Histories and Memories

Desi Knitter writes on working with Arvind N Das on the documentaries (that have been linked earlier at this blog):

I have been knitting a bit on the cardigan, but have nothing but a green blob to show. February is the Month of endless blather and boredom Job Candidate Seminars, Conferences and Symposia. It has also been a challenging month for various other reasons, among them being an unwieldy and quite exhausting course I am teaching on South Asian civilization. I call it “India from the Indus Valley to the Silicon Valley” because it begins in Harappa c.2500 BC and ends with the Indian tech boom in the early 21st century. 4500 years in 16 weeks is dizzying, and not merely because in the first few weeks I am well outside my comfort zone of the 18th century and onward. I am enjoying catching up on new research on the previous eras and finding interesting ways to link up this longue duree with the present, without making it seem like a literal longue duree in the classroom. Dynasties? Out. Battles? Out. Everyday life? In. Material culture and trade? Yeah. Social relations and religious practices? Sure. But this excitement comes with the slightly nauseating feeling of being on a roller-coaster for a bit too long. I want to get off, because it’s only the 8th century and I’m already sick of talking about long-distance trade and pottery.

This emphasis on everyday life reminded me of a documentary film series on South Asian history by Arvind Das, a journalist and historian with tremendous energy, verve and humour who drew on the Marxist historian D.D. Kosambi’s approach to South Asian history, but added a good dose of his own polemic. With very, very few material resources of his own, Das just set off with a camera team to capture on film Kosambi’s argument about the material practices of the South Asian past discernible in the present, and put together a remarkable set of episodes about Indian history. Most of these are now available on Google video. Fresh out of my master’s, I worked briefly on the project during its initial stages as a basic research assistant, and thoroughly enjoyed myself. I like to think that it was there that I began formulating some ideas about historical memory that I examined later in my doctoral work.

The link above is to one of the episodes on the Mauryans and the Iron age. Suddenly coming across these files on the web after more than a decade, I spent hours poring over them. Some of it is so clunky and informal, and some of it absolutely inspired. It is delightful to see Arvind again in his familiar blue shirt and oversized glasses facing the camera, and remembering bygone times when we argued fiercely over everything from Buddhism to Maoism. My flood of memories reminds me how my own historical thinking has changed and sharpened over the years, but also how eagerly, and how much, he taught me. I miss him, and like to think that if he had not died so young, so soon, we would have continued to argue, over lots of Glenfiddich and Classic Milds.

Officer to be deputed to look into dilapidated Kosambi samadhi: CM

PANJIM, FEB 4 – Paying rich tributes to a Goan intellect and Marxist historian, Dr Damodar Dharmanand Kosambi, Chief Minister Digambar Kamat said an officer would be deputed to Wardha in Maharashtra soon to look into the dilapidated ‘samadhi’ (memorial) of the great son of the soil.

Kamat, who was speaking at the inauguration of the first D D Kosambi Festival of Ideas (Birth centenary memorial lecture series) on Monday, said, “We will see to it that the ‘samadhi’ is, henceforth, renovated and well maintained.”

The CM, who was addressing a gathering at Dinanath Mangueshkar Hall of Kala Academy in the presence of the Vice President of India Hamid Ansari, further said that he had doubts the younger generation in Goa were even aware of this great scholar and intellect.

“It is important that they know about this great personality and his contribution to society. We will introduce the life of Kosambi in Goa’s school curriculum,” he revealed.

Kamat said the contribution of Goan greats could be seen in so many spheres and to name a few he cited examples of Dr Raghunath Mashelkar, Dr Anil Kakodkar (scientists), Lata Mangeshkar (playback singer) and Kishori Amonkar (vocalist).

Dr Kosambi’s daughter, the eminent Indian sociologist, Dr Meera Kosambi, in her speech ‘D D Kosambi the Scholar and the Man’ confessed that as a third-generation Kosambi she had found it difficult to match with the legacy of her father and grandfather Acharya Dharmananda Damodar Kosambi, who was a Buddhist scholar of repute.

Recalling her father’s life, she went on to describe his fascination for Harvard and spoke about the intellectual’s works and his books.

She also recalled how Dr Kosambi travelled from Pune to Mumbai everyday on the Deccan Queen train carrying his books and other paraphernalia. He was one of the few during those days to travel so far everyday, so much so that the Deccan Queen came to be known as his official address, she narrated much to the amusement of the gathering.

Chairperson of the D D Kosambi Birth Centenary Celebration Committee, Dr Maria Aurora Couto, referring to Damodar’s father Dharmananda, said, “It is an honour as we are celebrating two great Goan minds today. The lecture series will serve as a platform for an intellectual treat, Couto assured.

Governor S C Jamir also spoke on the occasion. Speaker of Goa Legislative Assembly Pratapsing Rane also made his presence felt and was seen sitting in the front row of the hall.

Source: Goa Herald

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‘Science has a role in tackling communalism’

PANAJI: Vivek Monteiro, scientist and trade unionist, has called for a “systematic and scientific use” of science right from the primary level of schooling to undermine the influence of fundamentalism.

Delivering the last lecture on the topic of “Science is the cognition of necessity” in the four-lecture series of the D.D. Kosambi Festival of Ideas here on Thursday, Mr. Monteiro said that considering the fact that growth of communalism was one of the major problems confronting society today, undoubtedly science had to play a role by spreading scientific temper among people.

Elaborating on the role of science in combating communalism, Mr. Monteiro said, “It is not enough if intellectuals debate these issues in academic seminars. The real battle has to be fought and won in the minds of the common man.”

Analysing scientific writings of Kosambi, Mr. Monteiro expressed surprise that there seems to be no writing in Kosambi’s available works on the subject of communalism while there is evidence to suggest that he was active in post-riot relief works in Benares during his teaching days. Stating that Kosambi has written critically about the influence of religion on Indian people, including scientists, particularly in his articles on the subject of scientific attitude and religion, Mr. Monteiro said there was no discussion on communalism.

Source

Portrait of a Historian

Noted painter Shridhar Kamat Bambolkar seen presenting a portrait of late D D Kosambi to Kosambi's daughter Dr Meera Kosambi during the concluding function of the D D Kosambi Festival of Ideas at the Dinanath Mangueshkar auditorium at Kala Academy here

Mathematical physicist Dr Viveck Monteiro seen delivering his lecture during the D D Kosambi feestival of ideas in the Dinanath Mangueshkar auditorium at Kala Academy here

Source

Thapar praises Kosambi for changing course of studying Indian history

PANJIM, Feb 6: Prominent Indian historian who principal area of study is ancient India, Romila Thapar, took time off a lecture-visit to Goa to look at hero-stones at the NIO, visit the village of Sancoale, and take a look at "what little is left" of Goa's commonlands.

But later on Wednesday evening, the 77-year-old historian delivered the Goan intellectual D.D.Kosambi's 'festival of ideas' lecture where she focussed on some ideas of the man "whose work provoked me into thinking beyodn the obvious in my work on ancient Indian history".

Thapar, in an erudite if academic lecture, touched on the work of Marxist historian Kosambi's in diverse spheres -- the relationship between tribe and caste, the links between Buddhism and trade, and the nature of feudalism in India.

Speaking to introduce Thapar, who has worked on the decline of the Mauryas and early India among other topics, businessman-social campaigner Datta Naik said she was an impressive thinker to interprete South Asia's past along with the Goan-origin Kosambi and Debiprasad Chattopadhyaya.

Naik stressed that Thapar played a key role in shifting the study of Indian hstory away from the "communal interpretation". It was she who had point out that there was a 'selective memory' and 'selective forgetting' of history.

Speaking earlier, author and academic Maria Aurora Couto of Aldona, who has played a key role in this 'festival of ideas', praised the intellectual honesty of Thapar.

She said Thapar had given her the nudge to go ahead with talking about contentious and today-politicised issues like religious conversions, when she (Couto) was writing her book "A Daughter's Story".

Couto said that Thapar was keen to visit the ancestral Kosambi visit of Sancoale which has "undergone radical demographic transformation in the past few years".

She said there was an idea to promote a regional research programme for Goa, and part of this would probably focus on the area of Sancoale too -- where Kosambi and his equally-prominent father, Dharmanand D. Kosambi, came from.

Incidentally, the Kosambi home has been largely forgotten in its ancestral village, and the achievements of its intellectuals recognised more across India and internationally rather than at home, a fate shared by many of the other intellectuals that tiny Goa has produced in big number.

Thapar stressed Kosambi's role in understanding India beyond just "dynastic history" and looking at the crucial social and economic history of the vast region. He had deployed archaeology, technology and even coins to interprete the past.

She expounded on the controversy of understanding varna, class and caste, besides tribal concerns. She said the 'hero-stones' in Goa may not focus so much on those defending villages against cattle-raiders (as in other parts of India), but those who had fought back "pirates in sea-battles".

She referred to Kosambi's views and her own on the gotra system among Brahmins, and the trade-Buddhism link which was not just coincidental.

The 'festival of ideas' is being held to mark the birth centenary of Damodar Dharmananda Kosambi (1907-1966), the Goan-origin mathematician, statistician, and polymath, who contributed to genetics by introducing Kosambi's map function.

He is well-known for his work in numismatics and for compiling critical editions of ancient Sanskrit texts. He was also a historian of ancient India who employed the historical materialist approach in his work.

Incidentally, Kosambi was critical of the policies of then prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru which he believed promoted capitalism in the guise of democratic socialism. He was an enthusiast of the Chinese revolution and its ideals, and a peace movement activist. (*)

Source: [Goanet] NEWS: Romila Thapar praises Kosambi for changing course of studying Indian history Goanet News

DD Kosambi Festival of Ideas: a Video

Vice President MH Ansari and Dr Meera Kosambi in a news coverage from Goa News (video at Youtube). The coverage starts about 60s into the video.

Pictures and Video from DD Kosmabi: A Festival of Ideas

Vice-President of India Mohammad Hamid Ansari is seen along with Goa governor S C Jamir, chief minister Digambar Kamat, Dr Meera Kosambi and Dr Maria Aurora Couto during the inauguration of the D D Kosambi Festival of Idea's in the Dinanath Mangueshkar auditorium at Kala Academy here

Vice President of India Mohammad Hamid Ansari seen delivering his key note address after inaugurating the D D Kosambi Festival of Idea's in the Dinanath Mangueshkar auditorium at Kala Academy here

Chief ministerDigambar Kamat seen honouring Vice-President of India, Mohammad Hamid Ansari during the D D Kosambi Festival of Idea's in the Dinanath Mangueshkar auditorium at Kala Academy here. Also seen are governor S C Jamir, Dr Meera Kosambi and others

Source: Daijiworld

Kosambi on The Gita

Makarand Paranjpe analyzes Kosambi's writings on the Gita in his book Myth and Reality.

D. D. Kosambi attempted precisely such a reading of one of India’s most enduring literary texts, the Bhagawad Gita. In an essay called “Social and Economic Aspects of the Bhagawad-Gita,” published as the inaugural essay in Myth and Reality: Studies in the Formation of Indian Culture (1962), he argues at great length that the Gita is a text of “slippery opportunism” whose utility “derives from its peculiar fundamental defect, namely dexterity in seeming to reconcile the irreconcilable.” Composed between 150-350 A.D. and inserted into the Mahabharata corpus later, the Gita, according to Kosambi, served a peculiar class function which made so many leading exponents of Indian culture, including Sankara, Ramanuja, Jnanesvar, Gandhi, Tilak, Aurobindo, and others, return to it again and again. Kosambi believes that:

THE GITA FURNISHED THE ONE SCRIPTURAL SOURCE WHICH COULD BE USED WITHOUT VIOLENCE TO ACCEPTED BRAHMIN METHODOLOGY, TO DRAW INSPIRATION AND JUSTIFICATION FOR SOCIAL ACTIONS IN SOME WAY DISAGREEABLE TO A BRANCH OF THE RULING CLASS UPON WHOSE MERCY THE BRAHMINS DEPENDED AT THE MOMENT. (Emphasis in the Original)

In other words, the Gita is a synthetic text that manages to incorporate a wide diversity of complex and, often, contradictory doctrines. Kosambi believes that such a text could only be written at a certain period during which the competition over the surpluses produced wasn’t so intolerable as to result in class conflict:

FUSION AND TOLERANCE BECOME IMPOSSIBLE WHEN THE CRISIS DEEPENS, WHEN THERE IS NOT ENOUGH OF THE SURPLUS PRODUCT TO GO AROUND, AND THE SYNTHETIC METHOD DOES NOT LEAD TO INCREASED PRODUCTION. (Emphasis in the Original)

Analyzing the career of Jnanesvar, the author of influential commentary Jnanesvari, Kosambi says:

The conglomerate Gita philosophy might provide a loophole for innovation, but never the analytical tools necessary to make a way out of the social impasse. Jnanesvar's life and tragic career illustrate this in full measure. In other words, though the Gita provided Jnanesvar with some ammunition against the ills of his times, it could not afford him a full-fledged blue print for revolutionary action. That is why, according to Kosambi, “there was nothing left for him [Jnanesvar] except suicide.” Kosambi concludes his paper with the following observations:

Modern life is founded upon science and freedom. That is, modern production rests in the final analysis upon accurate cognition of material reality (science), and recognition of necessity (freedom). A myth may grip us by its imagery, and may indeed have portrayed some natural phenomenon or process at a time when mankind had not learned to probe nature's secrets or to discover the endless properties of matter. Religion clothes some myth in dogma. "Science needs religion" is a poor way of saying that the scientists and those who utilize his discoveries must not dispense with social ethics. There is no need to dig into the Gita or the Bible for an ethical system sandwiched with pure superstition. Such books can still be enjoyed for their aesthetic value. Those who claim more usually try to shackle the minds of other people, and to impede man's progress, under the most specious claims.

It is interesting how this conclusion is built upon a whole series of binary oppositions such as science vs. religion, modern vs. traditional, reality vs. myth, progress vs. superstition, and so on. The cure for all social ills for Kosambi lies not in “theology but in socialism.” The essay ends with a ringing reaffirmation of the revolutionary doctrine: “the material needs could, certainly be satisfied for all, if the relations of production did not hinder it.”

I have chosen Kosambi’s essay on the Gita not because it is especially “exasperating”—as the title of another collection of his work suggests—but because it is symptomatic of both the benefits and pitfalls of a particular approach to art. Kosambi’s rigorous materialist and historicist analysis certainly adds something to our understanding of the Gita, but, as I have argued earlier, it does not exhaust the possibilities of that text. A few years after Kosambi’s death in 1966, Western India, where he himself lived for several years, witnessed a widespread peaceful social upheaval triggered by a movement called Svadhyaya. It is no surprise to me that this social movement, about which I have written elsewhere, was inspired by the same complex and heterogeneous text that Kosambi considered incapable of guiding any genuine social change. The slogan of this movement is “Jai Yogeshwar,” one of the many names of Krishna that we find in the Gita, and which is also enshrined in the very last verse of the Gita:

Where there is Krsna, the Lord of yogas, and where there is Partha, the wielder of the bow, there are fortune, victory, prosperity and unfailing prudence. Such is my conviction.

(18.78 Swami Gambhiranda’s translation from the Gita Supersite)

Also known as the “ekashloki Gita,” or Gita in one shloka, this verse is supposed to bestow the benefits of reading the whole scripture. The Svadhyayis, with their notion of kriti bhakti or an activist devotion, have fanned out in thousands upon thousands, on bhakti pheris reordering human relationships and social organization on an unprecedented scale. The idea that God is both within me and beside me in my struggles has become a living reality for several million Svadhyayis who give their time and talent to this cause. This assurance, contained in the Gita, has been convincingly conveyed to large masses of people by the inspirer of the Svadhyaya movement, Pandurang Shastri Athavale. I heard him myself in a very large gathering of about 250,000 people at Kurukshetra a few years back. I had never experienced anyone expound the Gita in that fashion and, for the first time in my life, the text came alive to me in a unique and moving manner.

I have deliberately chosen a sacred text to illustrate the point that while a materialist reading may be very illuminating, it need not rob the text of its aesthetic, even scriptural, affects.

P. Sainath's Lecture at DD Kosambi Meet in Goa- A Report

A report from The Hindu on P. Sainath's Lecture at the DD Kosambi Festival of Arts in Goa. (05 Feb 2008)

PANAJI: Expressing deep concern over entrenched structural inequalities in the country, P. Sainath, Rural Affairs Editor of The Hindu, on Tuesday called for conscious efforts to address them lest they pose a major threat to democracy.

Mr. Sainath was delivering the second lecture at the four-day “D.D. Kosambi festival of ideas” organised here by the Art and Culture Department of the Goa government to commemorate the birth centenary of the renowned historian, mathematician and polymath.
The stark reality

Taking the audience through the great economic divide that was being perpetuated in the country, which boasts of a few billionaires whose additions to wealth could be an envy of the world’s leading economies, the Magsaysay award winner contrasted it with the stark reality — according to the National Sample Survey’s situational report on farmer households, the average expenditure of farm households is Rs.17 a month.

He said the wages of the agricultural labourer had not gone up by Rs. 40 in a decade and contrasted the situation where India had fallen further from the 124 to 128th position in the world human development index in the last 15 years.

Tracing the problem of structural inequalities in the last 15 years, which coincide with the process of liberalisation, Mr. Sainath said what was stunning was not the inequality and growth witnessed side by side, but the withdrawal of the state from the sectors that mattered to the poor. He expressed alarm at the systematic and rapid transfer of resources from the poor to the rich through steps such as slashing subsidies.

“The state is intervening more and more, but very clearly and blatantly on behalf of the corporates and rich,” he said adding the share of development expenditure of the government had gone down from 14.5 per cent of the Gross Domestic Product to 5.9 in recent years. He also referred to the unprecedented rise of the corporate power across the world including in India in the last decade.

Mr. Sainath was concerned at the continued rise in indebtedness among the poor — 82 per cent of the farm households in the country are in perennial debt. More worrying was the fact that as a direct consequence of entrenched inequalities, millions were moving to towns and cities in pursuit of jobs that were simply not there, eventually ending up as neither farmers nor workers.
Dig at media

Speaking about the moral matrix of inequality, the senior journalist took a dig at the media for the “growing disconnect between the reality in the country and the media’s functioning.”

Noting that resistance to the process of globalisation was going to be local, he called upon the people not to feel helpless or be passive in raising doubts about their complicity in the situation.

He lauded the people of Goa for showing a remarkable capacity to resist, standing up during their recent struggle (against special economic zones).

Maria aurora Couto, chairperson, D.D. Kosambi centenary celebrations committee, welcomed the guest, while Savia Viegas, writer and social activist, introduced Mr. Sainath.

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