Editor Manu Bhagavan The University ofTexas at Austin Assistant Editor Angelina M. Whitford The University ofTexas at Austin Editorial Advisory Board Ali Asani, Harvard University Nicholas Dirks, The University ofMichigan at Ann Arbor Diana Eck, Harvard University Wilhelm Halbfass, The University ofPennsylvania Robert Hardgrave, The University ofTexas at Austin Walter Hauser, The University ofVirginia Atul Kohli, Princeton University Wm. Roger Louis, The University ofTexas at Austin David Pinault, The University ofPennsylvania Paula Richman, Oberlin College Richard Salomon, The University ofWashington Cynthia Talbot, Northem Arizana University Thomas Trautmann, The University ofMichigan at Ann Arbor Editorial Board Richard Bamett, The University ofVirginia Paul Courtright, Emory University Donald Davis, The University ofTexas at Austin Chandra DeSilva, Indiana State University Syed Akbar Hyder, The University of Texas at Austin Pauline Kolenda, The University ofHouston Nikhil Sinha, The University ofTexas at Austin Eleanor Zelliot, Carleton College Editorial Committee (Ali membersfrom The University ofTexas at Austin) James Brow, Janice Leoshko, Sagaree Sengupta (Faculty Advisors) Stephanie Brown, Roger Conant, Keila Diehl, Roger Goodding, Sarah Green, Aisha Ikramuddin, V alerie Ritter Sponsored by the Center for Asían Studies University of Texas at Austin lntroductory Issue Volume 1, Number 1 Spring 1994 Sagar is published biannually in the spring and fall. The editor is responsible for the final selection of the content of the journal and reserves the right to reject any material deemed inappropriate for publication. Articles presented in the journal do not represent the views of either the Center for Asían Studies at the University of Texas at Austin or the Sagar editors. Responsibility for the opinions expressed and the accuracy of facts published in articles and reviews rests solely with the individual authors. Requests for permission to reprint articles should be directed to the individual authors. All correspondence regarding subscriptions, advertising, or business should be addressed to Sagar care of'the Center for Asían Studies, University of Texas, Campus Mail Code F9300, Austin, Texas 78712-1194. Not printed with state funds. Sagar does not discriminate on any basis prohibited by applicable law including, but not limited to, caste, creed, disability, ethnicity, gender, national origin, race, religion, or sexual orientation. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The Sagar editors would like to thank the following people for their advice and guidance: Martha Harrison, Patrick Olivelle, Karla Renaud, Gregory Schopen, and Sarah Wimer. We are especially grateful to Richard Lariviere for his vision, his support, and his inspiration. Editorial Note This issue of Sagar highlights the research of students studying South Asia at the University of Texas at Austin. Sagar encourages submissions from all students working in this field. Methodology articles from faculty are also welcome. Table of Contents Volume 1 • Number 1 • Spring 1994 Kipling's Burden: Representing Colonial Authority and Constructing the "Other" through Kimball O'Hara and Babu Hurree Chander in Kim N ANDI BHATIA.................................................... l Bibliography............................. 13 Gandhi: Patron Saint of the Industrialist . LEAH RENOLD .................................................. 16 Bibliography............................. 37 The Mahar Movement' s Military Component RICHARD B. WHITE............................................ 39 Early Military Participation ............ 40 The Mahars Delistment ................. 45 Benefits OfMilitary Service ........... 47 The Fight For Re-enlistment.. ......... 52 Conclusion............................... 56 Epilogue.................................. 57 Bibliography............................. 58 Ambivalence in a STAR-ry Eyed Land: Doordarshan and the Satellite TV Challenge GEETIKA PATHANIA........................................,... 60 Doordarshan............................. 61 STAR TV ................................ 67 Transnational Advertising .............. 70 Economic Liberalization ................ 72 Political Factors ........;................ 74 Conclusion............................... 74 Bibliography............................. 75 Book Review ..............,.............................................. 79 Alexander, Fault Lines: A Memoir GAIL MINAULT Graduate Student Profiles............................................... 81 Graduate Student Update ............................................... 86 Kipling's Burden: Representing Colonial Authority and Constructing the "Other" through Kimball O'Hara and Babu Hurree Chander in Kim1 Nandi Bhatia Rudyard Kipling's Kim can be interpreted as a novel that articulates the hegemonic relations between the colonizer and the colonized during British rule. Through contrasting images of Kim, a sahib, and Hurree babu, an educated native, Kipling constructs functional dichotomies in which the position of the Other is subordinated. In this paper, I situate the construction of Kim's and Hurree babu's identities within the context ofthe British Empire and examine the historical underpinnings of the process that generated hierarchical representations in Kipling. To read . . . major works of the imperial period retrospectively is to be obligated to read them in the light of decolonization. To do so is neither to slight their great esthetic force, nor to treat them reductively as imperialist propaganda. lt is a Blurb read them stripped of their countless affiliations with those facts of power which inform and enable them, to interpret them as if the many inscriptions of race and class in the text were not there at all.2 C'r o say that Rudyard Kipling's Kim3 can be interpreted as a (.,; project that articulates the "hegemonic" relations between the Nandi Bhatia is a third-year doctoral student in comparative Iiterature at the University of Texas at Austin. 1 An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Annual meeting of the American Comparative Literature Association in Spring 1993. 1 would like to thank Barbara Harlow for her support and suggestions, Dina Sherzer for input on an earlier draft, Preet for his encouragement, and three anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments. 2Edward Said, "Kim, The Pleasures of Imperialism," Raritan 7 (1987): 63. 3Kipling left India in 1889 at age 24. Kim appeared in 1901. Sagar: South Asia Graduare Research Joumal l, No. 1 (May 1994): 1-15 © remains with the author. 1 colonizer and the colonized during British imperial rule in India is to repeat what critics have said about Kipling's novel. Numerous studies, including Edward Said's analysis "Kim, the Pleasures of Imperialism," have shown Kipling's contribution to the "invention of traditions" and the "Orientalized India of the [imperialist] imagination" through significant moments in the novel.1 Said's deconstruction of Kipling's novel explores how Kim embodies the absolute divisions between white and non white that existed in India and elsewhere at a time when the dominantly white Christian countries of Europe controlled approximately 85 percent of the world's surface.2 These same critics have, however, overlooked sorne of the seemingly insignificant moments which, 1 believe, are rather significant to Kipling' s larger project of representing imperial authority in India. One such aspect of the novel is manifested in Kipling' s portrayal of babu Hurree Chander Mookerjee, a native employee in the British administration to whom even Said's detailed essay devotes only a paragraph, calling the babu' s presence a "small practica! device" used by Kipling to represent imperial authority.3 For Kipling, who believed that it was India's destiny to be ruled by England, it was necessary to stress the superiority of the white man whose mission was to rule the dark and inferior races. Kipling conveys this message about the "white man's burden" by locating the educated Hurree babu in a position that is subordinate to Kim. Kipling constructs babu Hurree Chander's subordinacy by creating what Jacques Derrida calls "binary oppositions" or well­schooled dichotomies through which a whole hierarchy of meanings may be constructed. These hierarchies are created by privileging one principie, the "self' over its opposite or its "Other."4 Through a similar system of binary oppositions between the ruler and the ruled, Kipling creates unequal dichotomies in which the former becomes the privileged signifier, i.e., the "self' and the latter its "Other" in opposition to whom the self asserts its own privileged position. Kim belongs to the class of the rulers and the babu occupies the position of the "Other." Both products of a colonial upbringing, in a colonized society, Kim becomes the authoritative principie and the babu his excluded opposite. The babu, in other words, is Kim' s Isaid, "Kim," 37. Also see John A. McClure. Kipling and Conrad: the Colonial Fiction (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1981); Edmund Wilson, "The Kipling that Nobody Read," in ed. Andrew Rutherford, Kipling's Mind and Art (California: Stanford University Press, 1964). 2said, "Kim," 30. 31bid., 37. 4Terry Eagleton, Literary Theory: An Introduction (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, 1983), 132. Soum ASIA GRADUATE REsEARCH JOURNAL anti-self to whom Kipling assigns a negative value in relation to .Kim, the sahib. Kipling frames the babu in "a relationsbip of power, of domination, [and] of varying degrees of a complex hegemony" with Kim, through wbich he constantly reiterates what Said suggests as, "European superiority over Oriental backwardness."1 Kim, who grows up as an orphan in India and is in no way different from an lndian except for bis racial heritage, eventually becomes a Sahib by virtue of what, in a Derridean deconstructive reading, we might say "ceaselessly shutting out tbis other or opposite, defining himself in antithesis to it ...."2 The babu's presence in the novel is, thus, more than a "small practica! device." For Kipling's imperialist ideology, it is a narrative strategy to represent Kim's authority over the native inhabitants of the colony. The importance of tbis essay lies in the way Kipling, in bis novel, projects Babu Hurree Chander with powerful ramifications about the colonial power-dynamics within a particular bistorical milieu. Before I explicate further, I find it necessary to discuss the baggage attached to the term ''babu" during the time ofBritish rule in India. The Hindustani term "babu" referred to an educated urban gentleman. U sed with respect at first, it soon acquired a pejorative connotation for the educated lndian who desperately attempted to acquire the manners and customs of the colonial officials. In The Making ofan 'Indian' Art, Tapati Guha-Thakurta reveals how often the figure of "Calcutta' s degenerate babus" appeared in Kalighat art. The most recurrent of the satirical images portrayed in tbis genre of Bengali art during the nineteenth century was that of "the Bengali babu as a fop, a dandy and a dissolute womanizer.... the symbol of the westemized, dissipated nouveau-riche ...."3 According to Hobson-Jobson, a dictionary of Anglo-Indian terms and phrases, a "baboo" is a term wbich among Anglo-Indians is often used with a slight savour of disparagement, as characterizing a superficially cultivated, but too effeminate, Bengali.... The word has come often to signify 'a native clerk who writes English. •4 lEdward Said, Orientalism (New York: Random House, 1978), 5, 7. 2Eagleton, 32. 3Tapati Guha-Thakurta, The Making of a 'New lndian Art: Artists, Aesthetics and Nationalism in Bengal, c. 1850-1920 (Great Britain: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 20-21. 4William Crook, ed., Hobson-Jobson: A Glossary of Anglo-Indian Colloquial Words and Phrases and Kindred Terms, Etymological, Historical, Geographical and Discursive (New York: Humanities Press, 1968 (1903)), 44. Such stereotypes of the babu, as Purnima Bose argues, emerged out of colonial racial attitudes about the Bengalis, who as a highly educated community, challenged British representations of lndians. Because of their defiance of colonial rulers, the western educated Bengalis were dismissed as comic imitations of westemers. They were virulently caricatured in the figure of the Bengalí Babu: a small dark-skinned, effeminate intellectual who had an imperfect command on English. l This image is reiterated in Plain Tales From the Raj, where former colonial officials recall that it "was the fashion to denigrate the babu type: 'We used to make fun of them ... because they were interpreting rules which we made.' Babu jokes, based on the English language either wrongly or over-effusively applied, were a constant source of amusements for ali 'Anglo-India.' Coupled with the denigration of the babu was a traditional distrust of the Bengali-'litigious, very fond of an argument'­who was frequently seen as a trouble maker: 'He doesn't appeal to many British people in the same way as the very much more manly, direct type from upper India.' "2 The descriptions and definitions above show the ways in which the stereotype of the Bengalí babu had been created and acquired a pejorative connotation. This image permitted the l Purnima Bose, "Survivors of the Raj, Survivors of the Empire: Narrating the Colonial and Post-Colonial Encounters" (Ph.D. diss., University of Texas, 1993), 165. 2charles Allen, ed., Plain Tales from the Raj: lmages ofBritish India in the Twentieth Century (Andre Deutsch: British Broadcasting Corporation, 1975), 198. According to Ashis Nandy in The Intimate Enemy. Loss and Recovery of Self under Colonialism (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1983), Kipling hated the Bengali babus in whom, having grown up in India and being bicultural, he saw an image of himself. Unable to identify with bis English counterparts in England, Kipling suffered from a sense of marginality and felt distanced from English society in England. On page 67, Nandy writes: "young Rudyard ... remained in England a conspicuous bicultural sahib, the English counterpart of the type he was to later despise: the bicultural Indian babu." SOUTH ASIA GRADUATE RESEARCH JOURNAL circulation of stereotypes about the educated Indian intellectuals and the term used homogeneously to apply to doctors, joumalists and clerks in other works of colonial discourse. In Orwell's Burmese Days, English officials constantly refer to the Indian Doctor Veeraswamy as the despicable babu. A book about Indian joumalism, authored by an Englishman and published in London in the late nineteenth century, carried the title Babu English as 'Tis Writ Being Curiosities of lndian Joumalism. Such stereotypes of the babu carried on after the empire and became the subject of numerous cartoons. So strong was their impact that my highly anglicized tenth grade school teacher always corrected the students' English in class by chastising us with the phrase: "Girls, don't speak babu English." · The questions that these babu stereotypes provoke are: · why did colonial officials make fun of the babu? why does Kipling perpetuate the myth of the babu further? In other words, why is the babu the target of Kipling' s jokes; · why not the other Indians in the novel such as the Lama or the horse trader Mahbub Ali? It is significant that Hurree babu is an intellectual. He is an anthropologist who is also well-versed in English literature, in the art of mensuration, and unlike Mahbub Ali, can read maps. He embodies all that Western liberal learning at this time stands for. He knows that there were "marks to be gained by due attention to Latin and Wordsworth's Excursion. French, too, was vital," and that a "man might go far ... by strict attention to plays called Lear and Julius Caesar."1 Hurree babu is perfectly capable of educating his countrymen about British rule. Because of his education in the British curriculum, he is equipped with the bicultural knowledge to communicate on both sides of the divide-the British colonial officials on one side and the Indians who had no direct dealing with their colonial rulers, on the other. Kipling wrote Kim ata time of rising Indian nationalism, a time when the relationship between the empire and colony had started to change, when British rule was being overtly questioned. Important changes had taken place in the national and political fabric of India following the mutiny of 1857. The Congress Party was formed in 1885. A large part of nationalistic resistance arose from the educated section of the Indians, from people like Hurree Babu, who with their close encounters with British administrators were more fully aware of British ways. The educated babu Hurree Chander thus represents a threat to the colonial presence. Kipling perhaps recognized this threat. Therefore, to relegate the educated babu to a subordinate lRudyard Kipling, Kim (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), 63. position is for Kipling a historical necessity in order to ward off any obstacles to the empire. The Lama on the other hand, is hardly to be feared. Although he is leamed man, he is sympathetic to the British mission and actually expedites Kim' s transformation into a sahib by paying for Kim's education. Kim's business, he tells the boy "was to get ali the wisdom of the Sahibs .... "1 Hence, it is not surprising that we find Kipling's imperialistic beliefs incorporated into the energy of creating babu jokes in the novel. Kipling relegates the babu to an inferior position through various situations, encounters and descriptions. This is how Kipling introduces the Hurree Babu in the novel: "At the end of that time entered a hulking, obese Babu whose stockinged legs shook with fat, ...."2 Following this description Kipling always.describes the babu's appearance as shabby, his voice "oily," his mouth stuffed with pan and betel and his English distorted. Throughout the narrative, Kipling makes fun of Hurree Babu's "orotund verbosity," ridicules his incorrect grammar and finds his accent abominable, which he emphasizes in the exaggeratedly misspelled words that the babu uses: Onlee instead of "only," allso instead of "also," opeenion instead of "opinion," quiett instead of "quiet" and so forth.3 Evidently, it is Kipling's way of maintaining the babu's subservience by painting the picture of a silly Bengalí babu who apes the Englishman with his broken English. lfhe can't speak like the colonizers, he can never be one of them. (lt is important to note here that English being the language of the colonizer became a signifier of power and authority. The language connotes authority and legitimizes ruling class power in India even today). However, nothing brings this point home more powerfully than a comparison between Kim's and the babu's educational backgrounds. Both Kim and Hurree Chander share an interesting commonalty in their education. They are both products of the British system. While Kim receives his formal education at St. Xavier' s in Lucknow, babu Hurree Chander holds a Master' s degree from Calcutta University. Being a native working for the British administrator colonel Creighton requires him to be well­versed in English as well as Hindustani. Hurree' s English education, thus, makes him bicultural. Since the babu's bicultural education grants him access to both cultures, Kipling carefully hybridizes Kim's education, systematically providing him with a 1 Kipling, 164. 21bid., 159. 3Jbid., 220, 223. SOUTH ASIA GRADUATE RESEARCH JOURNAL skillful knowledge of the Indian culture as well as a formal British education. · From the beginning we see Kim leaming about diverse Indian ways through bis friendship with Mahbub Ali for whom he "executed commissions by night on the crowded housetops," bis travels with the holy Lama, and interaction with the natives during bis travels. Mahbub Ali initiates Kim into the "great game" of the secret service. The spiritual Lama provides him with a sense of maturity and shows him "other and better desires upon the road [than to be King]." Lurgan, the antique dealer of Simla, trains Kim in various memory games and prepares bim for espionage work. And Kim's own curiosity for leaming, keen sense of observation and spirit of adventure instill in him, what Robert Moss calls, the qualities of "self-reliance" and "resourcefulness."1 By learning to manipulate people to bis own advantage, Kim manages to earn bis living and procure food for the Lama and himself. His early exposure to natives and their customs teaches bim the subtleties of Indian life: he knows the "breed" of farmers of the land; he understands the distinctions of caste and realizes that the Lama is the "most holy of holy men" because he is "above ali castes." Kim leams about the "many-armed and malignant" Hindu Gods who need to be left alone; is "careful not to irritate ... [a Sikh] for bis temper is short and bis arm quick"; wonders "since when the bill­asses (Paharis) owned all Hindustan"; knows that even Rajahs of "good Rajput blood ... sell the more comely of their womenfolk for gain." Kim's grasp of Indian life teaches him to process the native culture whereby he knows its strengths and weaknesses; to react with clevemess when the situation demands, appropriate the useful and dismiss the rest. Por instance, Kim wears bis Indian clothes to merge with the natives "when there ... [is] business or frolic afoot."2 So well-versed is he with the lndian ethos that when the need arises, he even leams to "think" [let alone speak] in the vemacular. Kim's knowledge of the various Indian dialects is particularly useful. It provides bim with the ability to translate and overcome the tremendous handicap that colonial rulers felt in their inability to translate for wbich they had to depend on the ''unreliable" l Robert F. Moss, Rudyard Kipling and the Fiction of Adolescence (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1982), 83. 2Kipling, 4. natives. In this way, Kim's ability to translate represents the colonizer' s acquisition ofa higbly useful device for the Empire. l To master only a knowledge of the native culture, however, is not sufficient for the sahib. Therefore, at the moment when the educated babu appears in the novel, displaying bis knowledge of English and discussing the advantages ofWestern education, Kim is sent off to St. Xavier' s in Lucknow for a formal British education. Despite the boy's disinterest in school, a strict academic curriculum-an aspect of leaming that was an indispensable part of every well-bred Englishman's training and essential for governing the empire through formal rules-is imposed on Kim. St. Xavier's, which aimed primarily at the children of the Anglo-Indian servants, becomes the pedect place for Kim. For, as Moss says, the boys at the school, besides leaming mathematics and trigonometry, were shaped by direct contact with the joys and dangers of the Indian Frontier ... [Here] the Anglo-Indians ... [leam to] carry on the hernie, day to day busin~ of maintaining the Empire. 2 In this school, where "every tale was . . . mixed with quaint reflections, borrowed ... from native foster-mothers, and tums of speech that showed that they had been instantly translated from the vemacular," Kim is trained to process the native culture. Tbis arrangement ofKim's education is Kipling' s way of providing Kim with the necessary tools for bis imperial enterprise. For, a bicultural knowledge authorires him to manipulate and control this «manifestly different [Indian] world"3 which, as Colonel Creighton communicates, is important for a sabib: thou are a Sabib and the son of a Sabib. Therefore, do not at any time be led to contemn [sic] the black men. 1 have known boys newly entered into the service of the Govemment who feigned not to 1See Tejaswini Niranjana, Siting Translation. History, Post­Structuralism and the Colonial Context (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992). Niranjana discusses the issue of translation not just to indicate an interlingual process but to name an entire problematic that raises questions of "representation, power and historicity (l)." She argues that the ability to translate was a good strategy for the British rulers because it removed their dependence on native intermediators to translate Indian laws. 2Moss, 89, 90. 3said, Orientalism, 12. SOUTH ASIA GRADUATE RESEARCH JOURNAL understand the talle or customs of black men. Their pay was cut for ignorance. There is no sin so great as ignorance. Remember this."1 Although Kim's knowledge and understanding of the native culture is Kipling's strategy to position Kim's superiority, he makes it seem like a "natural" acquisition for a precocious boy whose spirit for adventure motivates him in the pursuit of knowledge. Hence, Kim's ability to understand the natives and assimilate with them endears him to one and all who call him "little friend of the world." By contrast, the qualified and competent bicultural babu is despised, parodied and constantly made fun of by Kipling. While Kim's Anglo-Indian education makes him rational, clever and well­quipped to "sorne day ... command the natives," the babu's education is subjected to ridicule. Kipling portrays him as a clownish, ignorant hakim trying to impress the natives by giving them medicines (such as "arplan from China that makes a man renew his youth and astonish his household; Saffron from Kashmir, and the best Salep of Kabul")2 and even printing bis papers in "Angrezi,3 telling what things he has done for weak-backed men and slack women."4 Kipling's framing of Kim and the babu in such oppositional positions is crucial to the power-relations within which bis narrative operates. The bighly opinionated and contentious babu contrasts with the amiable and likable Kim who is well-suited to one day command natives such as the babu bimself. By making the babu ridiculous despite bis intelligence and qualifications, Kipling strives to show that the Oriental is inherently inferior and even bis education cannot bring bim at par with the colonizer. Hence, as opposed to Kim's education that is favourable to the empire, Kipling dismisses the babu's knowledge of anthropology, medicine, English and Western training as a "monstrous hybridism of East and West. "5 His education does not make him Kim's equal but bis "Other," reducing bim to a representative of the class of the native elite who were used as "interpreters between ... [the British] and the millions whom [they] ... govem[ed]."6 It does not allow bim the status of a lJGpling, 169. 21bid., 217. 3Angrezi is the Hindustani term for the English language. 4Kipling, 216. 51bid., 341. 6niomas Babington Macaulay, "Indian Education," in Prose ami Poetry (Cambridge, 1952), 729. sahib, but relegates him to the position of an ally to support the rulers in maintaining control over the masses. The babu, thus, is assigned, in Gramscian terms, within a class of educated people that the British controlled by manipulation via the assertion of "intellectual and moral leadership" instead of direct military coercion, in order to secure their consent · for cultural domination.1 And indeed Kipling succeeds. For, he even supplants the babu' s own consciousness with an image of himself that has been constructed by Kipling. Hurree babu describes himself to Kim in precisely the way that Kipling would want him described: "I am only Babu showing off my English to you. All we Babus talk English to show off."2 Such self-representation by Hurree babu represents a negation of the Indian intellectual, presented · through a direct antithesis to the "high" standards that the colonizers' language upholds. Cultural hegemony, as Said says, functions from "the idea of European identity as a superior one in comparison with all non­European peoples and cultures. "3 Kipling reiterates European superiority over the so-called native backwardness by manipulating the babu into believing and living bis inferiority. However, there is more at stake for Kipling to ridicule the babu. lt is well to remember that the babu knows how to survey maps and locate the strategic importance of various geographical sites. At a time when Britain was competing with Russia to establish her own supremacy as a superpower, it is Hurree babu and not Kim who is able to foil the Russian intruders' attempt to negotiate a diplomatic agreement with the Afghan kings; and again Hurree babu is the one who manages to obtain the maps from the Russian spies. 4 It is the babu who educates Kim on the importance of maps and "the art of science and mensuration [ which was] ... more important than Wordsworth or the eminent authors Burke and Hare ...."5 For this knowledge, Kipling dislikes the babu. Because it is an instance of the colonized teaching the colonizer about the 1For a discussion on "hegemony theory" see Antonio Gramsci, Selectionsfrom the Prison Notebooks ofAntonio Gramsci (London, 1971). 2Kipling, 83. 3said, Orientalism, 1. 41n the nineteenth century, Russia was trying to establish relations with the various Afghan rulers in an attempt to challenge England's supremacy in the region. To ward off the Russian threat, British rulers also attempted to extend their frontier into Afghanistan. According to Percival Spear the Afghan kings preferred their own independence to British or Russian rule. The Oxford History o/Modem India: 1740-1947 (Oxford: 1be Oarendon Press, 1965). 5Kipling, 167-68. geographical territory that the colonizers have set out to conquer, which represents a reversa! of the colonial power-dynamics. In one sense Hurree babu fulfills here the function that underlay the colonial motive of enforcing an Anglicized education on the natives. This function, as Gauri Vishwanathan in her study on the politics of educational and cultural policy on India, points out, was to educate a segment of the traditional ruling class of Indians "to support them in maintaining control of the natives under the guise of a liberal education."1 The support would be provided by having the educated Indians interpret the native culture for the administrators in a language that belonged to the rulers. That these motives formed the basis of an Anglicized education policy for the lndian colony is evident in the infamous claim that Macaulay made in bis "Minute on Indian Education:" It is impossible for us, with our limited means, to attempt to educate the body of the people. We must at present do our best to form a class who may be interpreted between us and the millions whom we govem; a class of persons, Indian in blood and colour, but English in taste, in opinions, in morals and in intellect. 2 With his knowledge of anthropology, of maps, Wordsworth, Shakespeare, mensuration, etc., the babu becomes a Macaulayan interpreter for Kim in the novel. However, because of his knowledge and educational acumen, the babu can also become a deterrent to Kipling's imperialist ideology anda threat to the Raj. Therefore, Hurree babu becomes an instrument of fear for therulers-knowledge of the colonizer can well become an instrument for the educated Indian to lash back at the latter. For Hurree babu is in every sense a brown sahib who, as Hurree babu himself tells Kim, is "a teacher of the alphabet. ... [and has] learned ali the wisdom of the Sahibs."3 And like a sahib, Hurree babu helps Kim in the "great game." But for Kipling, such knowledge is also dangerous. Besides undermining Kim's authority, it also .threatens the colonial presence in India loauri Vishwanathan, "Currying Favor: The Politics of British Educational and Cultural Policy in India, 1813-1854," Social Texts 19-20 (1988): 95. 2Thomas Babington Macaulay, "Minute on Indian Education," in Selected Writings, ed. John Clive (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1972), 249. 3Kipling, 217. through potential attacks on the rulers in their own language. Hurree Chander's knowledge can thus prove detrimental to the Raj. According to Asbis Nandy, Kipling recognized in utter disgust that if the colonizers could make use of the Orientals for more effective administration, then even the Indians ''could use the Occident for their own purposes."1 He was aware that even the "crafty babus" knew how to use the white man. The full implications of what Nandy says, are discernible, as Nandy himself realized, most vividly in the following description by Duncan M. Derrett: lt was supposed, and the author of this paper used to suppose along with bis elders and betters, that lndians had learnt English ways and values as they had learnt the English language, and that, as a race of would-be-parrots they "have done remarkably well ...." One perceived with pained surprise the conflict between profession and performance. lndians trained almost exclusively in Western arts and sciences reacted as irredeemable orientals in any crisis. They enforced this feeling again and again by their lack of confidence when faced with a new problem, their pathetic desire for foreign advice (wbich they would shelve when they had paid for it), and their "going through the motions" like a tight­ rope walker who walks bis rope for the sake of walking it, or like a somnambulist, avoiding desperate accidents but unable to say why . . . . Very late in the day the present writer woke up to what he believes to be the fact, namely that lndian tradition has been "in charge" throughout, and that English ideas and English ways, like the English language, have been used for Indian purposes. That, in fact, it is the British who were manipulated, the British who were the silly somnambulists. My lndian brother is not a brown Englishman, he is an Indian who has learned to move around in my drawing room, and will move around in it so long as it suits bim for bis own purposes. And when he adopts my ideas he does so to suit bimself, and retains them so far and as long as it suits bim. 2 lNandy, 77. 2Quoted in Nandy, 77. Hence, Kipling mak:es it bis mission to locate authority in Kim and assign a new subject-position to bis "Other." Clearly a bright man, the babu is, therefore, portrayed, in Said's words, as . almost always funny, or gauche, or somehow caricatura! not because he is incompetent or inept in bis work-on the contrary he is exactly the opposite-but because he is not wbite ....1 These antithetical yet unequal constructions of Kim and the babu produce an uneven exchange of what Said in Orientalism calls the political (imperial), intellectual (through Kim's education), cultural (portrayed in Kim's superior tastes and values) and moral power (with ideas about what Kim can understand and do better than the babu). Indeed, if Kipling believed, as he argued, that East and West can never meet in India, then he mak:es sure that in Kim they don't. Despite the similarities that exist between Kim and Hurree babu, there exists a huge gulf between the two that cannot only never be bridged, but one which renders the native to a position of subordinacy. Interestingly, however, to represent Kim's authority Kipling needs the educated babu. Only by virtue of defining himself in antithesis to this educated Other can Kipling assert Kim's authority. Hence, even as he spurns him, the babu becomes indispensable to bis narrative. As an Other, he embodies the image of what Kim as an Englishman can and never wilVshould be. In this sense the babu becomes a reminder of what Kim is and ought to remain-a sahib who must "never forget that ... [he] is a sahib; and that sorne day ... [he] will command natives." BIBLIOGRAPHY Allen, Charles, ed. Plain Tales From the Raj. Images of British India in the Twentieth Century. Andre Deutsch: British Broadcasting Corporation, 1975.._______ ____ __ . ~-"Survivors of the Raj, Survivors of the Empire: ( ~~a~~~the Colonial and Post-colonial Encounters," Ph.D. ) ------------~~~: ·_~niversity of Texas, May 1993. ·-·-f:v). ~~/ " _.../ · •said, "Kim," 52. Bellippa, K.C. "The Meaning of Rudyard Kipling's Kim," Joumal ofCommonwealth Literature, 16, No. 1 (1991): 151-157. Crook, William, ed. Hobson-Jobson. A Glossary ofAnglo-lndian Colloquial Words and Phrases and of Kindred Terms, Etymological, Historical, Geographical and Discursive. New York: Humanities Press, 1968 (1903). Eagleton, Terry. Literary Theory. An Introduction. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1983. Gramsci, Antonio. Selections From the Prison Notebooks of Antonio Gramsci. London, 1971 Guha:..Thakurta, Tapati. The Making of a New 'lndia.n' Art. Artists, Aesthetics and Nationalism in Bengal, c. 1850­1920. Great Britain: Cambridge University Press, 1992. Jamiluddin, K. The Tropic Sun: Rudyard Kipling and the Raj. Lucknow: Lucknow University, 1974. Kipling, Rudyard. Kim. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991. Macaulay, Thomas Babington. Prose and Poetry. Cambridge, 1952. ---. "Minute on Indian Education," Selected Writings. Edited by John Clive. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1972. McClure, John A. Kipling and Conrad: the Colonial Fiction. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1981. Moss, Robert F. Rudyard Kipling and the Fiction ofAdolescence. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1982. Nandy, Ashis. The Intimate Enemy. Loss and Recovery of Self under Colonialism. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1983. Niranjana, Tejaswini. Siting Translation, History, Post­Structuralism and the Colonial Context. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992. SOUTH ASIA GRADUATE RESEARCH JOURNAL Orwell, George. Burmese Days. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1975. Said, Edward. Orientalism. New York: Random House, 1978. ---. "Kim, The Pleasures of Imperialism," Raritan, 7(1987): 27-74. Spear, ~ercival. The Oxford History ofModem India: 1740-1947. Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1965. Vishwanathan, Gauri. "Currying Favor: The Politics of British Educational and Cultural Policy in India, 1813-1854," Social Texts V. 19, 20 (1988): 85-105. Wilson, Edmund. "The K.ipling that Nobody Read." In Kipling's Mind and Art., ed. Andrew Rutherford. California: Stanford University Press, 1964. Wright, Amold. Baboo English as 'Tis Writ Being Curiosities of Indian Joumalism. London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1891. Wurgaft, Lewis D. The Imperial Imagination. Magic and Myth in Kipling's India. Connecticut: Wesleyan University Press, 1983. Gandhi: Patron Saint of the lndustrialist Leah Renold For over a quarter of a century Mohandas K. Gandhi maintained a close friendship with G. D. Birla., a wealthy industrialist, who was Gandhi's chief patron. This article explores their relationship which reveals some of the less well­known aspects of Gandhi. Despite popular perceptions of Gandhi, he was neither a social nor economic revolutionary. uring the years of the Indian independence movement, a leading Indian industrialist, G. D. Birla, was Mahatma an hi's most generous financia! supporter. While Birla has been described as a devotee of Gandhi, the relationship between the two men was more one of collaboration than of one-sided devotion. Gandhi's campaigns were made possible by drawing from Birla's vast financia! resources while Birla benefited not only from the social and religious prestige which his association with Gandhi brought him, but his economic role and position as a wealthy capitalist was strengthened and glorified. Gandhi gave his blessing to the abundant wealth of Birla with his teaching on trusteeship, a concept which asserted the right of the rich to accumulate and maintain wealth, as long as the wealth was used to benefit society. Gandhi apparently borrowed the concept of trusteeship from the writings of the American millionaire, Andrew Camegie, who had used trusteeship to promote capitalism over socialism. The close relationship between Gandhi and G. D. Birla did not escape scrutiny. B. R. Ambedkar, a leader of the untouchable castes, accused Gandhi of pretending to support the cause of the oppressed while actually supporting the forces of social conservatism.1 Lord Linlithgow, the Viceroy of India, questioned the Gandhi-Birla connection. Linlithgow, who had blamed Gandhi Leah Renold she is a first-year doctoral student in history at the University of Texas at Austin. 1 For further discussion see B. R. Ambedkar, Gandhi and Gandhiism (Jullandar: Bheem Patrika Publications, 1970). Sagar: South Asia Graduate Research Journal 1, No. 1(May J994): 16-38 © remains with the author. 16 SOUTH ASIA GRADUATE RESEARCH JOURNAL for the sabotage and violence of the Quit India Movement of 1942, had suspicions that Birla, as representing big business, was actually the hidden hand behind the violence. I Investigations by the govemments of both colonial and independent India into Birla' s economic and political association with Gandhi and the Congress failed to bring criminal indictment.2 Nevertheless, the relationship between the two men had consequences for the future of India and deserves attention. Gandhi and Birla, both strong defenders of social conservatism, shared objectives that were not brought out openly. In the shadow of Gandhi's public persona and popular teachings, Gandhi and Birla were able to weave conservative policies into the social, political, and economic fabric of independent India. Ghanshyam Das Birla (1894-1983) was from a Marwari merchant family of Pilani in Rajasthan.3 His grandfather, Seth Shivanarain Birla, set out for Bombay on a camel in 1862. In Bombay, Shivanarain began trading in seeds and bullion. His only son, Baldeodas, joined him in the business at age thirteen in 1875. The Birla' s trading business thrived and the family established an export-import business in Calcutta. In Bombay the family moved into trading in cotton, wheat, rape-seed and silver. G. D. began his apprenticeship in the family business at age thirteen. G. D. was sixteen when he started his own brokerage. G. D.'s business took him into contact with the British. He was offended by their racial arrogance. Birla wrote, "1 was not allowed to use the lift to go up to their offices nor their benches while waiting to see them. 1 smarted under these insults and this created in me a political interest."4 When G. D. was in his early twenties he found himself a wealthy man. World W ar 1 had produced great profits in his trading business. He was also a wanted man. G. D., in his frustration with the British had become involved with the Bara Bazaar Y outh League, a group that engaged in terrorist activities against the British. Birla denies participating in terrorism, but in 1916 he was 1 Linlithgow to all Provincial Governors, 2 November 1942, in Nicholas Mansergh, Reassertion ofAuthority, Gandhi's Fast and the Succession to the Viceroyalty: 21September1942-12 June 1943, Vol. 3, The Transfer of Power 1942.,-7 (London: Her Majesty's Stationary Office, 1971) 190-91. 2Margaret Herdeck and Gita Piramal, lndia's Jndustrialists , Vol. 1 (Washington, D. C.: Three Continents Press, 1985), 73. 3Birla's biographer Alan Ross provides the following information on Birla's life in The Emissary: G. D. Birla, Gandhi and Jndependence (London: Collins Harvill, 1986). 4a. D. Birla, In the Shadow of the Mahatma (Bombay: Vakils, Feffer and Simons, 1968), xiv. accused of stealing a shipment of annaments. He went into hiding for severa! months until friends could have the charges dropped against him. Birla, restored to his business, decided to steer clear of terrorism. He would meet the British on the playing fields of business. There were British businessmen though who did not want him to play. When the Birlas attempted to open a jute factory in Calcutta, a British competitor started buying up ali the land adjacent to the plot on which the Birlas were to build their factory, forcing the Birlas to move elsewhere. The Birlas were not deterred. G. D. and his brothers prospered in the jute business, as well as in their other enterprises. At the beginning of World W ar 11, the Birlas were worth $3.3 million. By the end of the war, they had holdings of $20 million.1 Before independence in 1947 the Birlas had 20 companies. Today they own 175 businesses and are prominent in textiles, sugar, jute, automobiles, bicycles, boilers, calcium carbides, industrial alcohol, linoleum, woolens, flax, ghee, margarine, and also starch, confectionery, banking, and insurance. The Birlas owned severa! newspapers including the Hindustan Times anda large interest in radio. In the summer of 1993, the Birla fortune was $1.5 billion.2 G. D. Birla's political activities were a factor in the success of the Birla empire. G. D. Birla's association with Mahatma Gandhi began in 1915. Gandhi had just retumed to India from South Africa as a hero for championing the rights of lndian workers. In Calcutta, where Gandhi was to make a speech, Birla arranged a grand reception for him. Birla related his first impressions. of Gandhi: At this first meeting he appeared rather queer . . . . 1 was rather puzzled about him when 1 first saw him, and then gradually 1carne to know him . . . . He gave us a new conception of politics. We felt him a saint as well as a politician . . . . That meeting was thirty­two years ago, and since then 1 have been associated with him and have been giving him such service as 1 can.3 The service that Birla provided amounted to supplying practically every financia! need Gandhi brought to him. Gandhi had other 1 Herdeck and Piramal, 67. 2Michael Schuman, "The Birla Family," Forbes (1993): 88. 3Margaret Bourke-Wlúte, Halfway To Freedom (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1949), 64. SOUTH ASIA GRADUATE RESEARCH JOURNAL sources of income, including the assistance of the industrialist Jamnalal Bajaj, as well as the accumulated donations from multitudes of poor supporters, but Birla was the major financier. Birla's brothers also contributed to Gandhi, but sometimes G. D.'s gifting was seen by them as an extravagance.1 Birla rarely refused any financia! request on Gandhi' s part and Gandhi' s requests were numerous. The following request from Gandhi was not atypical: My thirst for money is simply unquenchable. I need at least Rs. 2,00,000-for khadi, untouchability and education. The dairy work makes another Rs. 50,000. Then there is the Ashram expenditure. No work remains unfinished for want of funds, but God gives after severe trials. This also satisfies me. Y ou can give as you like for whatever work you have faith in.2 With Birla' s beneficence Gandhi was able carry on his massive political campaigns, as well as to maintain a semblance of poverty and simplicity in lifestyle, while enjoying almost limitless financia! resources. While Gandhi appeared to share the living standards of the typical Indian villager in his ashram, the annual expenditure of his ashram was 100,000 rupees,3 a considerable sum in pre­Independence rupees. In a similar vein, Gandhi was known for his humility in insisting on travelling by third-class trains. To get a seat in a crowded third-class car was difficult, so when Gandhi and his entourage travelled, the entire third-class car, cars, and sometimes even the whole train was paid for to ensure Gandhi's comfort.4 When Gandhi attempted to make a symbolic action by temporarily moving into an untouchable colony in Delhi, half the residents were moved out before his visit and the shacks of the residents tom down and neat little huts constructed in their place. The entrances and windows of the huts were screened with matting, and during the length of Gandhi's visit, were kept sprinkled with water to provide a cooling effect. The local temple was white-washed and new brick paths were laid. In an interview with Margaret Bourke-White, a 1 Herdeck and Piramal, 77. 2Gandhi to G. D. Birla, 10 January 1927, G. D. Birla, In the Shadow ofthe Mahatma, 35. 3Judith M. Brown, Gandhi: Prisoner of Hope, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989), 318. 4Bourke-White, 88-89 photo-joumalist for Life magazine, one of the men in charge of Gandhi' s visit, Dinanath Tiang of the Birla Company, explained the improvemertts in the untouchable colon y, "We ha ve cared for Gandbiji's comfort for the last twenty years."1 Gandhi put forward the illusory image of poverty and simplicity while he was actually living very comfortably. We can only speculate whether this image-making was political posturing on Gandbi's part or whether the amenities were forced on bim by the practicalities of operating a massive movement. When Gandhi was questioned by the joumalist Louis Fischer about the percentage of his budget which was funded by the rich, Gandhi told him practically ali of it was, adding, "In tbis ashram, for instance, we could live much more poorly than we do and spend less money. But we do not and the money comes from our rich friends. "2 Gandhi was not oblivious to the expense laid out for bim. We can also only speculate on whether certain statements Gandhi made were representative of bis opinions or whether they, too, could have been political tactics. Gandhi was well known for espousing seemingly contradictory positions. As a result it is a difficult task to decide what Gandhi's true positions were. For example, Birla criticized Gandhi for bis public support of the Swaraj party. Birla did not care for the party due to its violent propensities.3 Gandhi responded: 1 shall talk to you about the Swaraj party when we meet. 1 do not want you to change your view because by justifying your views 1 seek to justify my position as well.4 Apparently Gandbi had reasons for publicly seeming to support a party which he admitted in private he was against. Similarly, Gandbi voiced radical views against capitalism and industrialism in bis public speeches and writing: 1 lbid., l lf. 2Gandhi to Louis Fischer, 6 June 1942, Louis Fischer, A Week With Mr. Gandhi, (London: Afien and Unwin, 1943) cited by B. R. Ambedkar, Gandhi and Gandhiism (Jullandar: Bheem Patrika Publications, 1970), 10. 3Birla had earlier written to Gandhi encouraging him to not worry about offending the Swaraj party. Birla writes that the Swarajists were espousing violence: "At the Sirajganj Conference the Swarajists have openly declared themselves in favour of violence and have therefore tom the mask of non­ violence off their faces." Gandhi to Birla, 11 June 1924; G. D. Birla, Bapu, 7-8. 4Gandhi to Birla, 16 December 1925, Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, Vol.XXIX, 324. SOUTH ASIA GRADUATE RESEARCH JOURNAL Industrialism is, I am afraid, going to be a curse for mankind . . . . Industrialism depends entirely on your capacity to exploit.1 To change to industrialism is to court disaster ... The one great change to make is to discard foreign cloth, and reinstate the ancient cottage industry of handspinning. We must thus restore our ancient and healthgiving industry if we would resist industrialism. I do not fight shy of capitalism. I fight capitalism ... I do picture a time when the rich will spum to enrich themselves at the expense of the 2 poor .. .. These radical positions do not seem to correspond to other elements in Gandhi's life and thought, especially his close relationship with the industrialists. Margaret Bourke-White, having read Gandhi's seemingly revolutionary writings, was very puzzled to learn that for a quarter of a century Gandhi had spent much of his time living in G. D. Birla's palatial mansion in Delhi, where he was later assassinated. Margaret Bourke-White's investigations into working conditions at one of Birla's milis in Delhi revealed a equally puzzling attitude on Gandhi's part to Birla's labour practices. Bourke-White was present when Gandhi was fasting in December 1947. During his fast, all the trade-unions sent delegations with peace pledges and pleas for Gandhi to end the f ast. One trade-union, the largest union in India, did not send delegates. The textile workers union, whose chief employer was Birla, was noticeably absent. On December 8, shortly before Gandhi was to be gin his fast, workers at Birla' s textile mill in Delhi went to the manager asking for a cost of living bonus to meet rising prices. When their requests were answered with gunfire and rifle butts, the workers sent a delegation of five workers to see Gandhi at the Birla House. According to Bourke­White, Gandhi refused to see them. 3 On an earlier occasion, the workers at Birla's Delhi mill wrote to Gandhi directly to complain of lM. K. Gandhi, Young India, 12 November 1931. 2M. K. Gandhi, Young India, 7 October 1926. 3Bourke-White, 56--57. bad working conditions. 1 Instead of answering the letter or questioning Birla about the matter, Gandhi forwarded the letter to Birla. Birla responded by telling Gandhi that the workers were lying.2 Margaret Bourke-White visited Birla's mills and found conditions to be appalling. The squalid living quarters Birla provided for his workers were no better than those at mills belonging to owners who were not devotees to Gandhi. She wondered why Gandhi never visited the mills, as it would have been easy for him to do so.3 In none of the voluminous correspondence between Birla and Gandhi is Gandhi critica! of the working conditions in Birla's mills. Birla once defensively wrote Gandhi, not in response to rebuke from Gandhi, but to reports that conditions were bad in his mills. Birla tells Gandhi that he is improving conditions in one factory and hopes to do so in others. He blames any atrocities at his mills on the mill managers, claiming he cannot control them.4 While it would seem natural for the Mahatma to take an interest in Birla's workers, Gandhi refrained from criticizing or questioning Birla personally. In other cases, Gandhi did not shy away from public criticism of companions who did not abide by his views. He frequently complained about his longtime friend Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya. Gandhi had called for a boycott of ali British education. Malaviya, the founder of Banaras Hindu University, refused to comply. In one of many attacks against Malaviya' s position, Gandhi accused him of the greatest adharma ( unrighteousness ). 1 do not want to go into why this Empire in Satanic. But an Empire which has been guilty of the atrocities in the Punjab, which killed children six or seven years old . . . to study in the schools of such an Empire is, to my mind, the greatest adharma of ali. To Panditji, an elder brother to me, this seems to be dharma.5 lA. C. Nanda of Textile Mazoor Sabha to Gandhi, 14 November 1944, G. D. Birla, Bapu: A Unique Association, Vol. 4 (Bombay: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, 1977), 344-46. 2Birla to Pyarelal, 30 November 1944, Ibid., 347-8. 3Margaret Bourke-White, 49-58. 4Birla to Gandhi, October 1929, Bapu: A Unique Association, 128-29. 5M. K. Gandhi, Collected Works ofMahatma Gandhi, 28. SOUTH ASIA GRADUATE RESEARCH JOURNAL Though Gandhi continued to say he respected Malaviya, in reality there was a break in their friendship. In Gandhi's thirty-two year friendship with Birla, he never publicly criticized Birla' s actions. Gandhi at times would make suggestions to Birla, but if Birla failed to follow them, Gandhi did not complain. Gandhi did not have the upper hand in the relationship. He considered Birla one of his mentors and would act on his advice.1 In Gandhi' s letters to Birla he does not lecture him, except with regard to dietary matters. Their correspondence is remarkably free from spiritual concems, quite unlike the writing which Gandhi puts forward to the public. In Birla's collection of his correspondence with Gandhi, one letter by Gandhi stands out in addressing spiritual matters. 2 Birla writes that he cannot remember the context or for whom the letter was meant. Though the letters between Gandhi and Birla are very amicable, the subject matter concems mostly mundane aff airs of finances and strategy. When Gandhi disagreed with Birla, he found a way of avoiding argument. In one instance, Gandhi publicly complained that people were buying mill-produced khadi under the mistaken impression that it was homespun. Birla understood this as an indirect criticism of his textile industry, which was producing milled khadi., and gave quick retort to Gandhi's complaint: Do you not think that you are unnecessarily exaggerating the results of the khadi propaganda? ... Y ou could find this out yourself if you send hawkers with mill-made as well as shuddha khadi who may ask sorne villagers to select their choice after explaining the latter properly about the quality as well as the price of the cloth, I have not the least doubt that if you made the experiment you will find that 90% of the consumers will pick up the cheaper and more lasting of the two stuffs. Mill khadi is popular because people find it cheap, durable besides it being swadeshi make. 3 l"God has given me mentors, and 1 regard you as one of them." Gandhi to Birla, 20 July 1924, Bapu, Vol. l, 10. 2Letter Without Date, Bapu: A Unique Association, Vol. l, 167. 3o. D. Birla to Gandhi, 11 April 1928, Bapu: A Unique Association, 92. Gandhi answered a week later: "I got both your letters. But even today there is not time for reply."1 Gandhi never allowed the khadi issue to become an object of contention between himself and Birla. Instead he found a place for mills in the khadi movement. Later Gandhi wrote to Birla: 1 am convinced that the boycott will be successful only through khadi. This does not mean that the mills have no place in the scheme at ali. The mills can have their deserved place by recognizing the worth of khadi. The conception of God envelopes ali Gods.2 Gandhi was clearly making concessions to Birla in incorporating textile mills into his homespun khadi movement. Gandhi was as much interested in pleasing his patron as Birla was in pleasing his saint. A useful model for examining the give and take of the Gandhi-Birla relationship is that of the patron and publicist as presented by the historian C. A. Bayly.3 Bayly examines the relationship between wealthy patrons and leaders of reform movements such as the Hindi movement and the cow-protection movement in the late 1880s. Bayly uses for example the patronage of Madan Mohan Malaviya, a leader of the Hindu revivalist movement, the Hindu Mahasabha, by the wealthy magnate Ram Charan Das.4 Bayly holds that the goal of the patron-publicist relationship was not exclusively concemed with protection of the patron' s financia! interests: Two forms of relationship can be seen between patron and publicist, as also between various levels of political activity. One was the relationship between patron and publicist designed to protect material interests, or to promote them within new political arenas-the vakil relationship. The other concemed the protection or enhancement of particular conceptions of status conceived within the bounds of lGandhi to Birla, 27 April 1928, Ibid., 93. 2aandhi to Birla, 28 April 1930, Ibid., 139. 3c. A. Bayly, "Patrons and Politics in Northem India," Modem Asian Studies, Vol. 7, Part 3, July 1973, 349-388. 4Ibid., 368ff. revived Hinduism-the dharmik relationsbip. It is difficult to separate them. I Desire for enhanced religious standing in the community, wbich affected all avenues of social interactions, from marriage arrangements to business deals, was an important element of the patron-publicist relationsbip. Religious patronage was a means to enhance social and economic status in the community. A venues of religious patronage went beyond the traditional practices of temple construction and maintenance, feeding of brahma.pas, sponsoring of festivals, etc. With the advent of religious reform movements in the 1800's, sponsoring such causes as the Hindi movement or the cow­protection movement became a religious and status-enhancing act. Elements of sorne of the earlier religious reform movements, such as the use of the vernacular and revived cultural identity, as well as the political undertones and organizational capabilities of the movements, later played a role in the grówth of nationalism. These causes were sponsored by the wealthy, whose economic and social standing profited therefrom.2 Later, the relationsbips of patrons and publicists became an important element of Congress.3 Aspects of the Birla-Gandhi relationsbip can be described by Bayly's model. Birla's fame and social standing did not rest on bis raw wealth alone. Birla did not neglect to develop bis reputation for generous religious patronage. He is well known for bis religious gifting, particularly in the construction of magnificent temples. Birla admitted that he did not construct the temples from personal piety, "Frankly speaking, we build temples but we don't believe in temples. We build temples to spread a kind of religious mentality."4 Birla's financia! support of the publicist Gandhi, as a form of religious patronage, would serve bim well. The mere association with Gandhi conferred on Birla a measure of Gandhi' s religious stature. It is easy to see that Birla's generous patronage of Gandhi could have been perceived as a sign of devotion and Gandhi's acceptance of that patronage as a sign of approval of Birla. Gandbi' s role in the independence movement was as much religious as it was political. He was the Mahatma, the Great Soul. Gandhi captured the hearts and imaginations of his fellow lndians by drawing upon a wealth of traditional Hindu symbolism. The 1lbid., 368. 21bid., 365. 31bid., 360. 4o. D. Birla in interview with Margaret Bourke-White; Margaret Bourke-White, 63. political entity that Gandhi called for would be a ramrajya, a kingdom likened unto that of the righteous Lord Rama. The British, Gandhi often said, were the equivalent of the evil demon Ravana, who Lord Rama and his entourage defeated. Gandhi, not only discarded his Western garb and lifestyle to appear to identify with the Indian masses, but also to take upon himself the attitude of the brahmacari, the holy renunciant. He renounced material possessions, sexual relations, and held to a strict vegetarian diet as part of his regime of holiness. At the same time he was the guiding inspiration to a massive political movement. According to Bayly's model, Gandhi would be the exemplar publicist. As Birla's publicist, Gandhi was able to deftly weave Birla's interests in to a seemingly spiritual context. A blatant example of this is found in Gandhi's support for Birla's position against government regulation of prices. On severa! occasions Gandhi brought up the need for decontrol in his sermons during his evening prayer meetings. l Gandhi also allowed the issue of decontrol to be promoted in his newspaper Harijan, a publication that was supposedly devoted to the needs of the oppressed. As part of the campaign for decontrol, Gandhi's son, Devadas, as managing editor of the Hindustan Times, Birla's chief New Delhi newspaper, also published an editorial calling for decontrols. 2 When Margaret Bourke-White questioned Birla about decontrols, he responded: "I never was in favor of controls. 1 am not built that way. The greatest virtue of capitalism is free competition."3 He went on to add that since the recent decontrol of sugar prices, the price of sugar had gone down. Gandhi followed this line of argument in his prayer meetings. Bourke-White' s investigation of decontrol found that it was true that the price of sugar went down for the for the wealthy, who could buy on the black market. As for the man on the street, the price of sugar had doubled.4 Though in theory prices could go down for poor consumers with decontrol, in this case, it was the wealthy consumers and industrial producers who prospered. Gandhi did not have anything against wealth. He was not inclined towards socialism and taught that there should be no forced redistribution of wealth in India. Gandhi called for social justice and alleviation of suffering, but believed that change brought about by laandhi, Birla House, 21 December 1947, Harijan, Vol. XI, 1973, 477. 21bid., 66. 3fuid. 4fuid. SOUTH ASIA GRADUATE RESEARCH JOURNAL govemment intervention would be ineffective. Change must first come in the individual heart. The wealthy should not be coerced in to sharing their wealth; they should do it voluntarily. Gandhi taught that the wealthy should be trustees of their wealth, using only what was necessary for their own use and distributing their surplus for the benefit of society. Gandhi's idea is very much like the ideas of trusteeship that were being expounded in England and America in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Andrew Camegie, a self-made American millionaire, had published a series of articles between 1886 and 1899 that sought to justify private wealth in the industrial society increasingly burdened with social concem and unrest. Although sorne conservative Christian spokesmen had condemned corporate oppression, financia! dishonesty, and growing poverty, many American and British religious leaders supporting the capitalistic economic system saw these social realities as prices that must be paid for progress. Camegie in his essays set "in authoritative form the ideas that many Christian authors and most of the church press had been preaching for at least a generation."1 In England the articles were reprinted and commented upon in the Fortnightly Review, Nineteenth Century, Saturday Review, and Pall Mall Gazette. The articles received much attention, including a review and praise by the British Prime Minister, William E. Gladstone. Camegie believed that the articles were better-received in England, because England was "more clearly faceto face with socialist questions." Camegie's articles offered an altemative to socialism. He stressed individual effort and responsibility instead of govemment control. He urged the wealthy to adopt the principie of trusteeship: This then, is held to be the duty of the man of wealth: To set an example of modest, unostentatious living, shunning display or extravagance; to provide moderately for the legitimate wants of those dependent upon him; and, after doing so, to consider ali surplus revenues which come to him simply as trust funds, which he is called upon to administer ... the man of wealth thus becoming the mere trustee and agent for his poorer brethren, bringing to their service his superior wisdom, experience, and ability to administer, doing for them 1 Henry F. May, Protestant Churches and Industrial America (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1949), 132. better than what they would or could do for themselves.l Gandbi was a student in England from 1888 to 1891, at the time sorne of Carnegie's articles were published. As the articles were a subject of sorne controversy at the time they were published and afterwards, it is possible that Gandhi was exposed to these ideas that served to promote capitalism over socialism. Gandhi' s teachings are remarkably similar to Carnegie's: The rich man will be left in possession of his wealth, of wbich he will use what he reasonably requires for bis personal needs and will act as a trustee for the remainder to be used for society. 2 Carnegie made a list of worthy causes on wbich surplus wealth should be spent wbich included educational institutions, hospitals, churches, etc.3 To provide for the required surplus wealth, Carnegie called for unbridled capitalism: He who manages the sbips, the mines, the factories, cannot withdraw bis capital, for this is the tool with wbich he works wonders; nor can he restrict bis operations, for the cessation of growth and improvement in any industrial undertaking marks the beginning of decay.4 Birla's lifestyle and actions could almost be used to illustrate Carnegie's ideas. Birla was known for bis unostentatious living and pbilanthropy. Rajendra Prasad, the first President of India, in the foreword to G. D. Birla's book In the Shadow of the Mahatma, puts forward Gandhi' s version of trusteeship and points to G. D. Birla as being a worthy trustee. The beneficiaries of Birla's patronage curiously match Carnegie's list of the institutions deserving of surplus wealth: 1 Andrew Carnegie, The Gospel of Wealth (Cambridge: Belknap Press ofHarvard, (1900) 1%2), 25. 2Gandhi as cited in Raj Krishna's "The Nehru-Gandhi Polarity and Economic Policy" in Gandhi and Nehru by B. R. Nanda, P. C. Joshi, and Raj Krishna, (Delhi: Oxford UniversitY Press, 1979), 55. 3camegie, 29 ff. 4Ibid., 72. SOUTH ASIA GRADUATE RESEARCH JOURNAL It has been one of Gandhiji's teachings that those who are blessed with wealth should regard themselves as Trustees and treat their wealth as trust property for the benefit of others. The large number of institutions which are to be seen in so many parts of the country in the shape of educational institutions or religious temples and Dharmshalas or Hospitals with their apex at Pilani and Delhi are testimony to the fact that Birlas have imbibed this part of Gandhiji's teachings in no small manner. They have earned abundantly and likewise spent also generously and abundantly on every good cause.1 Gandhi claimed that his idea of trusteeship was taken from th~ first verse of the tsa Upapi~ad.2 All this, whatsoever moves on the earth, is to be hidden in the Lord (the Self). When thou hast surrended ali this, then thou mayest enjoy. Do not covet the wealth of others. Perhaps by making such a claim Gandhi hoped to give credence to the concept of trusteeship in the eyes of the Indians. Attributing the basis of contemporary ideas or practices to ancient texts, even while the connection is spurious, is not an uncommon · means of legitimization. This is not to say that it was impossible for Gandhi's idea of trusteeship to be original or inspired by Hindu tradition. The Manu smrti, for instance, contains a verse in a section on the duties of castes, which encourages the vaiSya caste to accumulate wealth for the benefit of others: He [a vaisya] should expend the greatest effort in justly increasing his goods, and he should also take pains to bestow at least food on all creatures. Manu smrti DC 333.3 1 Rajendra Prasad in foreword of G. D. Birla's In the Shadow of the Mahatma, vii. ' 2Pyarelal, Mahatma Gandhi: The Last Phase, 624. 3ordinances ofManu, translated by Arthur Cole Bumell (New Delhi: Oriental Books Reprint (1884) 1971), 303. Theoretically, the verse could be developed into the idea of trusteeship. But Gandhi did not bring forward such an explicit text on which to clairn trusteeship was founded. Judging frorn the popularity of Camegie's writings and the sirnultaneity of Gandhi's stay in England with the publication of Carnegie's "Gospel of Wealth," it is highly probable that Gandhi borrowed frorn Camegie's ideas on trusteeship. Gandhi' s first application of trusteeship was with regard to Britain's trusteeship of the colonies well before Gandhi called for independence.1 While Gandhi changed his rnind about the ability of the British to be beneficent trustees, he did not change his rnind about the trusteeship of capitalists in India. Gandhi's support for capitalists is expressed in his writing conceming industrial workers. On one hand, Gandhi suggested in Young India that rnill owners should provide the following irnprovernents for their workers: 1. The hours of labour rnust leave the workrnen sorne hours of leisure. 2. They rnust get facilities for their own education. 3. Provision should be rnade for an adequate supply of rnilk, clothing and necessary education for their children. 4. There should be sanitary dwelling for the workrnen. 5. They should be in a position to save enough to sustain thernselves during their old age. 2 In the sarne article Gandhi rnakes a strong staternent of the intellectual superiority of the capitalist over the workers: When labour comes fully to realise its strength, 1 know it can becorne more tyrannical than capital. The rnillowners will have to work dictated by labour if the latter could cornrnand the intelligence of the former. It is clear, however, that labour will never attain to that intelligence. lfit