A M SHAH

S

The main source of my article is a book, entitled in Gujarati, Azadi Jangnu Patrakaratva: Landanman Indian Sociologist (Journalism of the Freedom Struggle: Indian Sociologist in London), authored by Pandya and Pandya (2003).1 A major part of the book, however, is in English: 222 of its 304 pages (a little more than 73 per cent).2 Of these 222 pages, 192 are photoreprints of the pages of TIS, 22 of the Sedition Committee Report of 1918, and eight of KV’s widow’s will. The remaining 82 pages are in Gujarati: mainly, a biographical essay on KV and a review essay on TIS written by Pandya and Pandya. The 192 pages of TIS are divided into its 48 issues, each of four pages, published every month from January 1905 to December 1908. The format is large (13x8 inch), in two columns, and the font small. A lot of reading material is packed thus in four pages in every issue. Pandya and Pandya’s aim is to present TIS as an important document of journalism and of the history of Indian independence movement. Neither they nor, as far as I know, any other scholar has considered it a contribution to the history of sociology.

Besides Pandya and Pandya’s work, we have KV’s biography written by Indulal Yagnik (1950), which has remained the only full-length original work on KV. Yagnik (1892-1972) was a well known freedom fighter belonging to the generation next to KV’s, and a radical political leader after independence. He worked for two months during 1934 on the trunk loads of KV’s papers, including the issues of TIS, preserved with KV’s long-time friend and collaborator Sardarsinghji Rana, in Paris.3 He supplemented this material with literature available in the British Museum, and wrote the biography. This was just three or four years after KV’s death. However, the manuscript remained unpublished during British rule because of KV’s as well as Yagnik’s reputation as extremists. A friend in Bombay got it published after independence. Pandya and Pandya (2003: 5) claim that Yagnik’s biography is incomplete, and they have added some information in their essay.

KV edited TIS in London from January 1905 till at least May 1907, and then shifted to Paris. He stated in the issue of September 1907: “we left England, practically for good, during the early part of June last.” He began to edit the journal in Paris in June 1907, but announced the change of his address in the issue of September 1907. However, the journal continued to be printed in London. Pandya and Pandya (2003) inform that KV edited it in Paris for a few more years, then shifted to Geneva, and continued to edit it there. Pandya and Pandya collected the issues of January 1905 to December 1908 from several places in India and abroad with great difficulty, and reprinted them in their book. They have thus performed an important service to scholarship.

According to Yagnik (1950: 313-14), TIS of July 1914 was the last issue published in Paris. It was “a bilingual paper, the same articles being given in English and French in parallel columns”, published on the eve of KV’s migration from Paris to Geneva due to outbreak of the first world war. In the same issue, he announced that he was discontinuing the paper under pressure from the Swiss government. Yagnik (ibid: 320-21) informs that KV revived TIS in Geneva in December 1920 and continued to publish it until September 1922. Let us hope the post-1908 issues will become available in print for study sooner rather than later.

KV was born in 1857 in Mandvi, a port town in the former princely state of Kutch in Gujarat. His father Krishnadas belonged to a small caste of traders called Bhansali. [For ethnographic information on Bhansali, see Bombay Gazetteer 1901: 116.] Krishnadas, apparently a small trader, worked as a packer of cotton bales for export. KV’s mother died when he was 10. He then moved to his grandmother’s home in Bhuj, capital of Kutch. He studied in primary school and for a while in high school in

Economic and Political Weekly August 5, 2006 Bhuj. Krishnadas married another wife and they moved to Bombay. KV followed them. He studied at two prestigious high schools in Bombay: initially Wilson, and then Elphinstone. In addition, he studied Sanskrit at a ‘pathshala’. During this period, he came into contact with Swami Dayanand Saraswati, the founder of Arya Samaj, who asked him to go to a number of places in Gujarat, Maharashtra and Punjab to propagate Sanskrit, Sanskritic culture, and Arya Samaj. KV married Bhanumati, daughter of a wealthy Gujarati merchant in Bombay, in 1875.

Encouraged by Monier Williams, the eminent Oxford Indologist, during his visit to Bombay, and by Dayanand Saraswati, KV went to Oxford in 1879. He studied Sanskrit, Greek, Latin, logic, law, political economy, Bacon’s works, and some other subjects at Balliol College, and worked as an assistant with Monier Williams. He obtained an MA, lectured on Sanskrit, Gujarati and Marathi for a while, passed the first legal examination at the Inner Temple, excelled in many other academic activities, and returned to India in 1883. Due to his scholastic achievements, he was called Pandit Krishnavarma in both India and England. He went to England again to complete his study of law, and returned in 1888.

KV then worked in India for about 10 years in various positions. He was an advocate in a few courts, the dewan of the princely states of Ratlam (Madhya Pradesh) and Junagadh (Saurashtra), a member of the council of the maharaja of Udaipur (Rajasthan), a municipal councillor in Ajmer (Rajasthan), and the owner of three cotton ginning factories. While working in these positions he suffered humiliation from British authorities. Side by side, he interacted with many freedom fighters, particularly the radicals like Tilak. All these experiences led him to decide to work for India’s freedom, but he thought he could not do so while remaining in India. He states in TIS of September 1907, “Just 10 years ago, when our friend Bal Gangadhar Tilak and the Natu brothers were arrested, we decided to leave India and settle in England.” He and his wife thus left India in 1897, never to return. He died in Geneva in 1930, and his widow passed away in 1933.

TIS has a subtitle: ‘An Organ of Freedom, and Political, Social, and Religious Reform’. Its inaugural issue of January 1905 begins with the following editorial statement:

The appearance of a journal conducted by an Indian sociologist in England is an event likely to cause surprise in some quarters; but there are many weighty grounds to justify such a publication. The political relations between England and India urgently require a genuine Indian interpreter in the United Kingdom to show, on behalf of India, how Indians really fare and feel under British rule. No systematic attempt has, so far as our knowledge goes, ever been made in this country by Indians themselves to enlighten the British public with regard to the grievances, demands, and aspirations of the people of India and its unrepresented millions before the bar of public opinion in Great Britain and Ireland This journal will endeavour to inculcate the great sociological truth that “it is impossible to join injustice and brutality abroad with justice and humanity at home.” It will from time to time remind the British people that they can never succeed in being a nation of freedom and lovers of freedom so long as they continue to send out members of the dominant classes to exercise despotisms in Britain’s name upon the various conquered races that constitute Britain’s military empire. The Indian Sociologist will not be identified with any political party. It will be guided in its policy by the fundamental truths of social science, the first principle of which is that “every man has freedom to do all that he wills, provided he infringes not the equal freedom of any other man”. In discussing political, social, and religious questions, we shall frequently appeal to sociology, which, as expounded by the founder of that new and profound science, proves conclusively that “all despotisms, whether political or religious, whether of sex, of caste, or of custom, may be generalised as limitations to individuality, which it is the nature of civilisation to remove.”

of India”. Wedderburn had been a civil servant in India, and had become after retirement in England, a member of the British Committee of the Indian National Congress. (This was, it may be recalled, the first phase of the Congress, which was founded by an Englishman.) Wedderburn had gone to attend the Bombay session of the Congress as a delegate of England. KV requested him to read out the letter at the session. Wedderburn, however, did not read it out, as we learn from his letter to KV published in TIS of April 1905. The reason was that the scheme included a condition that the fellowship holder “shall not accept any post, office, emoluments, or service under the British government after his return to India”. Nevertheless, the scheme came to be known in India through the heads of some educational institutions and the editors of some newspapers to whom KV had sent copies of the scheme. Comments appreciating as well as condemning the scheme appeared in newspapers in both England and India. The fellowships were awarded from time to time, and the names of the awardees announced in TIS.

KV’s love for sociology was so great that after his death his widow gave a donation to the University of Geneva to award every year a grant of 10,000 Swiss Francs for printing an approved thesis on a subject of sociological interest (Yagnik 1958: 33233). KV was not only a political activist but also a scholar and promoter of scholarship throughout his life. In Yagnik’s words (1950: 234), he was a political propagandist as well as a philosophical historian.6

Apparently, KV had formed a large group of friends during his stay in Oxford and London who were admirers of sociology and of Spencer, and supporters of India’s struggle for independence.7 He had this group’s support in launching TIS. He stated in TIS of August 1905, “The name Indian Sociologist was suggested by Mr. P.L. Parker. Mr. Swinny and the other friends … had all kindly helped … with advice before the Indian Sociologist had its birth.”

TIS was not a journal of the kind with which the academics are familiar – not a journal of academic papers written by and for academics. Essentially, its aim was to promote the cause of India’s freedom from Britain. Most of its contents were lengthy comments on events, ideas and persons, brief articles, rejoinders to articles published in other periodicals, extracts from articles in other periodicals, letters to the editor and KV’s responses to them, and brief news and notes. In many of these items, KV quoted Spencer’s as well as a few other scholars’ views profusely. There was hardly an issue of TIS without a quotation from Spencer. Many of these quotations were general, applicable to all societies or to societies of a particular type. Often they were called “sociological truths”. A few quotations, however, pertained specifically to India.8

I would leave it to students of the early part of the 20th century in general and of the freedom movement in particular, to judge whether TIS throws any new light on that period and on the nature of the freedom movement. I would only point out that TIS discussed many events and issues concerning the period. I list a few of them here: Indian National Congress; actions of the colonial authorities; relation between the princely states and the colonial government; Indian revenues; salt monopoly; the best form of government of India; the Indian national flag and anthem; methods of passive resistance; Indian universities; Indians in South Africa; whether the Parsi is an Indian or a foreigner; why Indians should visit England; independent careers versus government service; science and politics; Indo-American relationship. There is a running debate on differences between the extremists and the moderates. There are articles on freedom movements in other countries such as Egypt, Ireland, and Turkey. We find references to a number of participants in the Indian movement: Tilak, Gokhale, Dadabhai Naoroji, Pherozeshah Mehta, Bhikhaiji Cama, Bipan Chandra Pal, Lajpat Rai, R C Dutt, V D Savarkar, Aravinda Ghosh, M K Gandhi, Annie Besant, and many others.

We find references in TIS to many Englishmen who were passive critics and active opponents as well as many passive sympathisers and active supporters of India’s independence movement. Of the latter, three names stand out: H M Hyndman, Edmund Burke, and Richard Congreve. Hyndman was the editor of a weekly, Justice, the founder of Social Democratic Federation, and a strong advocate of India’s freedom. He performed the opening ceremony of India House and delivered “a most eloquent and sympathetic address” (see TIS of August 1905).

At the time of its inauguration in 1905, TIS was mild in its criticism of the British rule. For example, in its issue of August 1906 it said, “India and England should sever their connection peaceably and part as friends.” However, TIS soon became increasingly trenchant. KV began to propagate the idea of organising the Society of Political Missionaries of India for the sake of Hind Svarajya (March 1907) and to advocate “passive resistance” (July 1907). All this led to surveillance from detectives of Scotland Yard, then a critical debate on TIS and KV in the House of Commons on July 30, 1907, and sharp criticisms in newspapers (see TIS of August and September 1907). On September 19, 1907, the government of India imposed a ban on import and sale of TIS in India (see TIS of February 1908) although there was no ban on it in England. The government of India sent a detective to the French territory of Chandranagar to inquire if TIS was read there (see TIS of April 1908). An abortive attempt was made in the House of Commons in June 1908 to raise the issue of prosecuting TIS and its editor. Two successive printers of TIS, both Englishmen, were imprisoned in 1909 on charges of sedition (Yagnik 1950: 272). KV had foreseen what was in store for him, as he said in TIS of September 1907, “On the earnest advice of some of our friends, we left England, practically for good, during the early part of June last, seeing that mischief was brewing.”

One gets the impression from bits and pieces of information in TIS that in four years of its existence, it had achieved wide circulation. The ban on its import and sale in India and the hue and cry against it in the British parliament and press seem to have increased, not decreased, its circulation. Its contents received considerable comment, either favourable or critical, not only in many newspapers in Britain and India but also in America and France. Not only political leaders but also many others in both India and Britain were apparently its regular readers. The Daily Mail of London and Paris reported in May 1908, “This newspaper, The Indian Sociologist, is sent out to India in considerable quantities, and is widely quoted by native journals. It

Economic and Political Weekly August 5, 2006 is printed in English, but receives much attention from the vernacular journals” (TIS, June 1908).

Whoever read TIS must have become familiar with the name of sociology and of the eminent sociologist Herbert Spencer. Pandya and Pandya (2003:5) tell us that after the publication of the first issue of TIS Dadabhai Naoroji ordered three copies, and requested KV to send him “a collection of all extracts from Herbert Spencer that bear on India” – this must be the same “a distinguished Parsi gentleman” making this request, mentioned without name in TIS of February 1905. Similarly, the secretary of one Arya Samaj requested KV to send him the names of Spencer’s books and their sellers.

TIS seems to have thus created consciousness about sociology among at least a section of the intelligentsia in India during the early part of the 20th century. However, we will have to find out by hard research how much and in what way it contributed to development of professional sociology in the country. In any case, TIS forms an important chapter in its history.

In view of the increasing integration of social anthropology into sociology in India, particularly after independence, any study of the history of Indian sociology has to take into account the history of social anthropology also. The latter seems to have begun earlier. For example, the Journal of the Anthropological Society of Bombay began in the early part of the 19th century, and most of the ethnographies such as the gazetteers began to be published in the middle of the 19th century. Unfortunately, we do not have as yet a systematic account of this first phase of social anthropology. As regards Indian sociology as such, so far its history is assumed to have begun in 1919 when the first university department of sociology was established in Bombay. The department in Lucknow followed soon thereafter. Although a department of sociology was not established in Calcutta, some teaching of sociology was introduced there at that time. It is also known that Baroda College published the Indian Journal of Sociology in 1920, though it did not survive beyond the middle of 1921 (see Shah 1972 and 1998).9 Availability of the issues of TIS of 1905-08 pushes the history of Indian sociology further back in time to 1905. TIS thus invites us to work for a comprehensive history of Indian sociology and social anthropology since 1905.10 As an important step in this direction, efforts should be made to find and then reprint the post-1908 issues of TIS.

The issues of TIS for 1905-08 suggest that TIS is significant beyond Indian sociology also, in the sense that it raises a few general sociological questions. Spencer’s name is associated widely with the theory of social evolution, not revolution, with slow and orderly change, not cataclysmic change. Then, why do we find him, through the pages of TIS, a supporter of revolutionary movements? Why should KV and his circle of friends in England and elsewhere find in Spencer’s writings support for radical political action, not just in India but also elsewhere in the world? The TIS of December 1907 has a telling quotation from him on revolution:

The existence of a government which does not bend to the popular will – a despotic government – presupposes several circumstances which make any change but a violent one impossible. We must look on social convulsions as on other natural phenomena which work themselves out in a certain inevitable, unalterable way. If such and such events had not occurred, say you, the result would have been otherwise; if this or that man had lived, he would have prevented the catastrophe. Do not be thus deceived. These changes are brought about by a power far above individual wills. Incongruity between character and institutions is the disturbing force, and a revolution is the act of restoring equilibrium. Accidental circumstances modify the process, but do not essentially alter the effect.

Spencer is well known also as a founder of functionalism, one of the basic characteristics of which is social integration and stability. Then, why do we find him supporting social conflict, especially struggles against colonialism and against oppression and tyranny?

The above two questions are relevant for one more reason. There is no reference to Karl Marx (1818-1883) in TIS, although he was associated with revolutionary thought and was Spencer’s contemporary. Why should KV and his associates ignore Marx?

Another general question relates to August Comte (17981857), who preceded Spencer in founding sociology in France a generation before him. KV refers to him only once in TIS (April 1905) and that too in a roundabout way. In a sketch of the life of his friend Richard Congreve, KV refers to him as devoted to the study and dissemination of Positivism (with capital P), the ideas on which he derived from Comte. KV adds that on Comte’s death Congreve “devoted himself to preaching of Positivism as a religion, the Religion of Humanity, bearing on national as well as on personal morality.” KV refers to Positivism in a few later issues only in this sectarian sense and not as a fundamental principle of science Comte applied to the study of society. Why was Comte viewed only in this context?

KV often refers to Spencer as a friend of India and supporter of its freedom. TIS includes a few statements from him condemning British regime in India. It would require a careful study of his life and of the entire corpus of his works – some 21 volumes

– to decide whether he had any India-specific reasons for doing so, or it was only a part of his universal support for freedom of the individual and antipathy toward imperial regimes. We may note that Spencer was the founder of systematic, inductive comparative sociology. He carried out a project to collect data on different societies in the world and published the processed data in as many as 17 volumes, the kind of work George Peter Murdock later did to produce the Human Relations Area Files in the 1950s [see Carneiro 1968]. Presumably, Spencer was well aware of the Indian social conditions.

Spencer’s India connection should be studied in the same way as Karl Marx’s and Max Weber’s India connections have been studied. Similarities and differences in these connections should be examined, to find out in particular the extent to which they are related to the different social, cultural, political and intellectual traditions to which they belonged. TIS and its editor KV provide a valuable window to such study.

EPW

Email: arvindmshahdse@yahoo.com

Notes

[I thank B S Baviskar, P C Joshi, D L Sheth and N R Sheth for comments on the draft of the article.]

1 Curiosity led me to this book. While reading Yagnik and Sheth’s recent (2005) book on Gujarat, I noticed the words ‘Indian Sociologist’ in the title of Pandya and Pandya’s book in the bibliography. I obtained the

Economic and Political Weekly August 5, 2006

book, and was surprised to find in it the issues of TIS.

References

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Economic and Political Weekly August 5, 2006