judge who succeeded in politicizing religion and linking it to the common
people. He evoked the Bhagavadgı ̄ta ̄; the role of S ́iva ̄jı ̄, the Mara ̄thı ̄ warrior,
and Ra ̄ma to legitimate violence in the name of political freedom.^30 Two of
Tilak’s enterprises illustrate his approach. The first was in the form of a play
performed for the first time in 1907, in which he recast a story of the
Maha ̄bha ̄rataas an anti-British drama. Draupadı ̄ was India seized by Kı ̄chaka
(Britain). Yudis.t.hara (the “moderate”) counseled caution. Bhı ̄ma (the
“extremist”) insisted Kı ̄chaka must be slain. In due course Bhı ̄ma, in the
form of Bhairava, S ́iva’s terrible manifestation, descended to strangle
Kı ̄chaka and free Draupadı ̄.
The second of Tilak’s ploys was the way in which he popularized and
politicized the Ganes.a Cha ̄thurthi festival. The festival had been observed
largely within homes until Tilak had it performed publicly in 1894. The
celebration of Ganes.a’s birthday became a venue for the performance of
Hindu myths in public, for processions that often passed through Muslim
sections of town, and for the denunciation of “mlecchas” (i.e., “barbarians”
or “foreigners”) – especially British as well as Muslims.^31 In 1895, some
Muslims who found the procession and its songs to be offensive as it passed
a mosque rushed out and engaged in a scuffle resulting in at least one death.
Consequently, the government requested that the form of the festival be
moderated. The festival remains one of Maharashtra’s most popular events
today: entire cities come to a virtual standstill as large clay icons of Ganes.a
are immersed in the waters at the festival’s end.
Yet another form of religio-political nationalism was that found in the
writings of the Benga ̄lı ̄ brahman, poet, and dramatist, B. C. Chatterjee
(1838–94). Just as Tilak had written in his vernacular, Mara ̄thı ̄, so Chatterjee
used the Benga ̄lı ̄ language and religious idiom to rally the public to a sense
of regional and national pride. Ka ̄lı ̄, the mother goddess of Bengal was
equated to Bengal itself. The motherland was the place where pristine
Hinduism would be restored and the British and Muslims alike would be
ousted.^32
Neo-bhakti
Quite apart from the explicitly nationalistic revival of religion, one finds by
the end of the nineteenth century, a resurgence of religious piety or neo-
bhakti. One form this took was the emergence of gurus and mystics offering
an internalized form of religion. The popular and controversial Benga ̄lı ̄
Ra ̄makrishna(1834–86) represented this model. A devotee of Ka ̄lı ̄, he was
endowed with a capacity for trance perceived as a form of “god-intoxication”
and a charismatic personality which attracted disciples who were more
formally educated than he. He was perceived to be the epitome of sainthood
Streams from the “West” and their Aftermath 179