that an Indian religion was actually considered noble by Europeans was
an empowering one. Theosophy became the route for many English-
educated Indians to return to ‘Hinduism’, playing a central role in the
so-called Hindu revivalist movements that became endemic from the
late nineteenth century, including the often explicitly anti-Muslim
Arya Samaj, a social reform movement that stressed the noble purity (an
approximate translation of the Sanskritic ‘Arya’) of an ‘original’ Hinduism
that could allegedly be found in the Vedas. Indeed, even so apparently
‘indigenous’ a figure as Mahatma Gandhi had his faith in the validity of
his own civilisation restored to him by reading the Bhagavad Gitain the
Theosophist Sir Edwin Arnold’s translation: The Song Celestial.^4 ‘Hindu’
thus came to mean, at least in part through Theosophy, a ‘religion’, a
‘nation’ or a ‘nationality’, and also a ‘race’. The exclusion of non-Hindus
from a concept of Indian nationhood in such formulations can be clearly
seen; but in many of these formulations this exclusion was neither clearly
articulated nor necessarily deliberate or self-conscious.
The Nehrus were not among the victims of Theosophy. Motilal was
not inclined to take Theosophy too seriously, although he greatly
respected Mrs Besant. A sceptic in religious matters, he also did not
observe caste practices. He had, after his first trip to England in 1899,
refused to perform the rites of purification for travelling across the seas
required of him by his caste. He did perform certain ceremonies at home
on appropriate occasions, but more as social duty than out of a sense
of religious belief (his wife, on the other hand, practised her religion
more actively). Theosophy, accordingly, had not much of an impact upon
him; he was for a short while a member of the Society, but soon dropped
out. Jawaharlal was also briefly attracted by the brand of Theosophy
that his tutor placed before him, and joined the Theosophical Society at
the age of 13. ‘The Hindu religion especially went up in my estimation,’
he wrote later^5 – reflecting the need of many Indians of his background in
a European and Europeanising education to return to a positive under-
standing of ‘their’ tradition. However, this was a passing phase, and when
Motilal dismissed Brooks in circumstances not altogether clear to his son
(Brooks later committed suicide), the main influence that remained was
Jawaharlal’s love for English poetry. Annie Besant herself remained for
Motilal an important political ally, as well as the butt end of some gentle
humour on his part for her attempts to find ‘proofs of a “super-physical
existence”’.^6
THE MAKING OF A COLONIAL INTELLECTUAL 15