Buddhism in India

Colonial Challenges and Buddhist Revival 221

of imperialism and the development of the independence movement

and the formation of an independent nation-state as the important

processes of the colonial period. Even the ‘subaltern studies’ school

recently has emphasised only the actions of the peasantry and other

exploited classes in this process, without seeing them making any

contribution to the ideas and ideals of the times. (It has also defined

‘class’ in neo-Marxist terms and ignored the caste/gender aspects of

subaltern identity). Only recently have a few studies from within

the ‘non-Brahman’ tradition (Aloysius 1997; Geetha and Rajadurai

1998) and a few more well-known scholars (Chakravarty 1996;

Sarkar 1997) begun to dissect the way in which non-elites dealt, at the

intellectual level, with the challenges of colonialism, industrialisation,

new ideas of equality and rationality, and national identity.

Recent studies, though, have provided many insights about the

elites. Partha Chatterjee, for instance, has made the important point

that Indians (meaning the elite) came to define their ‘national’ identity

in terms of the inner, spiritual world that was their own, whereas in

the outer, material realm they remained backward, exploited and

discriminated against by the powers of colonial industrialism

(Chatterjee 1993). This required both—protecting the inner world

from the assaults of new ideas but at the same time reinterpreting it

in ways that would be conducive to ‘modernisation’.

Some European ideas proved useful. Thus, whereas ‘science’

seemed to challenge the notion of the divine origin of the social

system of Brahmanism, the racism that was inherent in early theories

of ‘Aryan origin’ could be turned around to justify it. The very

classification of ‘Indo-European’ resulted from the linguistic simi-

larities between Sanskrit and European languages, which in turn

led to the postulation of early bands of heroic, pastoral Aryans

coming into the subcontinent, giving birth to the Vedas, subjugating

original dark-skinned inhabitants, and eventually developing a

caste system in which the three ‘twice-born’ varnas were seen as of

Aryan (i.e., ‘European’ descent) and the lower Shudras, untouchables

and ‘tribals’ as descendants of the conquered natives. The British

developed this racially-oriented ‘Aryan theory’ as an explanation of

caste; and it initially served the 19th century upper-caste intellectu-

als, providing a ‘scientific’ basis to argue for the superiority of

Brahmanic elites and their model of society. The admiration of

many Europeans for early Aryan or Vedic society was welcomed,

and aided in the idealisation of this society as a ‘golden age’ of

On the other side of the barrier were the vast majority of peasants,
craftsmen, labourers of all kinds. The majority of these were given
the varna classification as Shudra, but the purity–pollution barrier
had in addition created an absolute impure group, called generally
untouchables. In spite of the wide variations within each categories,
hierarchies within hierarchies; in spite of disputes and uncertainties
about the place of many jatis within the accepted hierarchy, the
general categories remained important. India represented on the
whole a ‘three-strata’ society: the ‘twice-born’ comprising the birth-
defined elite as contrasted with the ‘masses’; but within the ‘masses’
another significant category divided Bahujans (the ‘clean’ Shudras)
from Dalits (the ‘unclean’).
Imperialism definitely benefited the elite; Brahmans adjusted to
British rule as well as they had done to Muslim rule, and even made
the same kind of alliance with the new rulers, who generally
allowed the use of their courts to implement caste hierarchies in
daily life. It was Brahmans who grabbed most of the benefits of
education, who became proficient in the new skills, who formed
the nationalist leadership. The spread of communications that was
part of the new industrialism even allowed them to promote a
greater and deeper penetration of caste ideas, though in a some-
what revised form. In contrast, the masses had little access to the
new education or employment. Yet the new openness was crucial
and movements grew throughout the 19th century, putting forward
alternative ideologies and cultural systems that challenged caste
and Brahmanism.

Elite Responses: Constructing ‘Hinduism’

The response of the Brahmanic elite to colonial challenges was to
emphasise the question of foreign rule and regain independence.
The challenge of industrialisation and India’s material backward-
ness was seen as the result of imperialism and proposed to be met
first by an emphasis on ‘swadeshi’ and autonomy and then with
proposals for a state-guided industrialisation (defined as ‘social-
ism’) once India gained independence. And the intellectual and
moral challenges were sought to be deflated by a reconstruction
and redefinition of a ‘Hindu’ identity.
Almost all intellectual histories of colonialism, written as they
are either by the British or by the Indian elite, have stressed the role

220 Buddhism in India