Memory myth and memorial 

Memory myth and memorial 

Context

The battle over Bhima-Koregaon is not just one of history, it is a battle for identity and equality

The memorial

It all began with a pillar, a little war memorial commemorating what history books antiseptically called the third Anglo-Maratha war

Memorial established by British

The British had established it in Bhima-Koregaon village to commemorate the British East India Company soldiers who fell in the battle of January 1, 1818. Along with a few British soldiers, many Mahar soldiers also died.

One battle, different narratives:

Maratha view

• For the Marathas and for our history textbooks, the narrative was a battle between imperialism and nationalism
• It marked not the continuity of the British but the end of Peshwa rule.

Mahars view

But the Mahars read this narrative differently

• The history inscribed in textbooks did not take their memories seriously
• The Mahars recollect how during the reign of Baji Rao II, they had offered their services as soldiers
• The Peshwa spurned them, and this pushed the Mahars to seek out the British in the next war.
• For Mahar memory, the presence of the British shrinks and it becomes a story of Mahar courage and valour, a testimony to Mahar martial values in their struggle for equality against the Peshwas

The pillar of equality

The Koregaon Ranstambh (victory pillar) represents a different kind of memory and a different kind of solidarity. It is now part of a new genealogy, not part of a battle between Indians and the British, but a struggle for equality.

A new memory

Visit by Babasaheb Ambedkar

In January 1927, Babasaheb Ambedkar visited the site and gave it this new legitimacy

This new memory triggered the formation of new communities

Formation of Bhima-Koregaon Ranstambh Seva Sangh (BRKSS)

The Bhima-Koregaon Ranstambh Seva Sangh was formed to commemorate the battle of the Dalits for self-respect and equality

Visits of members of the Mahar regiment

Over time this parallel memory acquired power as members of the Mahar regiment visited it to pay homage to Mahar militarism and valour

Local pilgrimage soon expanded

What was a local source of pilgrimage soon expanded to cover other States such as Uttar Pradesh and Karnataka. Maratha history competed with Mahar memory over the interpretation of the Stambh.

Battle for identity and equality

• While the Mahars are enacting their memorial to history reasserting their sense of identity and equality in a now immortalised village, the dominant castes are feeling unease with what they sense as re-appropriation of history.
• For the Brahmins and Marathas watching these rituals, life seemed surreal. Suddenly, violence spreads across Maharashtra as pitched battles take place between Mahars and Marathas, each guarding their identity as if it were a piece of intellectual property
• The battle now is not just one of memory, it is a battle for identity and equality

Other narratives

Hindutva forces, Dalit leader Prakash Ambedkar felt, were trying to poison society along caste lines

Controversy over Sambhaji’s burial by a dalit, Govind Mahar

• Dalit scholars point to Vadhu Budruk, a village close to Bhima-Koregaon and the controversy around Sambhaji, the eldest son of Shivaji
• Legend has it that Sambhaji’s body was mutilated and then thrown into the river
• Legend adds to it that Govind Mahar, a Dalit, gathered the body and stitched it together
• It was the Mahars who arranged for Sambhaji’s memorial and, when Govind Mahar died, they constructed a tomb for him in the same village

Upper Caste Marathas object to this narrative

Upper caste Marathas object to this narrative and a battle is being fought over it.

The BJP has over the years forged an anti-Muslim meta-narrative around these struggles. Hindutva organisations invoke past Maratha glory to keep the caste within their fold

Neo Peshwas

The recent attempt to link Hindutva battles as a neo-Peshwa enterprise is disturbing to the BJP’s electoral campaign as the party under its national president Amit Shah has been wooing Dalits into its fold. When other Hindutva organisations evoke Maratha glory, Dalit alienation and unease is obvious

Dalits Unite

Dalit organisations in response have organised a huge conference at what was once the dominant seat of the Peshwas.

Vote bank politics

A caste split now threatens the huge electoral wooing of Dalits as future vote banks. The BJP attempt to consolidate the electoral future is coming apart, ironically through the same caste wars it encouraged before it sought to consolidate an electoral future

Beyond containment

• It is not a historical controversy alone, it cannot be restricted to a caste war, it is not a battle for identity, it is also a search for equality
• It is also an attempt by politicians to go beyond all these fragments and create a more united future
• One suddenly senses the many octaves in which politics in India occurs.

Non linear

One realises that memory is a strange, protean, alchemical force in India where linearity does not work, and past, present and future struggle to simultaneously control narratives in India.

Politics in 18^th century

• It’s a reminder of philosopher Ian Hacking’s reading of our time
• He claimed politics in the 18th century was about control of the body, in the 19th about the control of populations, and in the 20th about the control of memory
• The only thing he forgot to mention is how complex memory in our age has become as it combines myth, memory, history
• One trembles as one thinks how easily a fragment of the past can rewrite the future of a democracy, or the dreams of identity and justice