Wise King, Foolish Subjects

Time was when I was proud to own a copy of Salman Rushdie’s SatanicVerses, given how much furore the book occasioned in the life not just of itauthor, but of India, Iran, the UK, and of the larger world of Islam all acrossthe planet. Now I realize that even obscure volumes on my bookshelf, acquired inthe course of several years of doctoral research in Maharashtra, could turn outto be prized possessions, especially if they happen to be written by one JamesW. Laine.

Every other January, it seems, the Maharashtra government decides to targetsomething by this fairly unremarkable American academic, who teaches atMacalester College in Minnesota, leading a quiet scholarly life that is hard torelate to the strong reactions his work elicits in far-away Pune. In January2004, Professor Laine’s Shivaji:Hindu King in Islamic India (2003) was banned. This month, exactly two years later, his older volumeTheEpic of Shivaji  (2001), an English translation of the incomplete Sanskritepic poem by Shivaji’s court poet Paramananda, the Sivabharata,composed towards the end of the 17th century, suffered the same fate.

Why ban a book that has already been in the market for five years? That too,a book that is not even an original piece of history writing, but rather, thetranslation of a well-known poetic text that has been around for over 300 years,and has earned its place in Maharashtra’s rich literary culture? How is aSanskrit poem, that has been circulating for over three centuries and wascommissioned by the protagonist himself in the first place, to augment thesplendour of his court and memorialize his life and deeds in a Mahabharata-styleepic, all of a sudden threatening to public order and safety?

In January 2004 members of the Sambhaji Brigade vandalized Pune’sBhandarkar Oriental Research Institute (BORI) and roughed up local librariansand professors. Marathi public intellectuals were threatened with, and in somecases subjected to, physical violence. There was even an attempt to have Lainearrested on American soil with help from Interpol. Why? Ostensibly because theauthor, qua historian, gave credence to the rumours that have longcirculated in Maharashtra, regarding Shivaji’s paternity.

In that instance, Laine at no point said that he personally believed Shahjinot to have been Shivaji’s father, but only that such malicious talk could beheard in different quarters, provided one kept an ear open for what is perhapsbest described as historical gossip. But even to have mentioned that such rumour-mongeringstill goes on, almost four hundred years after Shivaji was born to Jijabai in1630 at the fort of Shivneri, was considered intolerable. All hell broke loosefor poor Laine and several of his Indian colleagues engaged in the riskybusiness of historical research and writing in and about Maharashtra. Eventoday, despite a concerted rehabilitation and rebuilding effort by civic-mindedcitizens in Pune, the BORI library and archive have yet to recover from thedamage done to books, manuscripts and other property in the January 2004 acts ofvandalism.

Once again, the ghost of the father has returned to cast a shadow on his son.That Shivaji’s parents were estranged from one another is an indubitablehistorical fact. Early in their married life, Shahji’s political masters andJijabai’s natal family were enemies on the battlefield. The couple lived apart- Shivaji’s mother in Maharashtra, his father in Karnataka - and eventuallyShahji took another wife down south, to spawn a separate dynasty of MarathaBhosales in Tanjore. But at the time of Shivaji’s conception and birth,Jijabai was Shahji’s wife, and howsoever attenuated the relations betweenthem, there is no real evidence - at least none available to members of thepublic - to challenge Shahji’s paternity of Shivaji outright.

There is an impeccably scholarly foreword to The Epic of Shivaji byProfessor S S Bahulkar. However, in his Introduction, Laine writes: "Thehistorical fact that Shivaji’s father took a second wife in Bangalore and leftShivaji and his mother in Pune, and that his mother and goddess play such apowerful role in his motivation to rebel against Muslim authority, suggest thatthere is a folkloric and unconscious acceptance of Shivaji as an oedipal rebel."The recent ban purportedly aims to punish Laine, and Bahulkar, who helped Lainetranslate Paramananda’s poem, for using this word "oedipal" with referenceto Shivaji and his parents.

There has been a great deal said in defence of Professor Laine against theban on his 2003 book, including by this writer.. Without rehearsing all of thearguments against censorship, identity politics, vandalism, the policing ofacademic research, the curbing of the freedom of expression, the politics ofinjury and the denial of historical objectivity already made in the press andthe media, and in Indian and Western academia in early 2004, this much bearsstating: xenophobic diatribes against Laine make no sense.

In his Shivaji book, he merely cited, without endorsing, loose talk -baseless historical speculation, more accurately - that can be picked uppractically anywhere in Maharashtra. In his Epic book, theAmerican scholar made an old, difficult and little-read Sanskrit text widelyavailable to contemporary readers in English. Along the way he also ventured theinterpretation, objectionable or not is a separate matter, about the dynamicswithin Shivaji’s immediate family and their effect on Shivaji’s characterand career. But why go after Laine for being a foreigner, an outsider who isinsensitive to Indian sentiments about one of the great heroes of our history?

Shivaji has long been described in Marathi as Janata Raja, the KnowingKing. His intelligence was one among many virtues that have endeared him to thepeople of his native Maharashtra for centuries. Why has this extraordinarilyclever ruler, indeed proverbially clever, fallen on such hard times, where themost utterly foolish positions are assumed and actions taken, supposedly in hisname, to defend his reputation? If patriots want to protect India from theonslaughts of American imperialism, let them go after George W. Bush, not JamesW. Laine. Both books should be immediately un-banned; the wise king Shivaji haslong withstood the good, bad and indifferent interpretations of historians, andhis glory will continue to stand the test of history.

Ananya Vajpeyi, Ph.D. is Fellow, Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, NewDelhi