The Bhasa of History—an essay for Dipesh Chakrabarty

ABSTRACT

What value does a leading historian of modern South Asia ascribe to bhasa literature? Meant as an introduction to a volume of papers dedicated to Dipesh Chakrabarty, this essay proposes to read through some of his work and draw out a couple of general responses to this central question. The first one concerns Chakrabarty’s larger philosophical engagement with the condition of colonial modernity in India. In his treatment, bhasa literary corpus is a site of difference as well as belonging. He searches for the difference that marks Indian experience of colonial modernity in the literary. The value of bhasa, in this instance, lies in its ability to provide a ground for resistance to the uniform march of enlightenment and capitalist modernity. And, bhasa enables an awareness of historical difference precisely because it provides a sense of belonging. This sense of belongingness is closely tied to a place, a particular location as well as to a sense of everyday intimacy. As the hybrid site of difference as well as belonging, bhasa is then the constitutive cradle of what Chakrabarty calls ‘History 2s’. The second one concerns Chakrabarty’s more specific analysis of the evolution of history as an academic discipline in modern India. He delineates a sharp devaluation in the political worth of the literary that the rise of rational-scientific history writing brought about in the middle decades of the twentieth-century. As he studies the intellectual careers of particular historians, part of his intent is to elaborate on this process of devaluation. The essay situates this reading of Chakrabarty in a larger discursive context. It briefly looks at the work of some other scholars of modern South Asia who share these intellectual concerns, and seeks to create, as it were, a dialogue between Chakrabarty and others. The essay concludes by briefly introducing the papers in the volume. In different ways, they extend Chakrabarty’s preoccupation with the relationship between history and literature, and with the subject of modernity in India at large.

KEYWORDS:

• Dipesh Chakrabarty
• colonial modernity
• literature
• history
• bhasa
• print-culture
• agrarian imagination
• Mahabharata
• political economy
• Bankim Chandra Chatterjee
• Fakir Mohan Senapati
• Ismat chugtai

Acknowledgement

I would like to thank the University of Hyderabad and Maulana Abul Kalam Azad Institute of Asian Studies for their help in putting together a conference where early versions of some of the essays collected here were first presented. Kailash Baral, Girish Pawar, Debashish Acharya, Murali Manohar and others extended their kind support. I would also like to convey my gratitude to the reviewers for their comments and observations which helped the writers to hone their analyses and articulations. Needless to say all errors remain the authors’ own

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Chakrabarty, Provincializing Europe.

2. Chakrabarty, Provincializing Europe, 43.

3. Chakrabarty, Provincializing Europe, 129.

4. Chakrabarty, Provincializing Europe, Preface, xviii.

5. Chakrabarty, Provincializing Europe, Preface, xviii.

6. Chakrabarty, Provincializing Europe, Preface, xviii.

7. Chakrabarty, Provincializing Europe, 20–21.

8. Chakrabarty, Provincializing Europe, 21.

9. Chakrabarty, Provincializing Europe, 18.

10. Chakrabarty, Provincializing Europe, 18.

11. Chakrabarty, Provincializing Europe, 18.

12. Chakrabarty, Provincializing Europe, 22.

13. Chakrabarty, Provincializing Europe, 17.

14. Chakrabarty, Provincializing Europe, 17–18.

15. Chakrabarty, Provincializing Europe, 17–18.

16. Kaviraj, “Literature and the Moral Imagination of Modernity”.

17. Kaviraj, “Literature and the Moral Imagination of Modernity,” 22.

18. Kaviraj, “Literature and the Moral Imagination of Modernity,” 24.

19. Kaviraj, “Literature and the Moral Imagination of Modernity” 25.

20. Kaviraj, “Literature and the Moral Imagination of Modernity” 25.

21. Chaudhuri, The Literary Thing.

22. Chaudhuri, The Literary Thing, Introduction, xxxvii.

23. Chaudhuri, The Literary Thing, Introduction, xxxix.

24. Chaudhuri, The Literary Thing, Introduction, xxxix.

25. Chaudhuri, The Literary Thing, Introduction, xxxix.

26. Chaudhuri, The Literary Thing, Introduction, xxxv.

27. Chaudhuri, The Literary Thing, Introduction, xxiii.

28. Chaudhuri, The Literary Thing, Introduction, xxxv.

29. Sartori, Liberalism in Empire.

30. Sartori, Liberalism in Empire, 7.

31. Sartori, Liberalism in Empire, 7.

32. Sartori, Liberalism in Empire, 5.

33. Sartori, Liberalism in Empire, 5.

34. Sartori, Liberalism in Empire, 5.

35. Chakrabarty, “Romantic Archives”.

36. Chakrabarty, “Romantic Archives,” 660.

37. Chakrabarty, “Romantic Archives,” 661.

38. Chakrabarty, “Romantic Archives,” 671.

39. Chakrabarty, “Romantic Archives,” 668.

40. Chakrabarty, “Romantic Archives,” 668–669.

41. Chakrabarty, “Romantic Archives,” 669.

42. Chakrabarty, The Calling of History, 181.

43. Chakrabarty, The Calling of History, 182.

44. Chakrabarty, The Calling of History, 212.

45. Chakrabarty, The Calling of History, 212.

46. Chakrabarty, The Calling of History, 213.

47. Chakrabarty, The Calling of History, 181–182.

48. Chakrabarty, The Calling of History, 168.

49. Chakrabarty, The Calling of History, 170.

50. Chakrabarty, The Calling of History, 24.

51. Chakrabarty, The Calling of History, 24.

52. Chakrabarty, The Calling of History, 17.

53. Chakrabarty, The Calling of History, 18.

54. Chakrabarty, The Calling of History, 18.

55. Chakrabarty, The Calling of History, 164.

56. Chakrabarty, The Calling of History, 166.

57. Chakrabarty, The Calling of History, 7, 163.

58. Chatterjee, “Introduction: History in the Vernacular”.

59. Chatterjee, “Introduction: History in the Vernacular,” 9.

60. Chatterjee, “Introduction: History in the Vernacular,” 10.

61. Chatterjee, “Introduction: History in the Vernacular,” 11.

62. Chatterjee, “Introduction: History in the Vernacular,” 11.

63. Chatterjee, “Introduction: History in the Vernacular,” 9.

64. Chatterjee, “Introduction: History in the Vernacular,” 19.

65. Chatterjee, “Introduction: History in the Vernacular,” 21.

66. Chatterjee, “Introduction: History in the Vernacular,” 21.

67. Mishra, Language and the Making of Modern India, 11.

68. Mishra, Language and the Making of Modern India, 10–11.

69. Mishra, Language and the Making of Modern India, 24.

70. Mishra, Language and the Making of Modern India, 12.

71. Anjaria, Realism in the Twentieth Century Indian Novel, 4.

72. Anjaria, Realism in the Twentieth Century Indian Novel, 12.

73. Anjaria, Realism in the Twentieth Century Indian Novel, 4.

74. Anjaria, Realism in the Twentieth Century Indian Novel, 12.

75. Anjaria, Realism in the Twentieth Century Indian Novel, 12.

76. Anjaria, Realism in the Twentieth Century Indian Novel, 15.

77. Anjaria, Realism in the Twentieth Century Indian Novel, 4.

78. Anjaria, Realism in the Twentieth Century Indian Novel, 5.

79. Anjaria, Realism in the Twentieth Century Indian Novel, 5.

80. Anjaria, Realism in the Twentieth Century Indian Novel, 4.

81. Anjaria, Realism in the Twentieth Century Indian Novel, 4.

82. Chaudhuri, The Literary Thing, Introduction, xxxi. Also see, xxxii-xxxiii.

83. Chaudhuri, The Literary Thing, Introduction, xxxii.

84. Chaudhuri, The Literary Thing, Introduction, xxxii.

85. Chaudhuri, The Literary Thing, Introduction, xxxv.

86. Chaudhuri, The Literary Thing, Introduction, xxx.

87. Chaudhuri, The Literary Thing, Introduction, xxxiii.