spiritually equipped, an automatic up gradation was bound to follow in the realm of the social...And that the 12th century vachanakaras preached exactly that which 20th century intellectuals understand as 'equality'! See this quote from Banjegere to believe it, "hosa dharmica nambugegaLannu sharana chalavaliya mukhaanatara vyaktapadisida avaru bayasiddu hosa saamaajika vyavastheyannu". (p47)
Banjegere is at his anachronistic worst when on page 32, he says that the brahmin shaivas must have liked to imagine Basava, their guru as brahmin too, to which the people of the other jaatis could not have responded with accusations of historical distortion because they were not as aware as the twentieth century 'lower caste' people.
For all the rigour that Banjegere demands of scholarship on Basava, his own book simply states that Basava was a maadiga!
The book fell into controversy when members of the Basava Dal sought its ban on grounds of 'hurt sentiments' and identity politics and the ban was passed in the State sessions. As usual, a number of people who spoke through newspapers on this occasion had not read the book! So the public reception of the book was not exactly extraordinary. The state set up a committee of scholars who were supposed to examine the issue of Basava's jaati. They came up with a statement that it was not possible to say anything decisively about the issue. Read on for my analysis of the book's contents.
Let me start from the beginning of the book and list its problematic aspects. Banjegere does not declare any consistent commitment to any version of dalit politics anywhere in the book. Yet he notes that there are sentiments among people that want to claim Basavanna for their own jaati. This he does not take up later anywhere in the book. In the name of giving importance to local remembered histories, Banjegere takes a sentiment to be a true record of local history, pretending it has nothing to do with contemporary identity politics and politics of labeling and naming that nation states bank their very existence upon. Thus begins his attempt to articulate the importance of the question: what was Basava's jaati?
Banjegere says a few things about history, quoting from E H Carr and such others, provides us with the Kannada translation of the quotes that are all without reference. The point made here is that history writing is not an ahistorical endeavor, the 'made' nature of which we often overlook etc. By urging us to read the historian rather than the history that is written, Banjegere fails to see the larger questions involved --of objectivity and third person narratives of reality as a problem in epistemology and reduces the issue to that of reflecting upon the identity/subjectivity of the historian.
Establishing the importance of the problem: Banjegere gives the example of Gautama Buddha and tells us that we were mistaken that he was a prince, while later historical research shows that he was the son of a chieftain only. Now again, Banjegere only suffers from more archive fever, for here too evidence for many theses make themselves available. Banjegere fails to see the problem as being that of an inadequate understanding of historicity in India, in general and at all times. He accuses bad scholarship of floating theories that lack rigour and logical conclusions in the case of our epic writers, Vyaasa and Valmiki. Both of whom were not brahmins and belonged to the fishing and hunting professions respectively. Banjegere, of course, assumes here that their professions indicate their 'jaati' In other words, the occupational theory of caste, which again could be problematic given his own later statements on jaati and its achievement through sadhana.
He accuses Indological scholars and social scientists of believing that only brahmins are capable of producing works in Sanskrit and that Sanskrit was a language that was the privy of the Brahmins, and therefore believing Vyasa and Valmiki to be brahmins. The thesis about the vachanas too was that they arose in resistance to Sanskrit, which is just not true, because many vachanas have longish Sanskrit phrases in them. This only shows that the mode of understanding our past in terms of movements for or against social structures has been faulty. That such an attempt was actually the result of the west's quest for the history of the 'others' is perhaps now increasingly clear. Such an attempt at the history of other civilizations on west's own terms, resulted in the vachanas looking like the protestant revolution of corrupt Indian societies. Further, what Banjegere does not even address is the historicity of either Vyaasa or Valmiki or the Mahabharata, since both of them also have roles in both the epics. The question of history here is completely ignored and Banjegere speaks of them as if they were legitimate objects of history, while clearly the debate is rather large and quite deep.
Banjegere does not see why or how these 'opinions' or badly argued theses gained popularity or even why they were floated in the first place. Here somehow he does not see the handiwork of local remembered histories at play!
Banjegere talks of Kanakadasa who though actually a kuruba was easily believed to be a maadhwa brahmin replaying the mistaken identity as prejudice argument as with Buddha's case. Towards the end of the book, Banjegere is ready to acknowledge that brahminess across Indian history was something one could 'achieve' and therefore it was different to be brahmin by birth and different to be brahmin via sadhana. However, at this point in the book, Banjegere does not even consider the possibility that the bhaktas including Basava may have been assumed to be brahmins, not so much due to historical fallacies and bad research but because they were indeed brahmins, or achieved Brahminhood by their actions and through their sadhana. The jaati question that Banjegere so passionately sets out to research thus takes on dimensions that he is not even ready to acknowledge. The facts that he himself provides us with as the book proceeds only shows that every assumption that he has made about the functions of jaati have been wrong and that counter-evidence has been found. However, he consistently distorts each of these counter-evidences by assuming that they were exceptions to the main story of jaati he presumes all along. The story of jaati that Banjegere believes in is actually the story of caste system! A system based maybe on colour, maybe on race, maybe on occupation, maybe on power, well, take your guess, all of these or more! Banjegere does not clarify.
A little further in the book, Banjegere starts to speak of 'purvashrama' and sets out in search of Basava's parents, forgetting all the while that he had set out to write a social history in which neither purvashrama nor prayer are significant objects of research.
Banjegere tells us that the 15th century understanding of the 12th century was already a compromising one, because the so-called call for equality that the vachanakaras gave out in the 12th century had been diluted by the biographers of the 15th century. He mourns that about 1500 vachanas that talk of equality are not to be found in the shunyasampadanes of the 15th century! Here the author does some typical conspiracy theory stuff rather than actually telling us what and how the vachanas talk about equality, and in what spirit, or are they about the human condition? My own research shows that the vachanas did not talk about the social world as the real one and therefore there is always a gap in the action-consequence between the world of say, intentions and actions. The social world here was not an independent realm. Neither was it a reflection of the world or of the realm of human effort. Thus the social revolution and discourse of equality that Banjegere and other scholarship on vachanas talk of, misses the point of the vachanas altogether. Let me give an example from the book to show the lack of connection between the realm of the social and other realms that were seen as real. Banjegere naturally mourns that even the most spiritual Appanna was still known as a barber. But what Banjegere is assuming here is that such a thing was bad, and that the more one was spiritually equipped, an automatic up gradation was bound to follow in the realm of the social...And that the 12th century vachanakaras preached exactly that which 20th century intellectuals understand as 'equality'! See this quote from Banjegere to believe it, "hosa dharmica nambugegaLannu sharana chalavaliya mukhaanatara vyaktapadisida avaru bayasiddu hosa saamaajika vyavastheyannu". (p47)
Banjegere is at his anachronistic worst when on page 32, he says that the brahmin shaivas must have liked to imagine Basava, their guru as brahmin too, to which the people of the other jaatis could not have responded with accusations of historical distortion because they were not as aware as the twentieth century 'lower caste' people.
For all the rigour that Banjegere demands of scholarship on Basava, his own book simply states that Basava was a maadiga!
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