Escolar Documentos
Profissional Documentos
Cultura Documentos
.
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of
content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms
of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.
Social Scientist is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Social Scientist.
http://www.jstor.org
M. ATHAR ALI*
For much more than a century, the status of India as a concept has
repeatedly been under discussion. Is it really anything more than a
'geographical expression', its ring of mountains ranges in a rough semicircle in the north, and that of the ocean in the form of an inverted cone
in the south, making its geographical entity far more distinct than
that of many other countries? Its limits formed the ideal 'scientific
frontiers' for the British Indian empire and suggested a continued
tradition of ambitions of supremacy over land enclosed by them, which
the Raj claimed consciously to be its inheritance. Whether there was
still anything beyond a territory imagined for political convenience in
cultural terms was something on which spokesmen of British
imperialism allowed themselves to be of two minds. V.A. Smith would
assert,1 while the Simon Commission would deny,2 a 'unity in
diversity'. More recently partly under the influence of works like
Anderson's imagined communities,3 there has been a criticism among
subaltern and/or post modern circles of the concept of the Indian nation.
As Professor Partha Chatterji tells us, that 'the very singularity of the
idea of a national history of India' tends to divide 'Indians' further4though one wonders where the 'Indians' as a pre-divided lot have
arisen from, if there was no India.
There should be no two opinions, therefore, that the case for the
study of a history of the concept of India is strong, both for those who
assert, its present or past reality, as did the spokesmen of the National
Movement, and for those who deny it in the footsteps of Lord Simon. To
this study, the present paper, touching on the perception of India intthe
minds of Akbar and his advisors-admittedly a most elite group-, is a
modest contribution.
OF INDIA
THEEVOLUTIONOF THE PERCEPTION
81
82
SOCIALSCIENTIST
(iman)'.9 He too thought that India (for which he uses the name
'Hind' throughout) was paradise-like in the fertility of its soil and
pleasant climate.10 To this he adds the achievements of Hindu
learning and beliefs. Like Greece (rum), the Hindus had sciences, and
their higher minds believe in one God.11 This is an echo of al-Biruni.
But then Amir Khusraubegins to speak in the first person plural. 'We',
Indians, are able to speak foreign languages;but the Chinese, Mongols,
Turksand Arabs are unable to speak 'ourHindi tongue'.12Indiansdo not
go to other countries to seek knowledge; others have to come here.13
India has given the world the numerals, the Panchatantratales, and
chess.14 He goes on to associate India with certain languages that had
currency in it. 'The Ghorians and Turks' had brought with them
Persian, which was now learnt by all levels of people; then there were
the regional languages (Hindawi's), of which Khusrau lists 12
(including Tamil, Kannada) and, finally, Sanskrit, the language of the
learned Brahmans.15 He takes special pride in this wealth of
languages. Clearly, with Khusrau, India has an entity that is not
defined merely by Brahmanicalhigh culture, though it is an essential
part of it. Already, we see a tendency to envision India as a country
with a composite culture specific to itself, to which a number of
Turkish Muslim immigrant family like Amir Khusrau can proudly
proclaim his allegiance, and which has adopted Persian as one of its
own languages.
A noteworthy development which was bound to affect the
perception of India as a country with cultural and social institutions of
its own, was the growth of a Muslim community within India, distinct
from the Muslim communities of other countries. The orthodox
theologian and historian Abdul Qadir Badauni, in his work on ethics
written in 1590-91 acknowledges that marriages for limited periods
and divorce (by the husband) are permitted by Muslim law and
sanctified by precedent, but then comments. 'Whatgood custom have
the people of India that they Shun this practice and regard it
(divorce) as the worst word of abuse, so much so that if some one is
called 'talaqi' (divorcee), he, out of folly, would be ready to fight to
death'.16 Clearly, Badauni thought that Muslims in India had a way
of life different from Muslims of other countries, for example in
thinking very ill of divorcing one's wife. Whether this outlook was
influenced by the absolute permanence of marriage in Hindu law can
not be said for certain; but the recognised existence of distinct Indian
Muslim custom is unmistakablehere.
Almost simultaneously came the recognitionof India as an entity for
historical purposes. It began with Badauni's friend, Nizamuddin
Ahmad, who in 1593-94 completed his Tabaqat-i-Akbari,
designed to
the
annals
for
nine
of
India
(Delhi, Deccan,
give
separately
regions
Gujarat,Malwa, Bengal, Jaunpur, Kashmir, Sind and Multan). Such a
departure from dynastic history in favour of a general history of India
83
84
SOCIALSCIENTIST
sati, and of prepuberty marriages, his demand for equal inheritance for
the daughter, his condemnation for slavery and slave trade,26 all
suggest the rejection of some of the burdens of the past. From India seen
as a cultural unity, and then as a cultural diversity undergoing
synthesis, we have with Akbar the first vision of India undergoing
change. It was linked to a bold rejection of traditionalism:
The pursuit of reason ('aql) and rejection of traditionalism
(taqlid) are so brilliantly patent as to be above the need of
argument. If traditionalism was proper, the prophets would
merely have followed their own elders (and not come with new
messages).27
One could almost say that with Akbar in a rudimentary form we
begin to have a pre-modern vision of modernisation of India, a
patriotism without revivalism. But what, in greater detail and depth,
India meant to Akbar and his circle we have to go to his principal
spokesman, Abu'l Fazl.
There is no doubt that Abu'l Fazl was more conscious of the
geography of India than any previous writer. In the north he
considered the great mountain ranges to separate India from Turan
(central Asia) and Iran on one side and China ('Chin and machin') on
the other.28 The following passage from his pen was long an aid to the
arguments of those British strategists who would place the 'scientific
frontier' of the Raj across the heart of Afghanistan:
Intelligent men of the past have considered Kabul and Qandahar
as the twin gates of Hindustan, one (Qandahar) for the passage to
Iran, and the other for that to Turan. By guarding these two
places, Hindustan obtains peace from the alien (raider) and
global traffic by these two routes can prosper.29
It is significant that Abu'l Fazl considers India to be a peninsula, for
he says that the sea borders Hindustan 'on the east, west and south'.
He, however, claims that Hindustan also included 'Sarandip (Sri
Lanka), Achin '(in Sumatra), Maluk (Malaya), Malagha (Malacca)
and many islands', so that 'the sea cannot really demarcate its
limits'.30 This too is a rather expansive concept of India-anticipating
the 'greater India' of later days-which one can hardly endorse. But
probably Abu'l Fazl meant no more than that the sea could not prevent
Indian cultural influences from reaching these countries; and this in
itself was an interesting statement for him to make.
Abu'l Fazl displays his patriotism by showering unqualified praise
on the people of India:
The people of this country, he says, are God-seeking, generous
hearted, friendly to strangers, pleasant-faced, of broad forehead,
patrons of learning, lovers of asceticism, inclined to justice,
85
SOCIALSCIENTIST
86
THEEVOLUTIONOF THEPERCEPTION
OF INDIA
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
29
30.
31.
32.
33.
34.
35.
36.
37.
38.
39.
40.
87
88
41.
42.
43.
44.
45.
SOCIALSCIENTIST
Ibid.,pp. 152-63.
A'in-i Akbari,Naval Kishore, III, pp. 163-177. In this Abu'l Fazl had a very
orthodoxscholarprecedinghim by a few years. Abdul Haqq of Delhi completed
in 1591 the Akbar-ulAkhyara collection of biographicalnotices of 255 Indian
Muslimsaints.
Ibid.,p. 163.
A'in-i Akbari,Naval Kishore, III, pp. 177-78.
Ibid., I, p. 3.