FlyDie – Brown Pundits

It’s been a few days since I last appeared here, so I don’t know what’s going on here. Either way, I had previously mentioned in some of my past comments about a few useful sources for understanding communal and caste conflict. One of the books that I mentioned was “The Colonial Origins of ethnic violence in India” by Ajay Varghese. I have been meaning to make a post about the book, but I couldn’t really fully summarize everything in a meaningful manner until I remembered a summary the author wrote in the concluding chapter himself, which I am just going to fully quote below since I think it’s an interesting insight about violence in present-day South Asia.

Summary of the Book

This book has argued that patterns of ethnic violence in India stem from legacies of colonial rule that were reinforced over time through institutions. India is well known as having been the “jewel in the crown” of the British Empire; less well known is that the British never controlled the entire country. Most of the areas that were already British colonies prior to the conquest of India had been brought under direct rule, but the Rebellion of 1857 prevented the subcontinent from being entirely annexed. Afterward, roughly one-fourth of the Indian population lived in princely states ruled by largely autonomous native kings. This key historical divide forms the colonial origins of ethnic violence in contemporary India. Both the British administrators and the princely rulers governed heterogeneous populations, but they had very different conceptions of how to manage this ethnic diversity. In the provinces, British administrators emphasized the centrality of caste. Colonial officials chose this particular identity after the Rebellion of 1857, which they perceived as a religious(primarily Islamic) uprising, because they were intent on de-emphasizing religion. Caste (along with tribal identities) was promoted as the central organizing principle for a new, modern society. During the latter half of the nineteenth century, the caste system was divorced from its Hindu origins and became largely a system of social categories. It was subsequently viewed as scientific in character, bearing resemblance (depending on the administrator) either to race or to the class structure of Victorian England.

Continue reading The origin and variation of ethnic violence in South Asia

Disclaimer: This is my first post here, and writing is not my strong suit, so it is very poorly thought out and kinda can be rambling in certain bits. Kinda stream of thought way of writing with some repetition here and there, also kinda missing a citation. Please just bear with me here.

Historical context

During the late 1400’s to early 1500’s, a new figure appeared in the philosophical tradition under the name of Raghunatha Siromani. He was a brahmin of ordinary origin with a point of interest, except for the fact that his grandfather, Sulapani, wrote a minor commentary about a Sanskrit Smriti. He studied at a university in Mithila that was the centre for Brahmanical learning, and he even went on to be a chancellor at the institution; however, he found it to be too conservative and chose to return to his original home in what is modern-day Nadia in West Bengal. This hometown was part of the Bengal sultanate that was presently ruled by the liberal minded Hussain Shah, who multiplied institutions in Brahmanical ones. In this open environment, Raghunatha would go on to rewrite the entire field of logic and indirectly begin what can be considered the earliest forms of Modernity within South Asia.

Before we go any further, we need to understand what Raghunatha’s works were and conduct a broader examination of their social implications for the time. Also, I will be abbreviating Raghunatha Shiromani with the initials RS for the rest of this discussion to make it easier to write.

Skepticism and Reason in the School of New Logic

Basically, RS was a part of the Navya Nyaya school of philosophy that was originally founded by Gangesa in the first half of the 14th century, when he unified the traditional school of Nyaya (logic) and Vaisheshika (metaphysics) together in his magnum opus, the “Tattvachinatmani” (Jewel of thought on the Nature of things). RS, during his lifetime, wrote multiple commentaries or Bhasya on multiple historical texts such as the Nyaya sutra, Nyayakusumanjali, and Gangesa works as well. Traditionally, the Bhasya is supposed to provide clarification about grey areas and expand on the pre-existing literature, but there was always a degree of deference to these ancient works, and one couldn’t understand the precepts that were presented.

RS on the other hand extensively challenged a lot of these assumptions as he did a thing that the author Janardan Ganeri calls “being in a discussion with tradition”, where activity challenges some of the pre-existing states made in the work using logic and reason to ensure the arguments being presented isn’t simply considered as true due to traditional rather there is a logical basis for the points being made. What RS was doing here is shifting the onus of inquiry into the hands of the individuals and challenging the traditional norms that were previously set in place. He doesn’t reject tradition completely, but he emphasizes the need for skepticism and examination of ideas through a lens of neutrality. I am just doing a direct quote from his works, which can explain his point:

“The demonstration of these matters, which I have carefully explained, is contrary to the conclusions reached by all the other disciplines. These matters spoken of should not be cast aside without reflection just because they are contrary to accepted opinion; scholars should consider them carefully. Bowing to those who know the truth concerning matters of all the sciences, bowing to people like you [the reader], I pray you consider my sayings with sympathy. This method, though less honoured, has been employed by wise men of the past; namely that one asks other people of learning to consider one’s own words (Inquiry into the True Nature of Things 1915: 79,1-80,3; trans. Potter 1957: 89-90).”

Continue reading The End of Pre-colonial Modernity and it’s Present Implications