Part 2 - Colonial Historiography of Early-Medieval India

In colonial historiography, mainly two broad strands of historical assertion are noticeable: Orientalist and Utilitarian. Along with the prevalent ideas of the west about history, civilisation and the Orient, writings coming out of these ideologies had some definite colonial interests^[1] .

The idea generally consisted of the notion of Oriental Despotism and its Marxian variant, The Asiatic Mode of Production. Studies were based on the idea of the existence of an unchanging past society and religion is simply to justify the western dominance over the orient.^[2]

Starting from James Mill in 1873, the focus of these early publications which are intended to discuss the emergence of the early state, often distinguished only from modern industrial state is therefore of little value in understanding the process of change. His theory of Oriental Despotism or ‘traditional polity’ left a profound influence amongst historians of pre-modern India. This was further strengthened by the conceptualisation of Asiatic Mode of Production by Karl Marx.^[3]

The theorisation of changeless polity and society is found from the statement of K.A.Wittfogel, ‘….varying forms of semi complex hydraulic property and society prevailed in India almost from the dawn of written history to the 19^th century’.^[4] The notion of changeless and traditional polity, expressed in the titles of writings of scholars,^[5] is generally of different periods of Indian history. B.D. Chattopadhyaya criticised these writings as ‘… in which a long term perspective is absent and in most of which the accent is on kingship and rituals associated with kingship’.^[6]

Its derivation and its incorporation into Marx’s notion of ‘Asiatic Mode of Production’ in the relevant Indian context we could mention writings of Perry Anderson and Irfan Habib’s work^[7] .

There are several other observations we find in writings of several modern scholars,^[8] arguing that Oriental Despotism was a key concept in the proimperialist interpretations of the ancient Indian polity and society, the concept is equally present in the writings of nationalist historians in its inverted version. In fact, “it has been considered possibly by different individual authors–all apparently subscribing to the assumption of ‘traditional polity’”^[9] .

This notion of Oriental Despotism and Asiatic Mode of Production, in its variation of ‘Pre-state polity’ with view of political ideas and structures of ‘traditional pre-modern polity’ is basically underlying the fact that traditional polity was changeless.^[10] As Nicholas Dirks stated ‘Indian state barely visible to comparative sociology......it appears as a weak form of Oriental Despotism, destined to disappear as suddenly, and as casually, as it emerged. It seldom possesses mechanism-hydraulic or otherwise that could enable it to sustain for long.^[11]

This general bias of western scholars faced strong repercussion in the writings of Indians educated in western thoughts. They challenged this notion of ‘traditional polity’ in two different ways, Nationalist and the theory of Indian feudalism.

From this point of argument the debate could generally be characterised as the confrontation of ideology between ‘Imperialist’ and ‘Nationalist’ as conventional school of thought, which eventually lost its importance after the independence. Indian feudalism also opposed the imperialist view of ‘changeless traditional polity’, but got its real form after independence.

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

It was used to legitimise the colonial conquest of the sub-continent. This change in historical thinking also has concurrence with a change in the colonial policies. By this time the colonial conquest of India was nearly complete, and the need of the hour was to reconstruct the economic structure of the colony, so as to be a source of raw material and an importer of the finished British goods. Thus, the change from a non- interventionist to an interventionist ruler required certain kinds of interpretation of the history of India, which was provided by the utilitarian historians.

[2]:

‘it was believed that the Indian pattern of life was so entwined with metaphysics and subtleties of religious belief that little attention was given to the more tangible aspects’, Romila Thapar, The Penguin History of Early India, New Delhi, 2003, pp.4-5

[3]:

Brenden O’leary, The Asiatic Mode of Production, Oriental Despotism, Historical Materialism and Indian History, Oxford, 1989, Lawrence Krader, The Asiatic Mode of Production, Assen, 1975.

[4]:

K.A. Wittfogel, Oriental Despotism: A Comparative Study of Total Power, 7^th Printing, Yale University Press, 1970. p.260

[5]:

Richard G. Fox, (ed.), Realm and Region in Traditional India, Delhi, 1977; J. F. Richards; (ed.), Kingship and Authority in South Asia, Madison, South Asian Studies, University of Wisconsin, 1978; S.N. Eisenstadt, The Political System of Empire, New York, 1969, etc.

[6]:

B.D. Chattopadhyaya, ‘Political Processes and Structure of Polity’, Presidential Address, IHC, 44^th Session, 1983, in The Making of Early Medieval India, p.186

[7]:

Karl A. Wittfogel, Oriental Despotism: A Comparative Study of Total Power, Yale University Press, 1970; detailed information of Karl A. Wittfogel’s theory of Oriental Despotism, discussed in ‘Problems of Marxist Historical Analysis’, in Science and Human Progress, B.D. Chattopadhyaya; Essays in Honour of Prof. D.D. Kosambi; Bombay, 1974, note, 6, pp.53-73

[8]:

Romila Thapar, The Past and Prejudice, Delhi, 1975; H.J.M. Classen and P. Skalnik; The Early State, The Hague, 1978, pp.7-8; D. Lorenzen; Imperialism and Ancient Indian Historiography, in S.N. Mukherjee, (ed.), Indian History and Thought, Essays in Honour of A.L. Basham, Calcutta 1982. pp.84-102

[9]:

Political Processes and Structure of Polity, By B.D. Chattopadhyaya, in The Making of Early Medieval India, OUP, New Delhi, 2012(1994), pp.186-187

[10]:

A model of ‘Segmentary state’ put forwarded by A. Southall for that same purpose to study ‘pre-state polity’ which was later applied on Indian context by J.C. Heesterman; ‘Power and Authority in Indian Tradition; Burton Stein, ‘The Segmentary state and society in medieval south India, OUP, 1980; R.G. Fox; Kin, Clan, Raja and Rule: State Hinterland Relations in Pre-Industrial India, Barkley, The University of California Press, 1971. The model in context of Africa and India was further developed in A. Southall, The Segmentary State in Asia and Africa, Comparative Studies in Society and History, 1988; B. Stein, The Segmentary State: Interim Reflections, in J. Pouchepedass and H. Stern, (eds.), From Kingship To State: The Political in the Anthropology and History of the Indian World, Paris 1991, pp.217-37

[11]:

Nicholas B. Dirks, The Hollow Crown: Ethnohistory of an Indian Kingdom, University of Michigan, 1993, pp.1-2