উপেক্ষিতই রয়ে গেল মানভূমের ভাষা আন্দোলন

মাতৃভাষার জন্য মানভূমের বাঙালিদের আন্দোলন নিয়ে যে কোনও আলোচনা থেকে বিরত থাকেন অনেক বাঙালি। অবহেলা না আত্মবিস্মরণ? না হলে কেন জানতে ইচ্ছে করে না, কেমন ছিল মানভূমবাসীর লড়াইয়ের দশটা বছর। প্রশ্ন তুললেন প্রবীর সরকার

২১ ফেব্রুয়ারি, ২০১৯, ০০:০৭:১৭

 

হাওড়া ব্রিজ অতিক্রম করছে মানভূমবাসীদের মিছিল। ফাইল চিত্র

শুন বিহারি ভাই তোরা রাইখতে লারবি ডাং দেখাই...’ কলকাতার পথে মানভূমবাসীদের লং মার্চ হাওড়া ব্রিজ অতিক্রম করছে। বাংলা ভাষার দাবিতে।

বাংলা ভাষার রয়েছে আন্তর্জাতিক পরিচিতি। তবে এ পরিচিতি অক্ষরের নয়, শব্দের নয়, মায়ের মুখ নিঃসৃত ভাষার প্রতি সন্তানের আবেগের। ১৯৫২ সালের ২১ ফেব্রুয়ারি ঢাকার রক্তাক্ত রাস্তা সে পরিচিতি এনে দিয়েছে। ১৯৯৯ সালে যে রক্তসরণিকে মনে রেখে এই ২১-কেই আন্তর্জাতিক মাতৃভাষা দিবসের স্বীকৃতি দিয়েছে বিশ্ব।

কিন্তু ভাষা আন্দোলন বলতেই মানুষ স্মরণ করে বাংলাদেশের ভাষা আন্দোলনকে। অথচ, ভাষা নিয়ে বাঙালির আবেগ এবং লড়াই কোনওটাই কিন্তু নতুন নয়। যেমন যবনের ভাষাকে ‘বাংলা’ করতে গিয়ে লড়েছিলেন ভারতচন্দ্র, মধুসূদন লড়েছেন ছন্দ ব্যবহার করতে গিয়ে, টপ্পা গান শিখতে গিয়ে লড়েছিলেন নিধুবাবু আর অস্তিত্ব রাখতে রক্ত ঝরানো আন্দোলন করেছেন অসমের বাঙালিরা। কিন্তু এর পাশাপাশি, মাতৃভাষার জন্য মানভূমের বাঙালিদের দীর্ঘ আন্দোলন নিয়ে যে কোনও রকম আলোচনা থেকে বিরত থাকেন অনেক বাঙালি। অবহেলা না আত্মবিস্মরণ? না হলে উপরোক্ত দৃশ্যপট কেন রাজ্যবাসীর মানসচক্ষে ভেসে ওঠে না! কেন জানতে ইচ্ছে করে না, কেমন ছিল মানভূমবাসীর লড়াইয়ের দশটা বছর? 

লর্ড কার্জনের বঙ্গবিচ্ছেদের একটা অংশ যত আলোচিত হয়, ততটাই উপেক্ষিত দ্বিতীয় অংশটি। বঙ্গবিচ্ছেদ তো কেবল পূর্ববঙ্গ আর পশ্চিমবঙ্গের ভাগ নয়! বঙ্গবিচ্ছেদ আসলে ছিল তৎকালীন পূর্ববঙ্গ-উত্তরবঙ্গ-অসম-ত্রিপুরা নিয়ে একটি ভাগ আর বাংলার বাকি অংশের সঙ্গে বিহার-ওড়িশা মিলিয়ে আর একটি ভাগ। মানভূম বা পুরুলিয়া ছিল দ্বিতীয় অংশে। ১৯০৫-এ না হলেও বাস্তবে বঙ্গবিচ্ছেদ ঘটে গেল ১৯৪৭-এ স্বাধীনতা প্রাপ্তির সঙ্গে সঙ্গে। বাঙালির মানভূমে তখন থেকেই শুরু হল এক রকম ‘হিন্দি-সাম্রাজ্যবাদ’। 

একের পরে এক বাংলা স্কুল পরিণত হল হিন্দি স্কুলে। পোস্ট অফিস-সহ সমস্ত সরকারি দফতরে হিন্দি বাধ্যতামূলক করা হল। ফরমান আসে, আদালতের সওয়াল-জবাব, চিঠিপত্র, জমির দলিল সব হবে হিন্দিতে। ঠিক যে কৌশলে পূর্ব পাকিস্তানের বাঙালিদের উপরে উর্দু চাপিয়ে দেওয়া হয়েছিল, হিন্দির ‘আগ্রাসন’ মানভূমে যেন ঠিক ততটাই প্রবল হয়ে উঠেছিল ১৯৪৮ থেকে। এর বিরুদ্ধেই মানভূমের ভাষা আন্দোলন। 

মানভূমে বাংলার উপরে হিন্দির আধিপত্য বিস্তারের চেষ্টা শুরু হয় ১৯১২ থেকে। দেশ স্বাধীন হওয়ার পরে ভাষাভিত্তিক রাজ্য গঠনের পরিকল্পনা বাস্তবায়িত করতে গিয়ে বিষয়টি জটিল হয়ে ওঠে। যার আঁচ পড়ে জাতীয় কংগ্রেসের মানভূম শাখার কর্মী নেতাদের উপরে। ১৪ জুন, ১৯৪৮ পুঞ্চা থানার পাকবিড়রায় প্রায় দেড় হাজার কর্মী-সমর্থকের উপস্থিতিতে কংগ্রেস ভেঙে গঠিত হয় ‘লোকসেবক সংঘ’। এর বীজ বপন হয় ৩০ এপ্রিল, বান্দোয়ানের জিতান গ্রামে মানভূম জেলা কংগ্রসের পূর্ণাঙ্গ অধিবেশনে। সেখানে দীর্ঘ আলোচনার সারমর্ম একটাই, ‘মানভূম বাংলা ভাষাভাষী’। 

রাজনৈতিক বাধ্য-বাধকতায় এই ভাবনা কংগ্রেস ওয়ার্কিং কমিটি অগ্রাহ্য করতে কংগ্রেস থেকে পদত্যাগ করেন অন্নদাপ্রসাদ চক্রবর্তী, বীররাঘব আচারিয়া, বিভূতিভূষণ দাশগুপ্ত, ভজহরি মাহাতো, অতুলচন্দ্র ঘোষ, জগবন্ধু ভট্টাচার্য, সত্যকিঙ্কর মাহাতোর মতো বহু গুরুত্বপূর্ণ গাধীঁবাদী নেতা। মোহনদাস কর্মচন্দ গাঁধীর সত্যাগ্রহই ছিল তাঁদের অস্ত্র, কিন্তু ১৯৪৬-এর বিহার নিরাপত্তা আইনের ‘নামে’ অত্যাচার শুরু হল ভাষা আন্দোলনকারীদের উপরে। 

সত্যাগ্রহকে দমন করার জন্য হয়েছে রাষ্ট্রীয় সন্ত্রাস, বিচিত্র দমনপীড়ণ। গ্রেফতার হয়েছেন সাত  নেতা। পুরুলিয়া জুবিলি ময়দান, রাসমেলা ময়দানের সভাতেও লাঠি চালায় পুলিশ। সাঁতুড়ির জনসভায় পুলিশের লাঠির আঘাতে মাথা ফাটে চিত্তভূষণ দাশগুপ্তের। মিথ্যা মামলায় কারারুদ্ধ করা হয় বহু নেতাকে। 

এই আন্দোলনে স্বতঃস্ফূর্ত সমর্থন জানান সর্ব স্তরের বাঙালি। এর পরে মানভূমে বাংলা ভাষার আন্দোলন দৃষ্টি আকর্ষণ করে কলকাতা ও দিল্লির, তবু নিপীড়ণ-অত্যাচার চলছিলই। ফলে, শুরু হল ‘টুসু সত্যাগ্রহ’। মানভূমের লোকগান ‘টুসু’, সাধারণের স্বতোৎসারিত আবেগ মিশে থাকে। তাতেও ফুটে উঠতে লাগল বাংলা ভাষার প্রতি আবেগ। 

লোকসেবক সংঘের একটি ছোট্ট পুস্তিকা ‘টুসু গানে মানভূম’ ঝড় তুলেছিল এই সময়। টুসু গান আবহমানকালের যূথবদ্ধ সঙ্গীত। অথচ, দল বেঁধে গান গাইতে গেলেই তা অপরাধ বলে গণ্য করা শুরু হল। যুবক-বৃদ্ধ, নারী-পুরুষ নির্বিশেষে টুসু গান গেয়ে গ্রেফতার হলেন অসংখ্য মানুষ। কারারুদ্ধ গুরুত্বপূর্ণ নেতাদের স্থানান্তরিত করা হল হাজারিবাগের মতো দূরের কারাগারে। এরই মধ্যে শুরু হয় সীমা কমিশনের কাজ। 

সেই সময়ে পশ্চিমবঙ্গ ও বিহারের তৎকালীন দুই মুখ্যমন্ত্রীর (বিধানচন্দ্র রায় ও শ্রীকৃষ্ণ সিংহ) তরফে বঙ্গ-বিহার যুক্ত প্রদেশ গঠন করার প্রস্তাব আসে। এ বার কেবল মানভূম নয়, প্রতিবাদ করেন কলকাতার বাঙালি বিদ্বজ্জনেরাও। ইতিমধ্যে ১৪৪ ধারা জারি করে ‘টুসু সত্যাগ্রহ’ নিষিদ্ধ ঘোষণা করা হয়েছে। সাবেক মানভূমের নানা স্থানে চলেছে বিহার পুলিশের ‘অত্যাচার।’ ঝালদা ও জয়পুরে দোকান লুঠ হচ্ছে, জ্বালিয়ে দেওয়া হচ্ছে বাড়িঘর। 

পরের ঘটনা ঐতিহাসিক ‘লং মার্চের’ সঙ্গে তুলনীয়। বাংলা-বিহার সংযুক্তিকরণের প্রতিবাদে (নিহিতার্থে মানভূমে বাংলা ভাষার হৃত অধিকার ফিরিয়ে আনার দাবিতে) ১০ জন মহিলা-সহ ১০০৫ জনের সত্যাগ্রহী দল পাকবিড়রা থেকে পদযাত্রা শুরু করে কলকাতার উদ্দেশে। ২০ এপ্রিল থেকে ৬ মে, টানা ২১ দিন প্রায় ৩০০ কিলোমিটার পথ হেঁটেছিলেন সত্যাগ্রহীরা। কণ্ঠে ছিল ‘বন্দে মাতরম’ ধ্বনি আর ‘বাংলার মাটি বাংলার জল’, ‘বাংলা ভাষা প্রাণের ভাষা রে’ ইত্যাদি গান। কলকাতায় পৌঁছলে 

৭ মে ডালহৌসি স্কোয়ার থেকে ১৪৪ ধারায় গ্রেফতার করা হয় ৯৫৬ জনকে। বাকিরা অসুস্থ হয়ে পড়েছিলেন। ৯ মে কলকাতায় পৌঁছতেই তাঁদের গ্রেফতার করে পশ্চিমবঙ্গের পুলিশ। 

পরের ঘটনাক্রম দ্রুততর। বাধ্য হয়ে রদ করা হয় বাংলা-বিহার সংযুক্তির প্রস্তাব। বঙ্গ-বিহার ভূমি হস্তান্তর আইন পাশ হয়। সীমা কমিশনের রিপোর্ট লোকসভা হয়ে ‘সিলেক্ট কমিটি’ ও আরও নানা স্তর পেরিয়ে ১ নভেম্বর, ১৯৫৬ জন্ম নেয় আজকের পুরুলিয়া জেলা।

নিস্তারিণী কলেজে বাংলার শিক্ষক 

https://www.anandabazar.com/editorial/manbhum-language-movement-is-neglected-all-through-1.955299

Read this before deciding whether Savarkar was a British stooge or strategic nationalist

VIKRAM SAMPATH Updated: 7 December, 2018 5:42 pm IST

Vinayak Damodar Savarkar | Savarkar.org

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Rahul Gandhi’s selective quoting of Savarkar’s prison petition is intellectually disingenuous.

The recent outburst by Congress president Rahul Gandhi in the midst of an election rally in Chhattisgarh, allegedly saying that freedom fighter Vinayak Damodar Savarkar had apologised to the British to be released from jail, has led to expected counter-reactions. While Savarkar’s grandnephew Ranjeet Savarkar filed a police complaint in Mumbai, the political class and television channels got a new subject for mudslinging and noisy debates. As a historian, I find it disturbing when national heroes are vilified for petty political ends.

In the five years that Savarkar spent in London as a law student, he galvanised the revolutionary movement that sought total and complete freedom from British rule. From India to Europe, and even America, a network of bravehearts guided by him, made contacts with Irish, French, Italian, Russian and American leaders, revolutionaries and the press to bring British India to the forefront of global discourse. No doubt, the British government categorised him as one of the most dangerous seditionists. Under an unfair Fugitive Offenders Act (FOA) of 1881 that did not apply to him because he was a bonafide student in London and not a fugitive, Savarkar was deported to India and tried with no right to appeal or defence. He was slapped with two life imprisonments, totalling 50 years, to rot in the Cellular Jail of the Andamans along with his elder brother Ganesh Damodar Savarkar. The British documents speak of how petrified they were of his very presence and hence wanted him as far away from the Indian mainland as possible.

In the Cellular Jail, he was meted the worst kind of punishments. Fettered in chains, flogged, condemned to six months of solitary confinement, made to extract oil all day being tied to the mill like a bullock, punished with standing handcuffs for days on end, lack of the most basic human needs such as toilets or water and fed with foul food that had pieces of insects and reptiles – it was truly a devil’s island.

By 1913, Savarkar and several other prisoners began hunger strikes and non-cooperation in jail to protest against this inhuman treatment. The rest of India was blissfully unaware of the tortures their compatriots faced in Kaala Pani. Hence, articles were leaked out for publication in Indian newspapers. Savarkar’s clandestine attempts to start bomb manufacturing in Port Blair alarmed the authorities. Finally, in October 1913, Sir Reginald H. Craddock, home member of the government of India, decided to visit the Cellular Jail and interview some of the political prisoners to ascertain their grievances. Savarkar and other political prisoners- Barin Ghose, Nand Gopal, Hrishikesh Kanjilal, and Sudhir Kumar Sarkar were interviewed and allowed to submit petitions. This process was a legitimate tool available for all political prisoners in British India, just like the opportunity of defending oneself in court through the agency of a lawyer was. As a barrister, Savarkar knew the law and wished to utilise all provisions under it to free himself or alleviate his situation in prison. Savarkar often advised other political prisoners too that the primary duty of a revolutionary was to free himself from the British clutches so as to return to the freedom struggle and in service of the motherland.

In his petition dated 14 November 1913 to Craddock, Savarkar argued that while common convicts of rape, murder, theft and other crimes were given promotions on the basis of their good conduct or let out into the settlement for work after 6-18 months, such provisions were not available for him as he was a ‘special class prisoner’. But when he asked for better food or treatment, he was denied those on the basis of being an ‘ordinary convict’. Had he been a political prisoner in an Indian jail, he would have earned remission or could write more than just the single annual letter and meeting with his family that he was allowed. This dichotomy disadvantaged him on both fronts.

By 1909, the Morley-Minto Reforms brought in a slew of greater opportunities for Indians to participate in councils and education. Hence, Savarkar alludes in his petition that the need to pick up the gun no longer remained and he was happy to join mainstream politics and work with the government towards greater constitutional participation for Indians.

“I am not asking for any preferential treatment,” he said, “though I believe as a political prisoner even that could have been expected in any civilised administration in the Independent nations of the world; but only for the concessions and favour that are shown even to the most depraved of convicts and habitual criminals?” It was almost an indirect mockery of British India being uncivilised.

Ironically those who castigate Savarkar for the petitions are the same human rights activists who advocate the cause of the likes of Kasab, Yakub Memon, and the Naxals and their intellectual fountainheads. The last line of this petition that draws controversy is open to interpretation: “The mighty alone can afford to be merciful and therefore where else can the prodigal son return but to the parental doors of the Government?” Being a Biblical reference, it can well be said that he was appealing to the religious sentiments of his incarcerators. Selective quoting of just a few lines of this petition, without looking at it completely or in context, is intellectually disingenuous.

Interestingly, on his way back to India, Craddock wrote his report onboard the ship where he said that Savarkar “cannot be said to express any regret or repentance” for whatever he did. “So important a leader is he,” Craddock noted, “that the European section of the Indian anarchists would plot for his escape which would before long be organised. If he were allowed outside the Cellular Jail in the Andamans, his escape would be certain. His friends could easily charter a steamer to lie off one of the islands and a little money distributed locally would do the rest.” The government obviously rejected his petition and nothing changed for Savarkar.

With the outbreak of the First World War, Savarkar filed another petition in October 1914 offering to “volunteer to do any service in the present War, that the Indian government thinks fit to demand”. In the same petition, he also requested a general release of “all those prisoners who had been convicted for committing political offences in India”. This was being done in many British colonies.

Interestingly, the Indian National Congress openly supported Britain during this crucial period. When the War broke out, Mahatma Gandhi was in England where he began organising a medical corps similar to the force he had led in aid of the British during the Boer War and even won a gold medal for loyalty. In a circular dated 22 September 1914, he called for recruitment to his Field Ambulance Training Corps. On his return to India in January 1915, Gandhi ji offered unconditional support for British efforts in the War and believed that it was not a good time to embarrass Britain or take advantage of her troubled situation to further the Indian liberation cause.

“England’s need,” he said, “should not be turned into our opportunity and that it was more becoming and far-sighted not to press our demands while the war lasted.” Marching from village to village in Gujarat, he recruited volunteers to assist the British in the War. How was this any different from Savarkar’s 1914 petition then?

In his next petition on 5 October 1917 to secretary of state to India Edwin Samuel Montagu, Savarkar referred to the Montagu-Chelmsford Reforms that were on the anvil promising limited self-government and a bicameral legislature to Indians. He strongly advocated the grant of home rule to India and her becoming an autonomous partner of the Commonwealth. “When there was no Constitution”, he postulated, “it seemed a mockery to talk of constitutional movements. But now if a Constitution exists, and Home Rule is decidedly such, then so much political, social, economic, and educational work is to be done and could be constitutionally done that the Government, may securely rest satisfied that none of the political prisoners would choose to face untold suffering by resorting to underground methods for sheer amusement.” Invoking international precedents in Russia, France, Ireland, Transvaal and Austria where amnesty was becoming the general principle, he argued his case like a good lawyer.

Most importantly, in this petition he explicitly stated that, “if the Government thinks that it is only to effect my own release that I pen this; or if my name constitutes the chief obstacle in the granting of such an amnesty; then let the Government omit my name in their amnesty and release all the rest; that would give me as great a satisfaction as my own release would do.”

Can these be the words of a coward or an opportunist British stooge?

With the end of the War, Emperor George V’s royal proclamation granted a wholesale amnesty to all political prisoners lodged across India and the Andamans. Barin Ghose, Trailokya Nath Chakravarti, Hemachandra Das, Sachindra Nath Sanyal, Parmanand and others in Cellular Jail, were released with a pledge to not participate in politics for a stipulated time. Congress workers who had been arrested after the non-cooperation movement of 1919 were also released on this principle. However, the same benefits were not accrued to Savarkar and his elder brother. Sachindra Nath Sanyal in his memoirs talks about sending an identical petition as Savarkar and being released while the latter was still imprisoned since the government feared that their release would rekindle the fizzled revolutionary movement in Maharashtra that they had spearheaded through their secret organisation – Abhinav Bharat.

Naturally, Savarkar appealed against this injustice through his petition dated 20 March 1920. In none of these petitions does he ever say he was apologetic of his revolutionary past.

It was only when the Cellular Jail was about to be closed that the British decided to deport Savarkar to the Ratnagiri Prison in May 1921. By then Savarkar had managed to accomplish significant prison reforms at Port Blair—from setting up a library, to education for convicts and stopping all forcible conversions. To his horror, he discovered that these benefits that he strove to get in the Andamans were all stripped off him at Ratnagiri and he was back to where he began his prison journey. This broke his will and he wrote unabashedly in his memoirs, My Transportation for Life, that this was the third time (the first two being in Port Blair) that he seriously contemplated suicide as he found his situation hopeless. It was immense resilience and inner strength that he drew to nip those thoughts, unlike several other political prisoners who hanged themselves to the ceilings of their tiny cells or went insane. In such a state of mind, his petition of 19 August 1921 indicates the spirit of a broken and dejected man, considering even political renunciation.

It was three years later on 6 January 1924 that Savarkar was released from prison but kept under strict surveillance within the frontiers of Ratnagiri district and debarred from political activity. He spent the next 13 years of his life this way. But it did not stop him from beginning a series of social reforms in Ratnagiri to break the caste system. Long before the Harijan movement or B.R. Ambedkar’s clarion call, Savarkar championed inter-caste dining and also built a Patit Pavan temple in Ratnagiri that allowed entry to all castes.

An objective assessment of a much-maligned Vinayak Damodar Savarkar calls for many questions.

Did future events in his long and distinguished political career actually validate the allegation of his willingness to acquiesce to the British? An assessment has seldom been made to find out if his opposition to some of the measures of the mass movement led by Mahatma Gandhi was favourable for the country or harmed the cause of freedom itself. Did the British actually trust his alleged loyalty or even buy his so-called willingness to yield or were they forever suspicious of the dangers he posed to them till the very end? These are the litmus questions by which one must evaluate Savarkar’s long continuum of petitions, and here the scales of history do tilt considerably in his favour.

The author is a writer/historian and Senior Research Fellow at Nehru Memorial Museum and Library and has an upcoming biography of Savarkar.

https://theprint.in/opinion/read-this-before-deciding-whether-savarkar-was-a-british-stooge-or-strategic-nationalist/151667/

Savarkar wanted to smash caste system, cooked prawns and didn’t worship the cow

VIKRAM SAMPATH Updated: 10 December, 2018 10:27 am IST

Vinayak Damodar Savarkar | Savarkar.org

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From his criticism of the caste system to disapproval of Mahatma Gandhi’s views, Savarkar was far ahead of his times.

Everyone knows Vinayak Damodar Savarkar as the man who popularised the term ‘Hindutva’ through his treatise on the subject in 1923 while being lodged in the Ratnagiri prison, but few know about his thoughts and writings that were far ahead of his times.

Other than the historical bias against him, the fact that most of these are in Marathi and not translated has made them inaccessible to contemporary scholars and readers.

Despite being born in an orthodox and religious Chitpawan Brahmin community, right from childhood Savarkar despised the caste system. He developed close kinship with children from various castes and strata of society and also dined at their homes. He was among the few Brahmins of the time who took to sea-travel to London for his education, at a time when most members of his community forbade it due to the fear of a loss of caste.

Savarkar had no qualms about vegetarianism like several Brahmins of the time. In October 1906, he met young Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi for the first time when the latter came to the India House in London where Savarkar and other revolutionaries lived. Savarkar was busy cooking his meals when Gandhi joined him to engage in a political discussion. Cutting him short, Savarkar asked him to first eat. Gandhi was quite horrified to see the Chitpawan Brahmin cooking prawns, and being a staunch vegetarian, he refused to partake.

Savarkar apparently mocked him and retorted, “Well, if you can not eat with us, how on earth are you going to work with us? Moreover…this is just boiled fish…while we want people who are ready to eat the British alive.” This was obviously not a great first meeting and their differences only widened with time.

As Savarkar’s political thoughts matured during his long years of incarceration, he penned poetic essays on the abhorrent practice of the caste system and untouchability and how these sapped into the very vitals of the nation.

Casteless India

Advocating a strong case for their total, complete and unconditional eradication at a time when these ideas were not yet a part of the political discourse popularised by either Gandhi or Ambedkar, he was the pioneer of a vision of a casteless India.

In his 1931 essay titled Seven Shackles of the Hindu Society, Savarkar said that heredity as a determinant of talent and intellect was erroneous and an individual’s environment was what shapes his character and conduct. Taking a radical stand against those scriptural injunctions, including the Manusmriti, that advocated caste, he said fossilising oneself to them was idiocy.

These scriptures that were often self-contradicting according to Savarkar were created by human beings and were relevant in a particular context and in a particular society. They need to evolve or be discarded as society moves ahead, he said. He viewed the caste system as an evil that splintered and disunited Hindu society, making it susceptible to attacks and conversions by other groups.

The seven fetters that he advocated a complete dismantling of were:

1. Vedoktabandi: Exclusivity of access to Vedic literature and rituals to only the Brahmin community.
2. Vyavasaayabandi: Choice of a profession an individual chooses must be entirely his and based on his aptitude and capability and not on one’s birth.
3. Sparshabandi: Untouchability that he considered a sin and a blot on society.
4. Samudrabandi: Loss of caste on foreign travel or crossing the seas.
5. Shuddhibandi: Disallowing reconversions to Hinduism. “I have nothing,” he said, “against those who convert to another faith by sheer conviction. But such examples are rare. Why should we not allow the enhancement of our (Hindu) numbers due to some antiquated idea that does not even have any scriptural sanction that we cannot convert to Hinduism?”
6. Rotibandi: Prohibition on inter-caste dining.
7. Betibandi: Prohibition on inter-caste marriage.

Social reform

Calling for a reinterpretation of the chaturvarna or four varna system based on Lord Krishna’s assertion in the Bhagwad Gita that it was He who created the four varnas, Savarkar writes, “Different human beings have different qualities and virtues. All that Lord Krishna is saying is I create human beings who are different in nature, character, virtues and values — yet, good or bad, they are all my creation alone. Nowhere in this declaration does he state that I also make those virtues hereditary for the person’s successive generations… We are all shudras at birth. As life progresses, we attain qualities, education, and virtues to graduate to various levels of consciousness and thinking — that is the fundamental concept behind the four varna system.” Savarkar asserted strongly that the varna system was not part of Sanatan Dharma. “Sanatan are those lofty ideals and beliefs.” he said, “that predate time and are indestructible…whereas social practices such as caste system, opposition to widow remarriage or vegetarianism are man-made social practices and rituals that can easily be dismantled depending on the needs of the society.”

To further these beliefs, Savarkar advocated social reforms on a large scale during his incarceration in Ratnagiri from 1924 to 1937. Among his measures that earned the ire of the local Brahmin community were the advocacy of large scale inter-caste dining and the establishment of a Patit Pavan (literally meaning the protector of the fallen) temple that allowed entry to members of all castes for community prayers.

Cow worship

Savarkar held radical views even on matters such as cow-worship. He wrote, “Animals such as the cow and buffalo and trees such as banyan and peepal are useful to man, hence we are fond of them; to that extent we might even consider them worthy of worship. Their protection, sustenance and well-being is our duty, in that sense alone it is also our dharma!”

At the same time, he cautioned that if the “animal or tree becomes a source of trouble to mankind, it ceases to be worthy of sustenance or protection and as such its destruction is in humanitarian or national interests and becomes a human or national dharma. When humanitarian interests are not served and in fact harmed by the cow and when humanism is shamed, self-defeating extreme cow protection should be rejected.”

An appropriate advice in these times of cow-vigilantism leading to instant mob-justice and lynching.

He also asserted that while he held the cow as a “beautiful creature”, protecting it and not worshipping it as a goddess was his belief. Elevating an animal that eats garbage and sits in its own excreta to the position of a goddess, even as society disrespected scholars like Ambedkar and Chokha Mela due to their supposed low-caste, was “insulting both humanity and divinity”, Savarkar said.

We become the God we worship and hence Hindutva’s icon should be the Narasimha or fierce man-lion and not the docile cow, wrote Savarkar.

Savarkar concludes the essay saying, “I am no enemy of the cow. I have only criticized the false notions and tendencies involved in cow worship with the aim of removing the chaff and preserving the essence so that genuine cow protection may be better achieved. Without spreading religious superstition, let the movement for cow protection be based and popularized on clear-cut economic and scientific principles. A worshipful attitude is undoubtedly necessary for protection. But it is improper to forget the duty of cow protection and indulge only in worship.”

Just like he gave a call to the Hindu community to give up these superstitions, he exhorted the Muslims too to reform themselves with time and “abandon the belief that not even a word in the Quran can be questioned because it is the eternal message of God, even as you maintain respect for the Quran.”

Elaborating, Savarkar said that the norms that seemed feasible to an oppressed but backward people in Arabia at a time of civil strife could not be accepted as an eternal way of life. The Muslims must “accept the habit of sticking to only that, which is relevant in the modern age,” he said.

The rationalist

An undying rationalist who relied on logic and scientific temper, Savarkar decried Gandhi’s attempt to attribute the devastating earthquake in Bihar in 1934 to God’s curse on Indians for practicing untouchability.

“It is our misfortune in India,” he said, “that even someone as influential as Gandhi ji invokes his “inner voice” to attribute the recent massive Bihar earthquake as God’s punishment for the barbaric caste system! I still wait to hear what the Mahatma’s inner voice will tell us about why Quetta was rocked by an earthquake!”

A staunch advocate of a capitalist, market-driven, mechanised society, Savarkar wrote as early as in the 1930s about scientific temper alone being the foundation of a modern and prosperous India.

“It is through science, modern thoughts and industrialization and not by spinning wheels,” he held, “that we can ensure that every man and woman in India will have a job to do, food to eat, clothes to wear and a happy life to lead.”

His views that were radical and far ahead of his times caused friction even within members of the Hindutva fold, such as the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) that held more orthodox views on such matters. This was possibly why Savarkar stayed away from the RSS, even though his elder brother Ganesh Damodar was among the founding members of the Sangh, along with K.B. Hedgewar.

A retrospective unbiased and clinical analysis of Savarkar’s writings on society, science, economy and foreign affairs show how so many of his predictions eventually turned out to be true. If the timelessness and relevance of a leader’s thoughts are the litmus of his greatness, Savarkar certainly was one.

This is the second part of a two-part series on Veer Savarkar. You can read the first part here. For this article, he has researched the writings compiled in the “Savarkar Samagra Wangmay”.

The author is a writer/historian and Senior Research Fellow at Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, and has an upcoming biography of Savarkar.

https://theprint.in/opinion/savarkar-wanted-to-smash-caste-system-cooked-prawns-and-didnt-worship-the-cow/161016/

How researchers combined linguistics and archaeology to determine the age of Dravidian languages

An international team hypothesises that the languages originated about 4,500 years ago.

Dravidianhero | via Wikimedia Commons | CC by SA 3.0

Apr 02, 2018 · 01:30 pm

Michael Dunn, The Conversation & Annemarie Verkerk, The Conversation

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It’s difficult to understand what people mean when they say that a language is “old”. A person is old who was born a long time ago, but a language is recreated by its speakers every generation – so every generation, it changes.

It’s easier, though, to assign an age to a language family. By definition, a group of related languages ultimately descend from a common ancestor, and this common ancestor must have existed at some particular time. This language must have come from somewhere, too, of course, but we simply don’t have any linguistic evidence for what came before.

Until recently, working out how old language families are was based on informed extrapolations of specialists. But modern computational methods in linguistics can now let us infer the ages of language families in a more exact manner. These new methods, for example, recently let us propose a new age for the Dravidian language family: 4,500 years.

Since the mid-19th century it has been recognised that most of the 462 languages of India belong to two main stocks: the Dravidian family and the Indo-European family. More than a billion people live in India. Of these, about 20% speak a Dravidian language, such as Telugu, Malayalam, Tamil and Kannada. Meanwhile, 75% speak an Indo-European one, including Hindi, Punjabi and Urdu.

Some languages in both these families have literary traditions going back more than 2,000 years; many others are unwritten. Dravidian is spoken predominantly in the southern end of the subcontinent; the Indo-European languages cover most of the north, and extend across Eurasia (English, Welsh, French, Russian, Greek and Persian are all Indo-European languages, too).

Map of the Dravidian languages in India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Nepal adapted from Ethnologue. Kolipakam et al. 2018

How the speakers of these languages reached their current locations is an enduring mystery in human prehistory.

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Triangulation

Of course, linguistics is not alone in making claims about prehistory. Archaeology and ancient DNA genetics in particular also have a lot to tell us about human populations in the past. But each of these disciplines gives only one perspective on history.

Linguistics tells us about the transmission of cultural traditions, but not who the people transmitting these cultures were. Genetics lets us track people through biological descent, but not whether these people belonged to what we might consider the same group over time. Archaeology describes snapshots of the material products of cultures in the past, but has only so much to say about what those cultures were, where they came from, and who they became.

Each discipline tells us only part of the story. And so the truest picture of prehistory comes from triangulating these independent lines of evidence.

In order to investigate the history of the Dravidian language family, we therefore combined and compared relative research from linguistics and archaeology to study the Dravidian languages and their speakers.

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The age we propose for Dravidian – 4,500 years – is consistent with archaeological hypotheses linking the dispersal of Dravidian with the South Indian Neolithic. This is the period from about 5,000 years ago, when on the South Deccan plateau, archaeological evidence is found for locally domesticated crops and animals and thus a probably more sedentary lifestyle. This lifestyle spread and changed as the peoples associated with these crops and livestock moved south, east, and north.

It makes sense that the common linguistic ancestor of Dravidian was spoken at the same time as a dispersal of cultures and peoples who ultimately contribute to much of the Dravidian speaking population of today. But having a plausible hypothesis is still a long way from proof.

Population genetics

But, of course, further input from genetics is a possibility. Genetic reconstruction of Indian population history has shown that most Indians today carry ancestry suggesting two ancient populations, “Ancestral North Indians” or ANI and “Ancestral South Indians” or ASI. ANI were related to Central Asians, Middle Easterners, Caucasians (that is, peoples of the Caucasus), and Europeans, while ASI, curiously, were not closely related to any population outside of the subcontinent. The strength of each component varies across Indian groups, with ANI ancestry being associated with Indo-European speakers and traditionally “higher” caste membership.

Further research has shown that the mixing of ANI and ASI ancestry is relatively recent, occurring 1,900-4,200 years ago. This period in Indian prehistory is marked by massive cultural and demographic change, including change from cultural norms where intermarriage between different groups was common, to a state where this was restricted, as well as the introduction of the Indo-Aryan languages in the subcontinent.

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The link between ASI ancestry and the South Indian Neolithic, as well as the origins of Dravidian, all happened at or before the beginning of the mixing of ANI and ASI. The South Indian Neolithic is marked by domestication of local crops and ashmounds, giving it a distinct unique character. This matches the characterisation of ASI as distinctly local and Dravidian as “native” to the subcontinent, triangulating our finding that the language family is 4,500-years-old.

Prospects from ancient DNA

Our study focused on dating the Dravidian language family as well as estimating how its major branches have developed over time. Something that we haven’t done, but which would be really interesting, is phylogeography, where not only the family history of languages is reconstructed, but also the locations of ancestral languages. This would allow researchers to assess more closely the link between the Dravidian homeland and the South Indian Neolithic.

Such a study could be combined with work on ancient DNA, extracted from remains that are thousands of years old. Ancient DNA of people that lived during the South Indian Neolithic could tell us about the origin of the peoples that developed agriculture in South India. Triangulation with phylogeographic analysis in linguistics could in turn inform us on the chances of these people being Dravidian speakers.

Unfortunately, the current prospects for uncovering usable ancient DNA in India are dire because of the tropical climate. But since the techniques for extracting ancient DNA are still young, one can hope for exciting new links between disciplines in the future.

Michael Dunn, Professor in Linguistics and Philology, Uppsala University and Annemarie Verkerk, Postdoctoral Research Associate in Linguistics, Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.

https://scroll.in/article/874047/how-researchers-combined-linguistics-and-archaeology-to-determine-the-age-of-dravidian-languages