Untouchable Pasts: Religion, Identity, and Power among a Central Indian Community, 1780-1950

Abstract

Asia is high, but there is also a considerable flexibility in this informal relationship. The nominal interest rates are often extremely high, but effective interest rates are usually lower, as the creditor must see to it that his debtor survives. David Hardiman has shed a great deal of light on the intricacies of this relationship. He begins his account in precolonial times and shows that a state dependent on land revenue collection relied throughout on the baniya (moneylender) as crucial intermediary. With the rise of tax farming and the spread of the commer- cialization of power, some moneylenders achieved great prominence, but, as Hardiman stresses, money- lenders and traders as a class never aspired to the kind of political power attained by the European bourgeoi- sie. They knew their limits. In an illuminating chapter on The Baniya's Life and Faith, he describes these limits. There was a strong solidarity among baniyas and a deep consciousness of abru, which means both honor and credit-worthiness. The peasant also cherished his abru but conceived of it in terms of his standing in his rural community. This depended on his control of land, on marrying his children well, and on his access to credit. As far as the latter was concerned, he relied on the moneylender and would normally refrain from offending him. British colonial rulers made full use of the symbiotic relationship between peasant and moneylender, be- cause it helped them to collect their land revenue. They strenghtened the grip of the moneylender by introducing a law that had fortified the security of credit in their own country. lt assumed that debtor and creditor were contracting partners of equal stature, which, of cour.se, did not apply to Indian peasants and moneylenders. Nevertheless, this theory was upheld for a long time, until peasant indebtedness and the transfer of land to moneylenders emerged as a political danger to colonial rule. Unfortunately, Hardiman does not deal with this aspect in detail. He neglects the available literature on the debates preceding the Dec- can Agriculturists Relief Act and similar measures. As a subaltern historian, Hardiman is more interested in the articulation of peasant resistance. He devotes much effort to showing that the Deccan Riots of 1875 were not riots but a peasant revolt; be also documents that this revolt was not an isolated instance but that there were similar revolts before and after 1875. In tracing the evidence for such revolts, Hardi- man is at his best. Chapter thirteen, Usury Under Late Colonial Rule, is more sketchy. Hardiman almost completely ignores the impact of the Great Depression, which forced the British to interfere with the business of the baniya in various ways by introducing debt conciliation and registering moneylenders. At the same time, the fall in prices completely ruined the British land reve- nue system. In earlier times, the peasant had been able to resort to the moneylender whenever the revenue demand was due, but this mechanism broke down. Moreover, the connection between credit and the AMERICAN HISTORICAL R EVIEW trade in grain was interrupted by panic sales at the time of the Depression. A look at the relevant litera- ture would have helped Hardiman to improve this chapter. It would have also provided some background for his interesting description of the decline of the business of village moneylenders. In his final chapter, Hardiman discusses The Meta- morphosis of Usury and arrives at the conclusion that although the old-style baniya is only of marginal importance nowadays, there has been a baniyaiza- tion of the new rural middle class, which uses credit to tighten its hold on dwarfholders who must offer their labor to richer neighbors. In conclusion, Hardiman returns to the theme of hegemony taken up in his introduction. Antonio Gramsci's concept of hegemony has been debated by subaltern historians. Some of them have argued that neither any one class nor the colonial nor the postcolonial state has achieved hege- mony in India on Gramsci's terms. These historians have not stated whether this finding would also make the category subaltern meaningless in the Indian context, because the subaltern is defined as one who accepts hegemony. Hardiman is careful in his use of these terms. He agrees that India never produced a bourgoisie of the European type, and instead of speak- ing of the subaltern position, he stresses the men- tality of dependence on the superior provider (p. 336). This fits in well with his study of the baniya, but he has also shown that this mentality can occasionally turn into a spirit of revolt. This spirit rarely persists for long, as the facts of life reassert themselves. The baniyas knew this; they ususally refused to give evi- dence against rebellious peasants and returned to do business as usual. By providing such insights, Hardi- man greatly enriches the knowledge of his readers. DIETMAR ROTHERMUND University of Heidelberg SAURABH D u BE. Untouchable Pasts: Religion, Identity, and Power among a Central Indian Community, 1780- 1950. (SUNY Series in Hindu Studies.) Albany: State University of New York Press. 1998. Pp. xvii, 308. Saurabh Dube aimed to produce more than an Indian history, an ethnograplhic history that works with South Asian materials, articulating a wider set of concerns to carve out a theoretical third position, apart from Eurocentric imaginings and also from anti-Enlightenment rhetoric (p. xi). He wanted to show the construction of multiple Hindu identities ... particularly by groups and communities who stood on the margins (p. 5), by exploring the past of an untouchable subcaste that is also a guru-led sect, the Satnamis of Central India, from 1780 to 1950. Dube is a captivating writer who promises much in his intro- ductory chapter. Significant tensions in Dube's endeavor needed fuller discussion. The tension between sources pro- duced by outsiders (colonial officials and interested FEBRUARY

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