INTIMATIONS OF A BAHUJAN COUNTER-TRADITION AND THE HINDU RIGHT (Mahishasura: Myths and Traditions]

The Mahishasura Tradition

Indeed, as the cover of the book (Mahishasura: Mithak va Parmparayen [Myths and Traditions], edited by Pramod Ranjan) , indicates, a large part of it is about the search within the world of myth and counter-tradition. The cover image is of a “Bhainsasur Smarak Mandir” (Buffalo-Demon Memorial Temple) in Mahoba in Uttar Pradesh, which is maintained by the Archaeological Survey of India. This particular book is a collection of articles, mainly by Bahujan intellectuals, that takes the myths around the figure of Mahishasura – the “Buffalo demon” – as its point of departure for an exploration of a suppressed counter-tradition.

Many readers might remember that when the regime turned its attention on JNU in early 2016 leading to a wholesale attack on “anti-national” activities in the university, one of the key things mentioned repeatedly, first by the RSS mouthpiece Organizer (November 2015), then by the Delhi Police in its FIR and finally by the Education minister Smriti Irani in parliament, was that Mahishasur was venerated and worshipped in JNU. Much of the churning around this issue, brought up the larger question of what the “asuric” traditon so repeatedly invoked in the Puranas really was: Who were the asuras – the demons? Why was the mythical figure of Mahishasur considered so dangerous by the Hindu Right?

So, far away from the hurly burly of electoral politics there began a serious exploration that in turn drew from the work of careful archiving and documentation by bahujan intellectuals – dalit-OBC-adivasi intellectuals – working entirely in the vernacular languages and not in spaces recognized as “scholarly”. Among those who this book openly acknowledges its debt to is the name of Moti Ravan Kangali and his wife Chandralekha Kangali who devoted their lives to excavate the Gondi and other traditions, their thought and their culture and published many books around these themes. What this search has revealed is that the Mahishasura tradition was not simply a feature of Bengal, where Durga Puja is celebrated with great fervour (Durga being the goddess who slayed the demon king) but extended beyond to the adivasis of Bengal, Jharkhand and Bihar who identified with the buffalo asura king. Indeed, even more strikingly, it revealed that the tradition actually extended from the Gond adivasis of Chhattisgarh to large parts of Madhya Pradesh and Karnataka – Mysuru itself being supposedly named after Mahishasura. It is fascinating that there are populations who still identify themselves as “asura” today.

Interestingly, some of the essays, especially the one by Sanajy Jothe on the “philosophy” of the Gonds,  connect the evidence thus collected with the work of Marxist scholars like D.D. Kosambi, D.P. Chattopadhyay and Gail Omvedt to draw some larger conclusions about the prevalence of counter-traditions that seem to tie up well with  their own research. Jothe in fact makes claims about the  “materialist” nature of Gondi “philosophy”, its “Lokayatik” features, its matrilineal history and far greater role of women in these communities. Some of the propositions may be quite speculative but they are certainly no more so than the fictiveness and speculativeness of Hindutva claims. The search for this counter-tradition leads to another interesting dimension that goes straight to the heart of the Puranic retellings and reappropriations of the asuric – where from vighnakarta [creator of obstacles] Ganapati (and ganapatis)are appropriated into the pantheon as vighnaharttas [remover of obstacles] (ref DP Chattopadhyaya). Whatever be the case, the confrontation with myth and the Puranic becomes central in a very significant sense. Thus, in Jothe, in Pramod Ranjan’s introductory essay and in Anil Kumar’s contribution, the nature of speculations always remains close to certain protocols of evidence and never acquires the dimension of the fantastic that Hindutva narratives produce on a regular basis.

A New Moment

This is not the place to summarize the arguments of the book or of the larger body of work, only some of which I am aware of. The point of this discussion of the Mahishasura issue is to underline that this moment inaugurates a new phase in Bahujan discourse which picks up the challenge from where the early twentieth century thinkers had left it.

As is well known, the rising tide of nationalism actually ended up suppressing all the voices of internal social reform during the anticolonial struggle, central to which were the questions of caste and gender. The caste question remained marginally active at the regional level in some Southern states but was completely eclipsed in the North by the overpowering force of upper-caste – and Hindu Mahasabha – dominated nationalism. Even where it remained, both in the South and in Maharashtra during phases like the Dalit Panther movement, it was still a voice of cultural protest and critique; it never became a counter-discourse of power. And unfortunatelly, when it did, in the aftermath of the Mandal Commission in the North, it remained purely at the electoral-political level with virtually no programme or alternative vision of its own. It can be argued that that was precisely because it had not developed a sense of Bahujan counter-tradition and could do little beyond building Mayawati’s statues. In its stead, both the BSP and the SP now want to compete with Hindutva by building Parashuram’s statue, which only goes to show that the hegemony of upper caste Hinduism/ Hindutva was never quite challenged within.

One of the essays in the Mahishasura volume (Anil Kumar) actually poses this theoretical question of consent and hegemony via Antonio Gramsci but certainly now a whole new body of work has to emerge which alone will open possibilities of the narratives of counter-tradition. One of the key issues to tackle will indeed have to be that of this all-important question of hegemony and the “ideological apparatuses” through which hegemony is actualized not just as  “ideas” but as material practices. Clearly, that is the  whole burden of Laxman Yadav’s intervention in the clip above, where he confronts the masses of OBCs who act as Hindus rather than demand their share in wealth, land and power. Clearly, this lining  up of the bahujan masses behind Hindutva is what makes it possible for critics to argue that “anti-majoritarian discourse” under-estimates the power of RSS mobilization.

In conclusion, I want to underline that the struggle for cultural transformation is a long and arduous one, especially for social groups that do not belong to hitherto powerful or dominant sections of society. Its success or failure cannot simply be read off election results in one or two elections. It is something  that takes shape over the long term by producing alternative narratives and fashioning a new common sense.