Prabhat Patnaik's DD Kosambi Lecture

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THE ACCUMULATION PROCESS IN THE PERIOD OF GLOBALIZATION | PRAGOTI (delivered on 08 May 2008, in Pune)

I can not describe what a great honour it is for a person of my generation to be asked to give a lecture in memory of Professor D.D.Kosambi who was a veritable legend for us. His genius enabled him to make pioneering contributions in a whole range of diverse fields from mathematical statistics to numismatics. But his work that touched us was in the field of Indian history, and it was so breathtakingly original, so unconventional because of its use of literary sources, and, above all, so powerfully persuasive in its totality, that I do not exaggerate when I say that reading The Culture and Civilization of Ancient India made us understand India as never before. It opened up for us, to use Althusser’s words, a whole new continent which had remained undiscovered till then.
In preparing this lecture my motivation has been to develop a theme, which, whether right or wrong, would have caught Professor Kosambi’s fancy. Accordingly I shall devote this lecture to what everyone is concerned about these days, namely the world food crisis. And on this subject, fortunately, much work has already been done by my colleague Professor Utsa Patnaik which I shall be able to draw on .

I

Professor Paul Krugman of M.I.T. whose column appears in several Indian newspapers, had compared, in his column of April 22, the present world-wide excess demand for a number of primary commodities, which inter alia underlies the current inflation, with a similar state of excess demand for commodities that had arisen in the early seventies. He argued that while the earlier state of excess demand was overcome through supply adjustment, such as new oil-strikes in the North Sea and the Gulf of Mexico, and the entry of new land into cultivation, the same might not happen this time around, because the scope for supply adjustment was now much more restricted.
Professor Krugman however is not correct. The resource crisis of 1972-75 was not universally overcome through supply adjustment. In the case of the most vital primary commodity, namely foodgrains, it was overcome, not through any appreciable stepping up of supplies, but through a severe compression of demand, and the latter happened through an income deflation imposed over much of the world. The regime of “globalization” inter alia was a means of enforcing such an income deflation.

It is often not recognized that income deflation plays a role exactly equivalent to that of inflation in compressing demand. Of course the term “inflation” itself is an ambiguous one. The notion of inflation in current orthodox economics refers to a state of affairs where all prices, including money wages, are rising pari passu, so that there is no worsening of the condition of the working masses per se and the only sufferers are those with cash balances, most of whom are likely to be rich. But inflation as we know it in real life, especially in a country like ours, where the bulk of the workers do not have wages indexed to prices, is one that hurts the working masses. Keynes (1930) had called this latter kind of inflation “profit inflation”, and had recognized it as a phenomenon of great importance under capitalism. In situations where supply could not be rapidly augmented, it overcame excess demand by raising prices relative to money wages, and thereby bringing about a shift of income distribution from wages to profits (whence the term “profit inflation”), which, because the capitalists tended to save more out of income than workers, had the effect of lowering overall demand.

Now, this demand compressing effect of a profit inflation can also be achieved through an income deflation imposed on the working masses. Starting let us say from a situation where the money wage rate is 100 and the price is 100, a reduction in the wage rate to 50 with price remaining the same has exactly the same effect of lowering workers’ demand as a rise in price to 200 with the money wage rate remaining at the original level.

What is more, even though income deflation and profit inflation have exactly identical effects by way of compressing the demand of the working masses, finance capital prefers the former to the latter since the latter entails a decline in the real value (vis a vis the world of commodities) of financial assets, and may in extreme situations make wealth-holders turn to holding commodities in lieu of financial assets altogether. Income deflation therefore, even while keeping excess demand in check, and yet increasing the share of profits earned in the organized sector of the world economy, exactly as a profit inflation would have done, has the added “advantage” of keeping finance capital happy! Income deflation for the working population of the world, which includes, apart from the proletariat proper, the peasantry, the petty producers, the agricultural workers, and other unorganized sector workers, becomes a pervasive phenomenon in the era of globalization, characterized as it is by the rise to hegemony of a new kind of international finance capital based on a process of globalization of finance .

The fact that the inflation of the early-seventies arising out of excess demand for primary commodities disappeared in later years, was because it was substituted by an income deflation on the working people over large tracts of the world, and not because of any significant supply augmentation of non-oil primary commodities, as Professor Krugman believes.

According to the FAO, the total world cereal output in the triennium 1979-81 was around 1573 million tonnes for a population (for the mid-year of the triennium,1980) of 4435 million. For the triennium 1999-01 the cereal output had increased to around 2084 million tonnes for a population (for the mid-year of the triennium, 2000) of 6071 million. This represents a decline in world per capita cereal output from 355 kilogrammes in 1980 to 343 kilogrammes in 2000. Given the fact that during this period per capita income in the world has increased significantly, and given the fact that the income elasticity of demand for cereals (consumed both directly and indirectly via processed food and animal feed) is markedly positive (even if less than one), a stagnant or declining per capita cereal output should have spelled massive shortages leading to a severe inflation in cereal prices. Such an inflation, since it would have occurred in a situation where the money wage rates in the manufacturing sectors around the world, to which manufactured goods’ prices are linked, were not increasing pari passu with cereal prices, would have meant a shift in the terms of trade between cereals and manufactured goods in favour of the former.
But this did not happen. On the contrary, cereal prices fell relative to manufactured goods prices by as much as 46 percent over these two decades! This suggests that the decline in per capita cereal output, in a situation of rising world per capita income, did not generate any specific inflationary pressures on cereal prices. The reason it did not is the income deflation imposed over much of the world. It is this, rather than any supply increase as Professor Krugman suggests, that explains the absence of any specific trend inflationary pressures in cereal prices (i.e. ignoring fluctuations) until recently. And this income deflation was imposed over much of the world via the phenomenon of globalization.

II

Income deflation is not a single process but the outcome of a number of different processes, which deflate not just the money wage rate as in the earlier numerical example, but more importantly the level of employment and income, especially in the non-capitalist, petty production sectors. It is income deflation in this comprehensive sense that eliminates the excess demand that would have arisen in its absence, given the fact of sluggish increases in supplies.

There are at least three processes contributing to the phenomenon of income deflation, in this comprehensive sense, over much of the world in the era of globalization. The first is the relative reduction in the scale of government expenditure. Globalization, as mentioned earlier, consists above all in the globalization of finance. Huge amounts of finance capital are moving around the world at a dizzying pace in the quest for speculative gains, so much so that even a fairly conventional economist like James Tobin had to ask for a tax on currency transactions in order to slow down this dizzying pace of movement. Because economies caught in this vortex of globalized finance can be easily destabilized through sudden flights of finance capital, retaining the “confidence of the investors” becomes a matter of paramount importance for every economy, for which their respective States have to show absolute respect to the caprices of globalized finance.

Finance capital in all its incarnations has always been opposed to an interventionist State (except when the interventionism is exclusively in its own favour). An essential element of this opposition has been its preference for “sound finance” ( i.e. for States always balancing their budgets, or at the most having a small pre-specified fiscal deficit as a proportion of the GDP). The argument advanced in favour of this preference has always been vacuous, and was pilloried by Professor Joan Robinson of Cambridge as the “humbug of finance” (Robinson 1962). The preference nonetheless has always been there, and has become binding in the era of globalized finance, when States willy-nilly are forced to enact “Fiscal Responsibility” legislation that limits the size of the fiscal deficit relative to GDP. At the same time, this move towards “sound finance” is accompanied by a reduction in the tax-GDP ratio, owing to tariff reduction and to steps taken by States competing against one another to entice multinational capital to set up production plants in their respective countries.

The net result of both these measures is a restriction on the size of government expenditure, especially welfare expenditure, transfer payments to the poor, public investment expenditure, and development expenditure in rural areas. Since these items of expenditure put purchasing power in the hands of the people, especially in rural areas, the impact of their curtailment, exaggerated by the multiplier effects which are also to a significant extent felt in the local (rural) economy, is to curtail employment and impose an income deflation on the rural working population.

The second process is the destruction of domestic productive activities under the impact of global competition, from which they cannot be protected as they used to be in the dirigiste period, because of trade liberalization that is an essential component of the neo-liberal policies accompanying globalization. The extent of such destruction gets magnified to the extent that the country becomes a favourite destination for finance, and the inflow of speculative capital pushes up the exchange rate.

Even when there is no upward movement of the exchange rate and not even any destruction of domestic activity through the inflow of imports, the desire on the part of the getting-rich-quick elite for metropolitan goods and life-styles, which are necessarily less employment-intensive than the locally available traditional goods catering to traditional life-styles, results in the domestic production of the former at the expense of the latter, and hence to a process of internal “de-industrialization” which entails a net- unemployment-engendering structural change. This too acts as a measure of income deflation.

The third process through which income deflation is effected is a secular shift in the terms of trade themselves against the petty producers of primary commodities, and in particular the peasantry. This may appear paradoxical at first sight. We had argued earlier that the decline in the terms of trade for cereals between 1980 and 2000 was a consequence of income deflation; to argue that income deflation is a consequence of the terms of trade shift seems to contradict the earlier argument and reverse the causation. There is however no contradiction here. A distinction needs to be drawn between an autonomous shift in the terms of trade, which is brought about, say, through pricing policy in the capitalist manufacturing sector, and an induced shift in the terms of trade that arises as a result of the autonomous shift through changes in the state of demand and supply for the primary commodity in question. An autonomous shift in the terms of trade (through, say, an increase, compared to the initial situation, in the administered price of manufactured goods, by monopoly capitalist producers) is like a tax, much the way that Yevgeny Preobrazhensky (1926) had visualized it. The imposition of such a tax may force larger primary commodity supplies from the petty producers which affects the prices they get, and hence a further adverse movement in their terms of trade (provided that manufactured goods prices are not lowered after their initial autonomous increase, because of the lowering of primary commodity prices, i.e. that they are subject to a “ratchet effect”). A terms of trade shift therefore both causes and is caused by an income deflation of petty producers.

There is also an additional mechanism. Even when there is no shift in the terms of trade against particular commodities, there is nonetheless a decline in the terms of trade obtained by the producers of those commodities because of the increasing hold of a few giant corporations in the marketing of those commodities. This too has the effect, via a shift in income distribution from the lower-rung petty producers to the higher-rung marketing MNCs, of curtailing the consumption demand of the former, and hence the level of world aggregate demand, which in turn curtails inflationary pressures on primary commodities themselves.

Globalization in other words unleashes massive processes of income deflation which, while playing exactly the same role as profit-inflation in curbing excess demand pressures, keep commodity prices in check. And this is what we have been witnessing in the entire interregnum between the inflation of the early seventies and the recent revival of inflation.

III

The question arises: why is the increase in the demand for primary commodities not met through an increase in supply? Why is it that demand itself has to be compressed, either through a profit-inflation or through an income deflation imposed on the working population? The answer lies inter alia in the fact that, for agricultural primary commodities at any rate, supply increase requires the use of additional land. At a time when capitalism was extending into the “new world”, the local inhabitants consisting of Amerindians could be driven off the land, and migrants from the metropolis could settle on this land and undertake production to satisfy the requirements of capital. Supply increases in other words could and did occur to serve the requirements of the capitalist world economy, though this process was also accompanied by a parallel process of an income deflation imposed on the pre-capitalist producers of the tropical colonies, through a combination of taxation and import-induced de-industrialization, to compress their demand and squeeze out resources for world capitalism.

With the closing of the “frontier” in the “new world”, which Keynes (1919) saw as a turning point in the history of capitalism, further increase in supplies of agricultural commodities required essentially the adoption of land-augmenting technological progress in densely-populated areas of settled peasant agriculture. Capital did not directly have access to land in these areas; and it could not drive the vast peasant population off the land by force as it had done in the temperate regions of white settlement. If supplies had to be augmented, then the requisite land-augmenting technological progress had to be introduced within the framework of peasant agriculture.

This did happen in the post-decolonization period through the dirigiste regimes of the third world adopting a number of measures to promote multiple cropping and improve yields. These measures even culminated in the ushering in of the so-called “Green Revolution” in countries like India. But with the dirigiste regimes running into crisis, especially a fiscal crisis, and with their supersession by the neo-liberal regimes of the era of globalization, the scope for such supply increases dried up.

It is not in the nature of capitalism to develop peasant agriculture. The fact that peasant agriculture got a boost during the dirigiste period was precisely because dirigisme, a natural sequel to the national liberation struggles of the third world, did not represent capitalism in its spontaneous development, did not express the immanent tendencies of capitalism, but stood for an intervention in its spontaneity “in the interests of the nation”, though within clearly bourgeois bounds. Dirigisme, like its counterpart Keynesianism in the advanced capitalist countries, could only be transitional. As the special conjuncture producing it passed, dirigisme gave way to neo-liberalism. The immanent tendencies of capitalism asserted themselves against the earlier regime of interventionism, and transformed the nature of State intervention from one that invoked a notion of “national interest”, not identical with the interest of finance capital, into one that saw the two sets of interest as being identical.

With this came a basic shift in the fate of peasant agriculture. The immanent tendency of capitalism is not to promote peasant agriculture; as Lenin had said in his Imperialism (2000, 89), if capitalism could develop agriculture “which today everywhere is lagging terribly behind industry”, then it would not be capitalism. Its immanent tendency on the contrary is to dispossess peasants of their land and other means of production, which in areas of settled peasant agriculture can only occur over a period of time. And the squeeze employed on the peasantry by this immanent tendency of capitalism in the current era is itself ipso facto an act of income deflation. It is an income deflation imposed on the peasantry and is covered within our general concept, namely the imposition of an income deflation upon the working population under globalization.

The income deflation on the working population therefore, and hence the compression of the latter’s demand as a means of squeezing out agricultural primary commodities (as opposed to increasing the supplies of these commodities to meet the growing demand that would arise in the absence of such compression) is part of the immanent tendency of capitalism, which also manifests itself in the current epoch.

IV

This distinction between supply augmentation and demand compression of the working population, as the two alternative means of overcoming the tendency towards ex ante excess demand for primary commodities that arises in the process of expanded reproduction of capital can be expressed somewhat differently. Any particular bloc of capital can grow, conceptually, in two ways. One is by reinvesting its surplus value and thereby growing bigger; the other is by annexing other blocs of capital, or by taking over common property, or the property of non-capitalist petty producers, or that of the State. The first of these constitutes “accumulation through expansion”; the second constitutes “accumulation through encroachment”. These terms which we have defined with respect to one particular bloc can also be used for larger blocs, and even for the entire bloc of capital in the world economy. In each case the pictures corresponding to the two processes can be clearly visualized .

The argument of the preceding section can then be expressed as follows: taking the entire bloc of capital in the world economy, its accumulation through expansion necessarily has to be complemented by a process of accumulation through encroachment. As capital accumulates in the world economy, it requires at the base price certain material elements of means of production and means of subsistence. The supply of these elements however does not grow to satisfy at the base prices the requirements of capital accumulation. Since any process of price increase above the base price is against the interests of finance capital, the imbalance between the increases in demand and supply at the base price, is overcome by compressing demand not only of the workers directly employed by this bloc of capital, through curbs on their money wages, but above all by forcibly compressing the demand existing outside the domain of this capital, so that the overall supply limitations do not adversely affect the requirements of capital. Such compression, which means the snatching of resources for the capitalist sector from the petty production sector outside of it, constitutes accumulation through encroachment.

Of course if the petty production sector, in particular peasant agriculture, could grow in tandem with the capitalist sector, i.e. if there could be a balance between the growth of the different sectors, then the need for accumulation through encroachment would not arise. But the very scope of accumulation through encroachment forecloses this possibility. The capitalist sector sells its goods there at the expense of the traditional producers, and this is enough to compress demand for the primary commodities and release them for the capitalist sector. The capitalist sector jacks up its price owing to monopoly pricing; and this is enough to release resources for it through a compression of demand of petty producers. In other words, accumulation through encroachment is not the outcome of some conspiracy; it is simply the outcome of relations between two sectors of unequal strength; and its being there forecloses the possibility of supply augmentation (the dirigiste phase being an exception because of its historical context).

An example can make the point clear. The capitalist sector can meet, say, its raw cotton requirements in any one of two ways: if the peasant agricultural sector increases its supply to match the requirement of the capitalist sector; or if some traditional cotton manufacturers are thrown out of their occupation and the raw cotton they were using becomes available to the capitalist sector. Since it is in the nature of capitalism to capture markets from pre-capitalist producers, its “normal” functioning will entail its meeting its raw cotton needs through the second route. And this very fact will foreclose the first route, which, in any case, it is not in the nature of capitalism to follow. Accumulation through encroachment therefore is an intrinsic property of capitalism, which is based not on balanced but on uneven development of the different segments of the world economy.

This feature of capitalism comes into particular prominence in the contemporary epoch because of the closing of the “frontier”, so that even such supply adjustments as were possible in the period of availability of “empty spaces” (which were not actually empty since they were peopled by Ameridians and other local inhabitants) are no longer possible now. The period of “globalization” therefore has two specific features: first it characterizes a world where supply adjustments, at least of agricultural primary commodities, have limited scope, and hence accumulation through encroachment, entailing compression of demand of the working people all over the world, must come to the fore. Secondly, unlike in the colonial period where the colonial State enforced both de-industrialization and taxation which were major instruments for compressing demand, the imposition of neo-liberal policies does this compression even in the absence of any political domination of the colonies, i.e. even in a situation of political decolonization. We now have accumulation through encroachment without colonialism.

The idea that capital accumulation required encroachments being made on the pre-capitalist sector was first put forward by Rosa Luxemburg (1963), though the precise details of her argument, and the conclusions she drew from it were quite different from what has been discussed above. In particular she saw the capitalist sector engulfing and replacing the pre-capitalist sector and, hence, the world moving towards a limit point of exclusive presence of the capitalist sector alone, at which point capital accumulation will become impossible. But the world does not move towards the exclusive sway of capitalism. She was right in seeing the encroachments on the pre-capitalist sector, essential for the functioning of capitalism, as also compounding the problems of capitalism, but the manner of that compounding is different from what she had visualized. The present inflationary crisis is a manifestation of this compounding.

V

The inflationary crisis has been variously explained. A fairly common explanation highlights speculative behaviour. Speculators, it is argued, are moving to commodities, because of the financial crisis which has made financial assets unattractive, and also because of the weakening of the dollar, which has denied the wealth holders in the capitalist world for the present, a stable medium of holding wealth. While there is much in this argument (though Professor Krugman questions it on the grounds that there is no evidence of increased inventory holdings), it cannot be a stand-alone explanation of the inflationary crisis. Wealth-holders will not move to commodities, which have high carrying costs, unless they already have inflationary expectations. And for such expectations to arise, there must already be a tightness in the commodity markets. Speculation can act only on top of a basic situation of shortage, which is why the speculation argument can only point to a compounding factor, not to the basic explanation for the inflationary situation.

Three basic arguments have been advanced. One is by the US administration to the effect that in rapidly-growing developing economies like China and India, a variation in the dietary pattern is taking place, entailing an increased demand for commodities like meat, the production of which requires more foodgrains in the form of animal feed. This argument is so totally vacuous that one is even amazed that it is at all advanced. No doubt the rich in both these countries are diversifying their diet and are absorbing, directly and indirectly, more foodgrains per capita. But if we take the per capita foodgrain absorption for the population as a whole, both directly and indirectly (via processed foods, animal feed etc.), then we find that in India there is a decline compared to the late eighties (U.Patnaik 2007a). Even in the case of China if we take the per capita absorption of cereals for food and feed (the definition of foodgrains is different in China compared to India), then there is a steady and sharp decline between 1996 and 2003, which gets reversed thereafter, but the level in 2005 is still lower than in 1996 . In fact in the case of both these countries this phenomenon of non-increasing foodgrain absorption per capita, even when both direct and indirect absorption are taken into account, has been adduced by many as evidence that the high growth they have been experiencing has been accompanied not by any reduction in poverty, but possibly even by an increase.

Since the rate of growth of population in both these economies has been slowing down, the decline in the per capita foodgrain absorption entails a decline in the rate of growth in the overall demand for foodgrains. In the face of such a decline, it follows that if excess demand pressures have arisen in the world foodgrains economy, then the reason must lie in an even more rapid decline in the rate of growth of the supply of foodgrains. Hence it is not from the side of Indian or Chinese demand but from the side of the foodgrain supply in the world that we have to explain the current food scarcity in the world economy.

The second basic argument that has been advanced for the inflation in food prices points to the diversion of foodgrains for the production of bio-fuels. This is no doubt a perfectly valid argument, and the Bush administration having encouraged such diversion, is naturally keen to shift the blame elsewhere, which is why it is pointing, quite baselessly, to higher Chinese and Indian demand. But even this diversion for bio-fuel, important though it is, has operated on top of a situation of sluggish growth in foodgrains output. We referred earlier to the fact that the growth in foodgrain output during the two decades of the eighties and the nineties, had not kept pace with the world population growth. In the period after 2000 this has become even more pronounced. During the 1980-2000 period, nearly half of the increase in foodgrain output of the world occurred in India and China, which together, however, account for only over a quarter of the actual output. In other words the world output growth was sustained by these two countries over those two decades. But in this century, in both these countries there has been a virtual stagnation in foodgrain output, and hence a decline in per capita output . (In both countries this began in the nineties itself and things have only become worse this century). It is this stagnation which provides the basic context for the shortage; the diversion to bio-fuels only worsens things.

The third basic argument can be said to provide an explanation for this shortage, and this lies in the fact that resources on the planet are now running short compared to “mankind’s” requirements. This argument in other words provides a nature-based as opposed to a society-based explanation for the shortage. And therein lies its limitation. While no doubt virgin land for cultivation can no longer be made available as easily as it could have been done in an earlier epoch, to say that “mankind” has in some sense reached the limits of agricultural production is a gross exaggeration. The decline in inflation in the period after the early seventies was not because of any new land coming under cultivation; it was because of income deflation. And such growth in output as occurred was owing to the adoption of land-augmenting technological progress in countries like India and China. The technological scope for such progress is far from over. The real problem is that the agency through which such progress could be introduced, namely the peasantry, is, because of this very income deflation, no longer in a position to do so. In fact, income deflation has taken its toll on the peasantry to a point where even simple reproduction of the peasant economy is no longer possible in countries like India, as is evident from the mass suicides of the peasants.

We have so far seen income deflation as a mechanism purely of demand compression. While it does compress demand immediately, it also has a long run effect on supply. As it undermines the viability of the peasantry, simple reproduction is no longer possible and supplies drop. The impossibility of simple reproduction of the peasant economy of course is the means through which the peasantry gets dispossessed of land and becomes destitute; it is precisely what capital wants and enforces. It represents nothing more than the march of capital . But it is this march of capital that is creating a crisis for mankind. If the march of capital had brought misery to mankind in the form of world wars in an earlier epoch, it is threatening to bring misery to mankind in the form of frood shortage and starvation in the current epoch. What we are seeing today is not some kind of a natural limit being reached by mankind, but the limit to which capitalism has dragged mankind. This limit can be transcended, but only when the social system underlying it is transcended.

VI

The tendency of capitalism as a social system is to dispossess the vast mass of the peasantry. The alternative social system that a transcendence of capitalism must bring about should be one that defends and promotes the peasantry instead of making it destitute. This does not necessarily mean a promotion of petty production and individual peasant farming. Collective and co-operative forms of operation, and even ownership, voluntarily entered into by the peasantry, can transform and modernize peasant agriculture, without dispossession and destitution of the peasantry. The alternative social system therefore does not have to be one based on petty production, but it must be one that ensures a balanced development of different sectors through a changing but non-exploitative relationship between different classes, and correspondingly changing forms of property relations and of production organization. The core of the system has to be social ownership of the modern means of production, for that alone, by overcoming the “spontaneity” of capitalism, enables society to consciously fashion its own destiny.

The social system that the transcendence of capitalism must bring about in other words can only be socialism, not necessarily in the form it had taken in the past (or is taking today in China), but not too far perhaps from the form which Lenin had originally visualized at the time of the Revolution, when he had set great store by the schmytchka, or the worker-peasant alliance, as forming the bedrock of socialism. At that time mankind had been faced with a choice between the barbarism of war and the alternative of socialism. Today the choice that is emerging before mankind is between mass hunger, destitution and starvation on the one side and the alternative of socialism. When a vast segment of the population consisting of petty producers cannot even carry out simple reproduction, and when this fact in turn jeopardizes the subsistence of other segments of the working population, then clearly the social system which causes this has run its historical course. Between these two alternatives before us, there can scarcely be any doubt over what the choice of D.D.Kosambi, the most outstanding intellectual figure of post-Independence India, would have been.

Prabhat Patnaik
D.D.Kosambi memorial lecture delivered by Prof. Prabhat Patnaik on 8th May 2008 at Pune

REFERENCES

Ghosh J. and Chanrasekhar C.P. (2003) Work and Well-Being in the Age of Finance, Tulika Books, Delhi.

Keynes J.M. (1919) Economic Consequences of the Peace, Macmillan, London.

Keynes J.M. (1930) A Treatise on Money, 2 Volumes, Macmillan, London.

Lenin (2000) Imperialism The Highest Stage of Capitalism, Leftword Books, Delhi.

Luxemburg R. (1963) The Accumulation of Capital, Routledge Paperbacks, London.

Patnaik P. (2000) “Introduction” to Lenin (2000).

Patnaik P. (2005) “The Economics of the New Phase of Imperialism”, www.macroscan.com

Patnaik U. (1999) “Export-oriented Agriculture and Food Security in Developing Countries and in India” republished in her The Long Transition, Tulika Books, Delhi.

Patnaik U. (2003) “On the Inverse Relation between Primary exports and Food Absorption in Developing Countries under Liberalized Trade regimes” in Jayati Ghosh and C.P. Chandrasekhar (2003).

Patnaik U. (2007) “The Republic of Hunger” in The Republic of Hunger and Other Essays, Three Essays Delhi.

Patnaik U. (2007a) “Neo-Liberalism and Rural Poverty in India” in Economic and Political Weekly, July 28.

Prebrazhensky Y. (1926), The New Economics.

Robinson J. (1962) Economic Philosophy, C.A.Watts, London.

Link to pdf

Dharmanand Kosambi: Dying with Dignity

Source

We learn from the Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi (CWMG) that Dharmanand Kosambi’s middle initial was “P”. Did this stand for “Pai”, or “Panandikar”, or even “Pai panandikar” perhaps? These are all Goan names, although in the journey of his life (and death), the Buddhist scholar was to move very far from his Goan origins.

When the elder Kosambi fasted to death in May-June 1947, one of the men most moved was his mentor, Mahatma Gandhi. Gandhi was then in Delhi. In a prayer meeting on June 5, he paid tribute to his recently departed follower. The audience would not know of him, said Gandhi, since “we are so made that we raise to the skies anyone who goes about beating his drum and indulges in political acrobatics but fail to appreciate the silent worker.”

To his Delhi audience, Gandhi filled in the details of Kosambi’s life. Born in a village, a Hindu by birth, he embraced Buddhism and studied its scriptures out of the conviction that “no other religion gave as much importance to non-violence, piety, etc., as Buddhism did.” Kosambi had “no equal in India in scholarship”, and gave “freely of his profound learning”... “In scholarship I cannot compare myself with Kosambiji”, said the Mahatma, adding: “I am merely a barrister who became one by attending dinners in England! I have a very meagre knowledge of Sanskrit.”

The last days

Gandhi then arrived at the manner and meaning of Dharmanand Kosambi’s death. He spoke in Hindi — the official English translation follows:

When Kosambiji realised that he was no longer physically fit to carry on any work, he decided to give up his life through fasting. At [Purushottamdas] Tandonji’s insistence I made Kosambiji, very much against his wishes, give up his fast. But his digestion had been severely affected and he was not able to eat anything at all. So, in Sewagram, he again gave up food and keeping himself only on water gave up the breath after forty days. During his illness he refused all nursing and all drugs. He even abandoned the desire to go to Goa where he was born. He commanded his son and others not to come to him. He left instructions that no memorial should be set up after his death. He also expressed the desire that he should be cremated or buried according to whichever was cheaper. Thus, with the name of the Buddha on his lips he passed into that final sleep which is to be the estate, one day or another, of all who are born. Death is the friend of everyone. It will visit us as destined. One may be able to predict the time of birth, but no one has yet been able to predict the time of death.

“I beg you to forgive me for taking so much of your time over this”, said Gandhi, a remark suggesting that he understood that his Delhi audience may not exactly have had the same interest in the subject. Three days later, in another prayer meeting in Delhi, Gandhi returned to the matter of Kosambi’s death. The Manager of the Sewagram Ashram, Balvantsinha, had written that “he had not witnessed such a death so far. It was exactly as Kabir described in the following couplet: The servant Kabir says: Although we wear this sheet with ever so much care, it has to be given up even as it is”.

Then Gandhi added: “If we can all befriend Death in this manner, it would be to the good of India”.

It is evident that Gandhi had been deeply affected by the manner of Kosambi’s going. On June 9, 1947, he wrote to an associate saying that, following the professor’s wishes, “we should send to Ceylon as quickly as we can some Indians who follow Buddhism and are desirous of learning Pali. Do you have some students in mind? Try to think over what rules we should frame for selecting such students and give me some suggestions. For instance, what would be the expense of each student, etc…”

Efforts for a memorial

This associate (unidentified in the CWMG) appears to have given an estimate of Rs. 25,000 as the money required to sustain the initiative. On September 24, Gandhi wrote to the industralist Kamalnayan Bajaj asking him to help in collecting this amount for the “Dharmanand [Kosambi] Memorial”. Another letter of the same day requested Kaka Kalelkar to “work as the chairman, secretary and peon all rolled into one in regard to this scheme”. He suggested that the politician B.G. Kher, the educationist James H. Cousins, and the Theosophist and philanthropist Sophie Wadia be asked also to help. It appears that all of the above were unavailable or unwilling, since on October 11, 1947 Gandhi wrote to Kalelkar from Delhi that if he and Kamalnayan Bajaj could not collect the Rs. 25,000, “I am in any case going to take up the burden”.

And there the Kosambi trail in the CWMG ends. We do not know whether the money was collected — even if it was, it is unlikely that any Indian students were sent to Sri Lanka to study Pali. For, less than three months later, death called upon Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. The meeting was not (as Gandhi always knew to be the case) at a time and place of his choosing. But, when the moment came, he met death with the dignity and equanimity of his Buddhist friend and follower, Dharmanand Kosambi.

Kosambi’s life and death seem a subject fit for a full-length book, although the humdrum medium of biography may not be able to fully capture its manifest moral grandeur. Perhaps a feature film, then, or, better still, a play written by that most brilliant of modern playwrights, Girish Karnad.

Buddhism’s Revival in India in the 20th Century

From the fine site maintained by Prof. Vinay Lal

Vinay Lal


The disappearance of Buddhism from the land of its birth, a gradual process that extended from the latter part of the 1st millennium AD until about 1200-1300 AD, is a phenomenon that has been commented upon quite often. [See the related article on this web site.] Another part of this story is surely the revival of Buddhism, a reawakening with which the name of B. R. Ambedkar is indelibly linked. Indeed, the story of modern-day Indian Buddhism generally commences with Ambedkar’s conversion to Buddhism in 1956, a mere couple of months before his death. By the early 1990s, there were an estimated 7 - 10 million Buddhists in India, the bulk of them in the western state of Maharashtra.


However, the narrative of Buddhism’s revival in India can more accurately be traced back to the 19th century, and a more complex account of it would have to take stock of various Dravidian, anti-Brahminical, and self-respect movements that, in various ways, impinged on the fortunes of Buddhism in India from the late nineteenth century onwards. The names of reformers such as Jotiba Phule (1826-1890) and much later E. V. Ramaswami ‘Periyar’ (1879-1973) are, of course, well-known, but one can also point to other tendencies. Mahima Dharma, or the “religion” founded by Mahima Gosain [previously known as Mukunda Das] in Orissa in 1862, stood for the rejection of caste and idol worship, and Gosain embraced such Buddhist practices as begging for cooked food. Gosain’s teachings were spread through many followers, none as famous as the blind adivasi poet, Bhima Bhoi, whose bhajans popularized Mahima Gosain’s teachings. Ambedkar’s closest forerunner may well have been Pandit Iyothee Thaas, a Tamil Siddha physician (1845-1914) who not only urged the Untouchables (as they were then known) to view themselves as non-Hindus, as casteless Dravidians, but also set another example for them by taking diksha at the hands of a Buddhist monk in Sri Lanka. Thaas went on to found the Sakya Buddhist Society in Madras.


Various other trajectories fed into Buddhism’s revival, among them the arrival in India in 1891 of David Hewavitarne, more well-known as Angarika Dharmapala. The restoration of Bodh Gaya, the site of the Buddha’s enlightenment, was undertaken at his behest, and Dharmapala also founded the Maha Bodhi Society. Before Ambedkar’s conversion in 1956 and the advent of what we might call Dalit Buddhism, the Maha Bodhi Society, which also wrested control of Bodh Gaya from the hands of its Hindu managers, would become the custodian of Buddhism’s fortunes. Dharmapala’s visit to India coincided with a spurt of scholarly interest in Buddhism among Indologists, including such famous ones as the Sanskritist R. G. Bhandarkar, and something of what might be called an antiquarian and spiritual interest in Buddhism among intellectuals and truth seekers in the West. In 1881, the Pali Text Society had been founded, and authoritative versions of Buddhist texts soon came to be published and disseminated under its auspices. One convert to Buddhism in India who was to acquire considerable fame in later years was Dharmanand Kosambi, who was born in Goa in 1876 and was ordained as a Buddhist monk in 1902. Though his fame has been eclipsed by that of his son, D. D. Kosambi, the most eminent Indian Marxist historian of his generation, Dharmanand Kosambi authored one of the most popular biographies of Buddha, Bhagwan Buddha (1940, and still in print from Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan).


Ultimately, however, Buddhism’s revival owes the most to Ambedkar’s alienation from Hinduism and his embrace of Buddhism, which by no means seemed inevitable to him even when he had emphatically denounced Hinduism, in October 1956. That story has been taken up in great detail by Ambedkar’s biographers and is now part of Dalit lore; and consequently it will not be rehearsed now at any length. It is worth recalling that as late as 1929, when a group of Dalits threatened to convert to Islam or Christianity, Ambedkar did not really see Buddhism as a viable alternative for low-caste Hindus. As he then wrote, “No particular effect will be felt on the bullying of the so-called upper castes by becoming Buddhist or Arya Samajist, so we see no meaning in following this path. To successfully confront the domination of Hindus, we should become Christians or Muslims and win the support of a powerful community and with this erase the mark of Untouchability.” Ambedkar was fully conversant with the problem that in India the tendency to view Buddhism as an off-shoot of Hinduism meant that converts to Buddhism would be treated with something like indifference, and that they would not be able to escape the liabilities of low-caste Hinduism. Upper-caste Hindus were not likely to perceive conversion to Buddhism as anything of a threat. By the mid-1930s, however, Ambedkar had certainly come around to the view that he could not remain within the fold of Hinduism. As he was to declare on 13 October 1935, “Unfortunately, I was born a Hindu. It was beyond my power to prevent that, but I solemnly assure you that I will not die a Hindu.” He only took the final plunge in October 1956. Perhaps not coincidentally, or not without its own symbolic politics, Ambedkar’s conversion, accompanied by the conversion of thousands of his followers, took place at a large field in the city of Nagpur, a place associated with the rise of Hindu nationalist sentiments. The field where Ambedkar converted would be sanctified as “Diksha Bhoomi”, the field or earth of vow-taking.


Though Buddhism has gained adherents over the last five decades, Indian Buddhists are still relatively miniscule in numbers. Buddhism’s presence in India is, of course, another matter, with the landscape in many parts of the country still dotted with remains of Buddhist monasteries, Buddhist sculptural art, and other reminders of the supreme presence that Buddhism once occupied in Indian life. The hill regions of north-east India, Uttaraanchal, and Himachal Pradesh, as well as Ladakh in Jammu & Kashmir are other areas where sizable Buddhist communities are found. Japanese tourists arriving in India to take the Buddhist pilgrimage route are writing yet another chapter of the history of Indian Buddhism, as are, in more profound ways, Tibetan Buddhists. There is a sizable population of Tibetan Buddhists, over 150,000 people, in India; and the Dalai Lama heads the Tibetan government in exile at the hill station of Dharmashala. In the 12th and 13th centuries, as Buddhism was pushed further east and north, it eventually made its way to Tibet and found refuge in the mountainous retreats of that country. It is, thus, perfectly apposite that Buddhism should now have come back to India from Tibet to nourish the soil on which it once grew.

A portrait of Dharmanand Kosambi

The Hindu : Magazine / Columns : The life and death of a Buddhist Gandhian

A portrait of Dharmanand Kosambi as revealed through the letters of Mahatma Gandhi.

We do not know whether Kosambi agreed with Gandhi’s interpretation of the proposed temple to Buddha…

After I wrote my last column on the Kosambis, father and son, I decided to check for references to them in that capacious repository of relevant knowledge, the Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi (CWMG). The Marxist historian D.D. is not mentioned, but there are as many as 29 entries pertaining to his father, the Buddhist scholar Dharmanand. The first dates from January 1922, when in an article written in Young India, Gandhi quotes a letter written to him from Cambridge (Mass) by the professor, enclosing a cheque for $ 156 collected by him for the Tilak Swaraj Fund, the money mostly contributed by “poor Indian students”. In this letter, Kosambi also told Gandhi that the “Press of this country [the United States] from the most radical to the most conservative is unanimous in praising you and the Indian national movement”.

In 1930 the professor returned to India to participate in the Salt Satyagraha. He went into jail, and after he came out, started work on a temple devoted to the Buddha. It was to be called Naigaum Vihar, and the Mahatma had been asked to help. Gandhi, in turn, wrote to the Maharashtra Congressman B.G. Kher, urging him to oversee the collection and disbursal of the money for the project. Kher answered that he could do the job (of monitoring expenses) until the temple was built, but after that had to excuse himself. For, “how am I to work on a Buddhist Vihar committee?” enquired Kher: “Are they all going to become Buddhists? Where is the need?”
Gandhi’s interpretation

To this Gandhi replied: “There is no question of anyone becoming a Buddhist. The temple is meant to be one dedicated to Buddha as temples are dedicated to Rama, Krishna and the like. There is no proselytising taint about this movement. At the most it is to be a Hindu temple of an advanced type in which a very learned man will be keeper or pujari. That is how I have understood the whole scheme of Prof. Kosambi. You may share this with the Professor, and if he endorsed my position, with Shri Natarajan [presumably another promoter of the temple idea] so that there may be a common understanding about the temple”.

We do not know whether Kosambi agreed with this interpretation of the proposed temple to Buddha — would he have accepted that it merely represented Hinduism “of an advanced type”? But we learn, from the CWMG, that Kosambi worked in the early 1940s for the Hindi Sabha, and later joined the Gujarat Vidyapith in Ahmedabad to teach Buddhist literature. In September 1946, Gandhi, then in Delhi, heard that the Professor had gone on a fast. He wrote urging him to desist. He suggested that Kosambi restrict himself to cow’s milk and boiled vegetables which “too would be a kind of fast”. Apparently, the advice was not immediately accepted. Three days later, Gandhi wired a colleague to tell Kosambi “not to be obstinate”, and to at least take milk and fruit. Five days later, another wire was on its way, with Gandhi saying that “I cannot understand this obstinacy on Kosambi’s part. Please plead with him again [to] desist”.
On death

The fast was called off. The next relevant letter in the CWMG is dated May 5, 1947. This was written by Gandhi in answer to a postcard of Kosambi’s on an important subject, possibly the most important there is. “Death is our true and unfailing friend”, remarked the Mahatma: “He takes charge of one when one’s time is over”. Then he added: “So, if you must depart, first enshrine Rama in your heart and then go to meet Him cheerfully”. So evidently death was very much on Kosambi’s mind. A week later, from Sodepur in Bengal, Gandhi wrote to a follower asking him to “keep me informed of any changes in Kosambi’s condition. I prefer cremation but I shall not insist on it”. (A foonote in the CWMG explains: “Kosambi had expressed a desire to be buried after death, it being the least expensive disposal of the body”.)

Ten days later Gandhi wrote to Kosambi directly, saying that he got “regular reports” about him, that he was “very happy that you are staying in the [Sewagram] Ashram” and that he had “no doubt that you will depart in peace”. A letter to some ashramites followed, asking them to tell Kosambi that Gandhi would ensure that his wishes to send Indian students to study Pali in Sri Lanka were carried out. Gandhi then asked that Kosambi be requested “to forget about such matters and fix his mind on withdrawing himself into a state of inner concentration whether the body subsists a little longer or withers away soon”.

Dharmanand P. Kosambi left this world on June 4, 1947, after voluntarily and deliberately fasting to death. In my next column I shall write of what the death of this Buddhist Gandhian meant to the Mahatma himself.

Kosambi on the Aryan Invasion

The following article has been retrieved from a Korean site. Since the page no longer exists, I have copied the full text here, and the reference to DD Kosambi is highlighted in maroon color. The name of the author of this article does not seem to appear at the site.

***

The Aryan Invasion theory was first propounded when linguistic similarities between Sanskrit and the major European languages were discovered by European scholars during the colonial era. In an atmosphere of raging eurocentricism, it was inevitable that any explanation of this seemingly inexplicable discovery would taken on racial and ideological overtones.

Colonial expositions of the Aryan Invasion Theory

British intellectuals were particularly nonplussed by this apparent link between the languages of the conquerors and the conquered. In the earliest phases of British rule in India, the East India Company proceeded largely unconsciously - without moral dilemmas and without overt recourse to ideological or racial superiority. But as the rule of the East India Company expanded, and battles became more hard fought and the resistance to British occupation in India grew, the ideology of European racial superiority became almost essential in justifying British presence in India - not only to assuage British conscience, but also to convince the Indian people that the British were not mere colonial conquerors but a superior race on a noble civilizational mission.

After 1857, the British education system in India had been deliberately designed to assist in the development of a narrow but influential class of deeply indoctrinated and predominantly loyal agents of British colonial rule in India. British elaborations of the Aryan invasion theory became powerful and convenient ideological tools in generating legitimacy for British rule. In its most classical and colonially tinged incarnation, it portrayed the Aryans as a highly advanced and culturally superior race in the ancient world, locating their original home in Northern Europe. It then went on to suggest that some time in antiquity, the Aryans migrated from their original home in Europe and brought with them their language and their superior culture and transcendental philosophy to civilize the primitive and materially backward Dravidian people of the subcontinent. All the greatness of Indian civilization was ascribed to the Aryans, thus implying that if

And by claiming a cultural continuity between this noble race of ancient times and themselves, the British could become inheritors of the grand Aryan tradition and assert their "legitimate" civilizational right to rule over the people of the subcontinent - not to exploit them, but so as to "reinvigorate" Indian civilization by reintroducing Aryan rule that had been disfigured and corrupted by the violent and barbaric incursions of the Muslims. Preposterous and distorted as it was, this absurdly racist proposition was made palatable to a self-doubting and repressed class of upper-caste Hindus who were told that they were descendants of the Aryans, and could identify with the manifold and globally encompassing achievements of the Aryan people by accepting British authority so as to participate in this great Aryan renaissance in India.

The theory gained rapid currency amongst upper-caste Hindus who had legitimate gripes against the Muslim nobility for having been denied equal access to power in the Muslim courts, but were too enfeebled to put up a fight on their own, and were too alienated from the mass of artisans and peasants to join in popular rebellions against the feudal dispensation. The British rulers offered the opportunity of gaining petty privileges in exchange for acquiescence to colonial rule, and the Aryan invasion theory provided the ideological justification for betraying the rest of ones nation. By placing the ancestral home of the Aryans far off in Northern Europe, the British were putting the idea in the heads of such upper-caste Hindus that they were far removed from the Indian masses and had no good reason to identify with them.

Wittingly or unwittingly, the Aryan invasion theory thus became the emotional bait for a section of the Indian population who were to aid and abet the colonial project in India. Although some of these Indians ultimately did develop national feelings, and forged a national identity that eventually came into conflict with the continuation of colonial rule, the theory continued to play an important role in confusing the psyche of the post-independence Indian intelligentsia.

Since the Aryan invasion refers to a period of considerable antiquity, and there is little physical evidence to support any authoritative conclusion, theories affirming (or opposing) the invasion hypothesis can vary from being wildly speculative at worst, to being reasonably plausible at best. Even the most diligent and objective of historians can at best come up with informed conjectures, leaving open the possibility for uncertainty, and ideologically-driven diversionary postulations. The absence of concrete data and the ambiguity involved in interpreting surviving texts from the Aryan period makes the task of combating history-writing that has been colored by colonially influenced analysis doubly difficult.

Nevertheless, it is possible to construct the contours of what may be more plausible, and at least eliminate what is obviously fiction or fantasy.

Arguments for and against the Invasion Theory

Opponents of the invasion theory make a somewhat plausible case that the sacrificial rites and rituals described in some of the Vedic texts bear a resemblance to practices that may have been common during the Harappan period. The similiarity of Harappan and Vedic altars is indeed intriguing. This would bolster the argument that Brahmins of the Vedic age emerged from the Harappan priesthood, and not from any Aryan invasion. But a link between the Harappan priesthood and Vedic Brahminism does not preclude the possibility of an invasion or foreign migration since North Western India attracted a constant stream of migrants and invaders.

However, the mere possibility of what may have happened cannot be the basis of an all-encomapssing theory such as the "Aryan Invasion Theory". It must be grounded on more solid evidence to withstand critics who might describe such assertions as racially-tarred speculations.

Philological Analysis

Proponents of an invasion (or migration) theory feel quite strongly that the Indo-European linguistic commonality cannot be explained in any other way, and cite philological studies that appear to bolster their case.

However, some opponents of the invasion theory argue that the observed commonality of the Indo-European group of languages could have been achieved without an Aryan invasion. They observe that the Harappan civilization had extensive trade and commercial ties with Babylon as well as with civilizations to the further West. There is a remarkable similarity in seals and cultural artifacts found in Harappan India, Babylon and even the early civilizations of the Mediterranean such as Crete. Hence, they argue that a linguistic commonality may have developed quite early through trade and cultural contacts and that this common linguistic structure may have subsequently moved from South to North. Since Mediterranean Europe and the Middle Eastern civilizations developed well before the civilizations of Northern Europe, such a possibility is not altogether inconceivable.

But such a hypothesis does not preclude the possibility that invading or migrating clans may have also introduced non-Indian words into the existing Indian languages - leading to a composite language stream that incorporated both Indo-European and indigenous features. (Urdu is an example of a language that was introduced as a result of a series of invasions, adding a large body of foreign words while maintaining the syntactical structure and vocabulary base of the previous language.)

Since much of the Indo-European linguistic commonality appears to correspond to the basic vocabulary of a pastoral nomadic population, intrusions by patriarchal warrior clans from Central Asia cannot be ruled out. Authors such as Gimbutas (The Civilization of the Goddess, the World of Old Europe) present a reasonably convincing model of how the older matriarchal order in Europe was gradually broken down by migrants/conquerors who spoke a language that might account for certain common elements of the Indo-European group of languages. However, it would be inappropriate to mechanically apply the same conclusions to India, (nothwithstanding some of the linguistic and philological arguments in favor of such a theory) because other explanations for the linguistic similarities are now being illuminated through very recent DNA studies.

It must be emphasized that while there are both similarities and differences amongst the various Indo-European languages, our essay on Indian Languages shows quite convincingly that the differences outnumber the similarities. The essay shows how the primary and dominant motive force for the development of Indian languages, (including the so-called Indo-European languages of the North) especially during the written period was indigenous. Far too often, historians (and philologists) have tended to downplay (or ignore) the contributions of the Adivasi and Tamil language streams in the development of the Indic languages. A more objective and balanced philological analysis of the Indian languages points to rather limited Indo-European links, but to a considerably greater degree of independent indigenous development. Moreover, just as South Indian languages have absorbed Sanskrit words, North Indian languages have also absorbed words from Tamil and languages related to it.

Another criticism of the invasion theory lies in the interpretation of the word "Arya" to mean race, nationality or even linguistic group. Critics suggest that the word Arya as used in the Rig Veda and other texts is better translated as one who was noble in character (or noble in deed) or perhaps hailing from a noble (or royal) background. Hence, to use the term "Aryan" to describe the racial or national characteristics of an invading clan or clans would naturally be erroneous.

The Horse and Chariot Theories

Notably, historians favoring the invasion theory have based many of their arguments on postulates connecting the introduction of the horse and chariot in India to invading (or migrating) "Aryans". They also point to the balladic character of some of the verses in the Rig Veda with references to armed cattle raids and warriors on horse-driven chariots who appear to portray a race or a group of clans of pastoral nomadic warriors. The imagery fits particularly well with artifacts found in Babylon and Ancient Persia (and other regions near the Caspian Sea) that depict warriors riding on horse-driven chariots. Other literary evidence from the Rig Veda also appears to connect the authors of these Rig Veda verses to the "Aryan" identified civilization of ancient Persia.

However such historians have failed to notice that there are drawings of horse and horse-drawn vehicles (tangas) in the caves of Bhimbhetka and other sites that counter the notion that the horse was unknown in India till an "Aryan Invasion/Migration". This would then suggest that the chariots described in the Rig Veda could have simply been an evolution of the Indian tanga. And while there is little tangible evidence of warrior clans in the numerous urban settlements that comprise the Harappan civilization, it is not unlikely that as settled civilization developed in India, and as urbanization spread to new areas, warrior clans may have emerged entirely due to indigenous processes.

Commonalities of Vedic Gods with the Middle East

Other evidence to bolster the "Aryan Invasion Theory" lies in certain common names/references and features of some Vedic Gods that appear to be pan-West Asian. While this might suggest a certain ancient link between the North Indian nobility and the nobility of Persia and Western Asia, it does not substantiate the claim that the "Aryans" were Europeans or Caucasians. Moreover, there are many different ways in which such commonalities may have developed.

Since there are references in the Manusmriti to ruling clans who were clearly of non-Indian origin, there is no doubt that various foreign tribes/clans must have entered India as migrants or invaders. There are references to Greeks, Persians as well as to Chinese amongst India's ruling "Aryan" families. But there are also references to South Indian or "Dravidian" "Aryan" clans. To conflate these royals "Aryans" exclusively with European invaders would be clearly inappropriate. Moreover, to identify the timing of such an invasion with the period of the Rig Veda would also be entirely speculative.

This is not to say that India could have never been invaded by Caucasian or other clans, but rather that even if such invasions may have taken place, these invasions would have been neither unique nor decisive in shaping Indian history.

While it is not inconceivable that some of the ruling clans described in the Rig Veda may have entered India as invaders, the notion that the "Aryans" were exclusively outsiders, and that too European, and brought with them the entire text of the Vedas, and hence, laid the foundations of Indian civilization is what is most untenable, and is easily exposed if developments in Indian culture and philosophy are adequately studied in depth and with unbiased eyes.

As Indian critics of the Aryan invasion theory have demonstrated, (apart from the few common gods that are also referenced outside India) much of the imagery of the Vedas is indigenous. To many Indians - the references to plants and animals, and the climactic and geographical descriptions suggest a connection to Indian soil. Some of the spiritual values (and cultural mores and traditions) that emerge from the Rig Ved seem to have a distinctly Indian sources that many Indians can identify with intuitively and instinctively.

Links between Harappan and Vedic Civilization

In fact, there is some compelling circumstantial evidence linking the settlers of the Gangetic plain to earlier Harappan settlements. For instance, emerging geological evidence pointing to ancient river systems drying up and changing course, and the excavation of numerous settlements along the banks of these ancient river systems (such as the Saraswati basin that ran in parallel to the Indus) lends credence to the argument that the settlers of the Gangetic plain must have been predominantly domestic migrants.

Finds of Shatranj (chess) pieces, dice and terracotta animal and goddess figurines also point to connections between Harappan and later civilizations. It is also quite remarkable how the ornamentation of some temples in Rajasthan and Western Madhya Pradesh appears to derive from some of the excavated jewelry from Harappan sites in Northern India.

And remarkably, there are no parallels to such motifs outside India.

Some scholars also see a continuity between the Sulva Sutras and the Harappan civilization which owing to its material advance must have very likely developed a level of arithmetic and ritual and abstract philosophy concomitant with it's achievements in urban planning and agricultural management. The evidence for decimal weights and measures in the Harappan civilization, and the later perfection of a decimal numeral system in India lends further substance to such claims.

Relevance of the Aryans

All this suggests that there is a much greater degree of continuity in Indian civilization than previously realized, and further examination of the Indian historical record will demonstrate that the numerous developments in philosophy and culture that have taken place in India cannot be attributed to "Aryan" invaders. In fact, the main significance of the invasion theory lies not in the determination of whether such an invasion took place or not, but rather in how much of a debt Indian civilization might owe to such an invasion.

For instance, prior to the series of Islamic invasions, and long after the "Aryan" period of Indian history, there have been numerous other invasions that had an impact on the subcontinent. Yet it is only the "Aryan" invasion that attracts popular and scholarly attention. This is primarily because of the importance ascribed to the "Aryan" invasion by British colonial historians.

Before the invention of the "exalted" Aryan (of European origin) by British (and other European and Western) ideologues, few Indians had any conscious memory of an "Aryan" warrior past since later ruling families in India had long since expanded and diversified from what may have been the ruling "Aryan" clans of the time of the Mahabharatha or even the Manusmriti. Not only had the "Kshatriya" caste expanded to accomodate several new clans, many of India's most illustrious Northern rulers (such as the Nandas, the Mauryas and the Guptas) were non-Kshatriyas.

Prior to any supposed "Aryan" invasion, India already had a relatively advanced settled-agriculture based urban civilization. And within a few centuries after their possible "imported" introduction in India, some of the "Aryan"-identified gods described in the Rig Veda ceased to be worshipped and gradually faded from mainstream Indian consciousness. Brahmin gotra (clan) names mentioned in the Rig Veda also lost their import and the vast majority of Brahmin gotra (clan) names that came into common use could not have had any "Aryan"-invasion connection. As Kosambi convincingly points out in his Introduction to Indian History, many of India's Brahmins rose from 'Hinduised' tribes that earlier practised animism or totem worship, or prayed to various fertility gods and/or goddesses, or revered fertility symbols such as the linga (phallus) or the yoni (vagina). A majority of these Hinduised tribes retained many elements of their older forms of worship, and several Brahmin gotra (clan) names are derived from non-Aryan clan totems and other tribal associations.

For instance, one of the most popular gods in the Indian pantheon - Shiva - appears to have no connection with any possible "Aryan" invasion, and may in fact have its prototype in the fertility god of the Harappans. Similiarly, Hanuman, Ganesh, Kali or Durga, or Maharashtra's Vithoba - none could have any external "Aryan" connection, since they don't even find any mention in the Rig Veda. Whether in matters of popular religion or in matters of high philosophy, there is little contribution of note that can be traced directly to a supposed "Aryan invasion".

Uniquely Indian Aspects of Vedic Literature

As noted earlier, much of the Vedic literature - both in the style and substance of its verses, appears to be uniquely Indian, and it is not impossible that at least some of the verses may have Harappan origin. Many of the philosophical themes that are explored and developed in the Vedic literature have insightful naturalist references that are consistent with Indian geography. In addition, there are certain philosophical aspects of the Vedic literature that don't appear to be replicated in quite the same way in any other civilization that was contemporaneous to the Vedic civilization.

The best of the Vedic Shlokas refer to a common life-spirit that links all living creatures, to human social-interconnectedness, to the notion of unity in diversity and how different sections of society might have different prayers and different wishes. Whereas some verses point to god as being a source for wish-fulfillment, in other verses, there are doubts and queries about the nature of god, whether a god really exists, and whether such questions can every be really answered. These aspects of Vedic thought were elaborated upon by later schools of Indian philosophy, and recur frequently in Indian literature and philosophy. But such verses appear to have no direct parallel in civilizations to India's West.

Already in the Vedic period, there is an amorphous quality to spiritual beliefs that included atheistic, agnostic and soul-based (as opposed to god-based) philosphical assertions and queries that gave Indian spiritual practice and organization its own and somewhat unique flavor.

While some of India's rational schools developed in parallel with the Vedas, and are included as appendices to the Vedic texts, others developed practically independently of the Vedas, or even in opposition - as polemics to the Vedas (such as those of the Jains and the Buddhists). The Upanishads, the Sankhya, and the Nyaya-Vaisheshika schools, the numerous treatises on medicine, ethics, scientific method, logic and mathematics clearly developed on Indian soil as a result of Indian experiences and intellectual efforts.

India's great surviving temples and Stupas with their rich carvings and sculpture were all created with aesthetic principles and formulations that developed centuries after any invading or migrating "Aryans" would have completely melted into Indian society. And though it is not impossible that these foreign "Aryans" may have introduced certain technological innovations and inventions, knowledge of brick-making, textile production, tool-making, pottery and metallurgy was already available to the Harappans and residents of the Indo-Saraswati civilization.

The grammar of Sanskrit and its highly systematized alphabet also had little to do with any "Aryan" invasion. Sanskrit is a highly structured and methodical language, optimized for engaging in rational debates and expressing mathematical formulas. Its skillfully organized alphabet bears little resemblance to the rather random and arbitrary alphabet of its European "cousins". Much of its vocabulary and syntax developed long after any supposed invasion, and although the oral structure of Tamil may differ from those of the North in some respects, the majority of India's languages (both Northern and Southern) share a large base of a common Sanskrit-derived vocabulary. Besides, words travelled from South to North and from Adivasis to non-Adivasis as well.

In addition, what is especially significant is how the North Indian scripts share so much in common with the scripts of Southern India. The phonetic organization of consonants and vowels, phonetic spelling, and the many other commonalities that bind all of India's syllabic scripts weakens the entire linguistic premise of the Aryan invasion theory. In fact, when it comes to scripts, consonant and vowel sounds, all Indian languages are closely related, and their closest relatives are to be found in South East Asia, Ethiopia (and even Korea and Mongolia to some degree) but not in Europe.

While the Aryans of the Vedas may be credited with laying the foundations of "Hindu" civilization in the Gangetic plain, the essence of Hindu civilization emerged gradually, taking several centuries to crystallize. Undergoing both internal reform and fusion with pre-existing tribal and matriarchal cultures, the Hinduism of both the rulers and the masses kept evolving. Even as it retained certain philosophical elements from Vedic literature, it also broadened and in some ways diverged completely from the Vedas.

Beyond the Northern (Yamuna/Gangetic) plains, the influence of Aryan-identified Vedic civilization was generally more limited. Vedic influences on the civilizations in Bengal, Assam and Orissa were initially almost minimal, and these Eastern civilizations largely followed their own (and somewhat unique trajectories), as did the civilizations of South India - absorbing Vedic philosophical concepts gradually and only partially. Throughout India, Buddhism and Jainism also found converts, and in Kashmir, the North West, and in the East - Buddhism had a particularly profound influence, while in Western India (such as in Rajasthan, Gujarat, Western Madhya Pradesh and Karnataka) Jainism was very influential. In Jharkhand, Chhatisgarh, West Bengal and Orissa, Tantric influences were important.

In essence, Indian civilization whether Hindu, Buddhist or Jain, or any other, developed primarily from the unique (and varied) conditions of Indian geography and the human exertion that went into modifying those conditions to advance agriculture and settled civilization. Taken in the general context of say three or four thousand years of Indian history, it is hard to ascribe to an "Aryan" invasion/s the sort of paramountcy assigned by the British. While British motives in magnifying the "Aryan" character of Indian civilization are only too apparent, this contemporary obsession with the "Aryan" question that appears to have gripped large sections of the Indian intelligentsia suggests that the ideological confusion created by the British has not yet been fully sorted out.

One consequence of this is that the debate on the Aryan question has been highly contentious, with historians adopting strident and extreme positions, not seeing that there can be both continuities and discontinuities in the development of Indian civilization. It has also diverted many of India's historians from equally (or more) important tasks - such as describing and integrating those periods of Indian history where considerable new archeological material is now available and needs to be incorporated into the presently known and documented view of Indian history.

Key aspects of Indian history remain poorly researched and documented. Many Sanskrit and vernacular texts have not been studied and assimilated by English speaking historians. Regional variations in Indian history have not been studied enough. A deeper understanding of some of the lesser known kingdoms all across India is required to correct false generalizations about Indian history. Much more effort is required in understanding social movements, gender and caste equations. Simplifications and generalizations based on antiquated documents like the Manusmriti (which was mainly resurrected by British historians) provide a very incomplete and distorted picture of actual social relations and practice in India. The Manusmriti also offers little in terms of understanding local and regional peculiarities in matters of social relations.

Considerable work is also required in unifying haphazard and scattered studies in the area of India's economic history and the history of philosophy, science, technology and manufacturing. It is also important that the vast body of work that has been published since independence in English be translated into the nation's many languages and regional dialects. It is tragic that so much of the best research done in Indian history is available only to English speakers. These are just some of the tasks that need greater attention from the community of Indian historians.

Intriguing as the "Aryan"-origin debate may be, it is in the end only one facet of Indian history, and merits further attention only if historians and archeologists can offer fresh and new insights on this subject and relate them to the broad dynamics of Indian civilization.

Notes and References:

1. Dr. B. R. Ambedkar, famous for his work on the Indian Constitution, as well as his campaign in support of the nation's dalit community noticed the racial overtones underlying the theory and described the British espousal of the Aryan Invasion theory in the following words: "The theory of invasion is an invention. This invention is necessary because of a gratuitous assumption that the Indo-Germanic people are the purest of the modern representation of the original Aryan race. The theory is a perversion of scientific investigation. It is not allowed to evolve out of facts. On the contrary, the theory is preconceived and facts are selected to prove it. It falls to the ground at every point."

2. British anthropologist, Edmund Leach also termed the Aryan invasion theory as being born out of European racism.

What has taken place since the commencement of the British rule in India is only a reunion, to a certain extent, of the members of the same family," John Wilson, a colonial missionary, declared with a straight face, and naturally this happy reunion had now brought India into contact "with the most enlightened and philanthropic nation in the world." - quoted by Sri Aurobindo: The Origins of Aryan Speech, (The Secret of the Veda, p. 554).

3. See Madhu Kishwar: Manusmriti to Madhusmriti

4. See Marija Gimbutas: The Civilization of the Goddess, The World of Old Europe on the philological commonalities of the Indo-European languages, and how these commonalities relate to the culture and ethos of pastoral nomadic patriarchal warrior clans.

5 P.T. Srinivasa Iyengar (History of the Tamils) makes a similar case emphasizing the essentially indigenous development of Tamil language and civilization. Although some of his conclusions appear to be somewhat conjectural (such as those pertaining to Tamil Nadu possibly being the "original" homeland of the Sumerians), his assertion that Tamil language and culture arose from the very geography of the Tamil country is well substantiated. He does this by citing the anthropological observations of the ancient Tamils and demonstrating how the distinct geographical features of the Tamil country influenced the development of distinct modes of production and patterns of living, which in turn, helped shape their culture and language.

6. See, for instance, Wikipedia's on-line article on Indian and other Syllabic/Abugida scripts.

Source

The Kosambis, father and son

The Hindu : Magazine / Columns : The Kosambis, father and son

The Kosambis, father and son

RAMACHANDRA GUHA

D.D. Kosambi was a mathematician who trained himself to be a world-class historian. His father’s life was even more remarkable…

Photo: The Hindu Photo Library

Multi-faceted: D.D. Kosambi.

A friend who lives in Goa writes to say that he is greatly enjoying the series of lectures being organised there to commemorate the centenary of the polymathic scholar D.D. Kosambi. The historian Romilla Thapar had spoken in the series, as had the jo urnalist P. Sainath; two Indians one thinks the notoriously judgmental Kosambi would have approved of, both for the depth of their research and the commitment to their craft.

Damodar Dharmanand Kosambi was a remarkable man. Trained as a mathematician, he then went on to train himself as a historian. His day job was as a Professor of Mathematics at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research. On the train up and down from Poona (where he lived), and during the evenings, nights, and weekends, he gathered the materials to write some pioneering works of historical scholarship, among them A Study of Indian History and The Culture and Civilisation of Ancient India in Historical Outline.
A pioneer

Apart from his books, Kosambi also published collections of scholarly essays, in one of which he wrote about the village communities of his native Goa. The languages he knew well included Sanskrit, Pali, Marathi, and English. Among Indian historians, he was a pioneer in the use of numismatics, linguistics, and, above all, anthropology.

Kosambi was a man of a fierce and at times truculent independence. He was sympathetic to Marxism, whose materialist approach he found useful in reconstructing the economic and social life of civilisations now long dead. But he abhorred the dogmatism and insularity of what was then the undivided Communist Party of India. It was impossible for him to follow a party line. In his political writings (which too were collected in several volumes, one of which bore the charming title Exasperating Essays) he was sharply critical of what he called the “Official Marxists” (or OM, for short).

Among the community of Indian historians there is almost a “Kosambi cult” in operation. It is good that the civil society of Goa is joining academics elsewhere in India in paying tribute to his memory. But mostly forgotten in the meantime is a Kosambi who was perhaps an even more remarkable man. This was the historian’s own father, Dharmanand.

I first heard of Dharmanand Kosambi from a friend who taught for many years at the University of California at Berkeley and is arguably the greatest living scholar of Jainism. His name is Padmanabha Jaini. It was in Berkeley on a cold January afternoon, years ago, that Professor Jaini acquainted me with the elements of Kosambi pére’s life. As a young man he felt the urge to learn Sanskrit; finding the urge irresistible, he left his wife and baby boy to go to Poona and study with the great Sanskrit scholar R.G. Bhandarkar. His studies inculcated further desires and ambitions; among them to make a deeper acquaintance with Buddhism. He travelled around the country, spending time in Baudh Gaya, in Sarnath, and in Kausambhi, near Allahabad, where the Buddha lived after attaining enlightenment. It was from this last place that he took the name by which he and his son came to be known. So far as I know, this remains the only “Kosambi” family in Goa, India, or the world.

In search of a living Buddhist tradition, Dharmanand Kosambi also spent several years in Sri Lanka (then Ceylon), where he learnt Pali. By now, he was a world authority on the language and culture of early Buddhism. He taught briefly in Bombay and Poona before attracting the attention of the American academy, then (as now) on the look-out for world authorities to attract (or seduce). With his wife and son, Kosambi travelled across the seas to Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he was put to work editing Pali texts for a series published by Harvard University.
Moved by Gandhi

Dharmanand Kosambi spent a decade in the United States, in which time his son studied mathematics at Boston University (to add to the Sanskrit and Pali that he learnt at home). Reading about Gandhi’s movement made the senior Kosambi turn his back on America (and the scholarly study of Buddhism) to return to India and court arrest during the Salt Satyagraha. He was deeply attached to Gandhi; when the Mahatma moved to Wardha in 1934, Dharmanand Kosambi moved with him too. When I visited the ashram in Sewagram some years ago, an elderly (and knowledgeable) guide showed me the hut Gandhi lived in, as well as the huts occupied by his closest associates, such as Mahadev Desai and Mira Behn (Madeleine Slade). Then he pointed to a structure, as modest as the others, which he called “Professor Sahib Ki Kutir”. This was where the one-time Goan, Buddhist scholar, and Harvard academic had spent his last years.

Perhaps the most remarkable thing about this most remarkable man concerns the manner of his death. In the summer of 1947, with the country on the eve of independence, Dharmanand Kosambi decided he did not need to live any more. So, in the hallowed Buddhist tradition, he simply fasted to death.

There is, I am told, some amount of biographical writing about the senior Kosambi in Marathi. Still, there is certainly room in English for a single volume study of Dharmanand Kosambi and his son Damodar. This would be a story of two utterly absorbing lives, and, through them, a history of Goa, India, and the world.

Indian Postal Stamp on Kosambi

Request for Stamp on DD Kosambi

March 25: The human resources development ministry has requested the secretary, department of post, to release a postal stamp in the honour of Prof. D.D. Kosambi, one of the finest intellectuals of the last century who applied mathematical methods of research to history and the culture of India.

In a letter to Planning Commission member Bhalchandra Mungekar, HRD ministry joint secretary Sunil Kumar said the proposal to release a postal stamp has since been approved by the minister of communications and IT and that the same is likely to be released this year after the department of posts completes the formalities.

Dr Mungekar had requested HRD minister Arjun Singh to release a postal stamp in honour of Prof. Kosambi on July 31 last year and institute a Prof. Kosambi chair in history in any of the universities.

DN Jha at the DD Kosambi Memorial Lecture

Vidyadhar Date in the Free Press Journal

D N Jha, a noted history scholar who has proved that ancient Indians ate cow meat, delivered an interesting lecture in Mumbai recently dispelling several myths on Hinduism. He is a deceptively simple man with various stimulating ideas.

In his D D Kosambi memorial lecture, he did well to refute several popular misconceptions about Hinduism and its being tolerant. Giving numerous examples he showed that the term Hinduism was not at all ancient. Two Sanskrit encyclopaedias of the 19th century make only a slight reference to Hinduism. The word Hindu rarely features in ancient literature. In Bhakti literature, it is used, but mainly with reference to Brahmins not in the manner Hinduism is understood today.

What he meant was that though India was ancient, Hinduism as a concept is quite recent. We had different sects and Brahminism but there was nothing like Hinduism in ancient times. Not a single major ancient Sanskrit text refers to the word or concept of Hinduism. Besides, Hinduism as such has never been monolithic. The Lingayat sect never accepted the superiority of the Vedas, nor did the Mahanubhavas.

There were also many instances of several groups being intolerant towards Buddhists and Jains. So religious conflict was there in India even before the arrival of Islam. India did see several reform movements but all these were absorbed by the caste system. Another noted history scholar in the city recently was Barun De who delivered the Mani Kamerkar memorial lecture at the Asiatic Society.

Interestingly, he spoke without a prepared text which made the presentation much more interesting as compared to the reading of text which can become quite prosaic and dull. He dwelt with the writing of history of Maharashtra in the 18th and 19th centuries. It was an indication of his humility that he said he was not an expert in any discipline of history for that matter.

That was interesting considering that he is a historian in the true sense, he has an understanding and skill to analyse whole epochs of history. But then the term historian is trivialised by the media and is used for even routine researchers. Some of these worthies too have the gall to call themselves historians.

Another point he made was that history should include interesting stories, not just dry, hard facts. He also lauded the contribution of social reformers Jotirao Phule and Tarabai Shinde in our understanding of 19th century Maharashtra with their critical look at the elite and their way of looking at issues from the perspective of the toiling people.

Nandi: Children's book by Kosambi

This is the only book written by Kosambi for children. via the redoubtable Arvind Gupta's site.

DD Kosambi's only known book for children. Source: Arvindguptatoys.com

Read this doc on Scribd: Nandi- A book of Children's Stories by DD Kosambi

Direct Link to document at Scribd: Nandi- A book of Children's Stories by DD Kosambi