PaRCha - JNU - AISA material - 2012 ID-32346
.
/ by th REVIEWS ment .
All thi: meanirin criticising allegedly one-sided statements) .
Marxist Perception of Indian History .
history.
of a historical situation. The nationalist ire The.
and sarcasm at Cambridge positionc:. are are tole.
Dipesh Chakrabarty understandable sentiments but both olthese growin.
positions are extreme.s dictated by ideological factors.
Essays in Indian History: Towardsa Marxist Perception bYirfan Habib; Tulika, oppositions. Renders, depending on their "from.
Delhi, 1995; pp x + 389, Rs 450. ideological preferences, can decide which celcrut.
way to jump. I jump with the nationalists. .
500 y1READERS will be grateful that many ofthe and analysis'' (Preface, p vii). Two essays But let us return to Habib' sexplicit agenda. .
producessays lrfan Habib wrote between the 1960s specifically address this agenda. one on Do these essays display or deploy a set of a caste· .
and the 1980s-"over a span of some thirty 'Problems of Marxist Historiography' and methods that help us to understand our pasts the the.
years", says the author -have now been the other on 'Marx's Perception of India'. better? The answer will have to be y~ and Aryam.
brought together in one place. Whether one II is not possible in the space of a short no. Fundamentally, Habib's methods are the Gatagrees with him or not, there is no question review to discuss in detail every single eSsay. useful when it is a question of working out .
70) we.
ofdenyingthe very Oistinguishedand original Written at different times for different how in Muslim or British India, surplus was .
once~~.
contribution!> that lrfan Habib has made to audiences, they perform unevenly when extracted from the producers of the counuy knownthe study ol Mughal-lndian history. The brought together between two covers. by the ruling classes. He is intere.'itcd in the increll.!.
achievement ut· his youth, Agmrian System Besides, they do not seem to have been mechanisms of surplus extraction, this is movin;of Muglwllndia, (Bombay, 1963), was a revised in any way, so there is a large degree what he has learnt from Marx. and it is marks.
pathbreaking. courageous and magniticent of repetition of themes and mat~rial between something he does well for the periods for Christ'.
book. The anic\es collected in this book, the different essays. The essay on which relevant information is available. U5 to.
however, belong in the main to a later period 'Potentialities for Capitalistic Development Students interested in learning the tools of separatof lrfan Habib's career when he was, in the &:onomy of Mughallndia' (1968) this kind ofanalysis will benel1t from looking epigra1deservedly, called upon to play roles larger still shines for its careful consideration of at Habib's exercises. .
for a 1'1.
tbar that of a specialist on Mughal agrarian evidence, its intelligent argumentation and But the limitations ofhis Marxism ~ome the six .
hinory. His strengths are not consistently an open-mindedness that avoids the habit of obvious when we look at his treatment of ofChil.
VISible in these essays but as essays from deciding issues by ideological preferences, the material for ancient India. Fir5t of all, potenti.
somebody whose commitmem and devotion either Marxist or nationalist. Habib is there is a peculiar kind of tccbnologic;~l cratisa.
to anti-imperial and pro-people historio-generally sure-footed and interesting on determinism that drives the analysis. Just as .villagegraphy is beyond question, they deserve our medieval India. In his debates with con-for Gordon Childe the appearance of hronle .
Wh<.
serious attention. tributors such as Morris David Morris and signalled the appearance of European-The essays show how widely Habib ranges Alan Heston to the Cambridge Economic universal 'reason' in history (see the owo .
onlyin Indian history, from the Indus Valley Histon' of India, vo[ II, he is polemical in discussion in Michael Rowlands, '{'hildc also .
Civilisation to the colonial economy, with, a hurd-hitting manner. He makes a good case and the Archaeology of Freedom' in David Chilo naturally, a few essays on what might be for the argument that British rule m India Harris (ed), The Archaeology of Gordon vato, considered his home-turf. the economic was economically extractive (i c. for sup-Childe: Contemporary Perspectives. inter history of India under the Mughals. There porting the nationalist point about the 'drain Chicago. 1994. pp 35·54), Habib invc:ils n are also three survey-type essays on 'The of wealth' from India to Britain) and similar progressive faith in iron. On-..-e iron "''.
sati<J Peasant in Indian History', 'Caste in Indian deleterious for traditionallndian handicrafts. emerges. it ineluctably leads to all kind.~ of Hist History', and 'The Social Distribution of He also su~tains Amiya Bagdti's point that revolutionary ,hangcs that span OOl just a attribu Landed Property in Pre-British India'. huving a national as distinct from a colonial one or two hundn.:d year~ but liten11ly hugeS< of yea.
Colonialln4ia merits three polemical essays, government would have made a big hundreds of them. The presence of iron in all of which enjoyed wide audiences when difference to Indian industrialisation in the the up~r Ganga region. Habib tells us, i~ social they were originally published. The e.~says 19th and early 20th centuries. Habib -or testilk-d to around 1000 BC or MOO BC <rr politic .
etc, W.
are connected by Habib's imerest in a for that matter other nationalist-Marxists 63, 117). "In its immediatle to suggest thut all comp.W.iJKh_it was the caricature of all that one normally thinks of gathering population kept on expanding. lOr a 1 sockti.
great achievement of Marx to establish both as the 'complexity' (to borrow a word often and the Nagas. Kolis and the Ni.sadas would ·'doestlin theory and in actual work of description applied by some leading Indian historians flourish ... They were imponant enough even .
Econ(].
JS38 Economic and Political Weekly July 13, 19% .
' .
.
.
.
PaRCha - JNU - AISA material - 2012 ID-32346
.
/ by th REVIEWS ment .
All thi: meanirin criticising allegedly one-sided statements) .
Marxist Perception of Indian History .
history.
of a historical situation. The nationalist ire The.
and sarcasm at Cambridge positionc:. are are tole.
Dipesh Chakrabarty understandable sentiments but both olthese growin.
positions are extreme.s dictated by ideological factors.
Essays in Indian History: Towardsa Marxist Perception bYirfan Habib; Tulika, oppositions. Renders, depending on their "from.
Delhi, 1995; pp x + 389, Rs 450. ideological preferences, can decide which celcrut.
way to jump. I jump with the nationalists. .
500 y1READERS will be grateful that many ofthe and analysis'' (Preface, p vii). Two essays But let us return to Habib' sexplicit agenda. .
producessays lrfan Habib wrote between the 1960s specifically address this agenda. one on Do these essays display or deploy a set of a caste· .
and the 1980s-"over a span of some thirty 'Problems of Marxist Historiography' and methods that help us to understand our pasts the the.
years", says the author -have now been the other on 'Marx's Perception of India'. better? The answer will have to be y~ and Aryam.
brought together in one place. Whether one II is not possible in the space of a short no. Fundamentally, Habib's methods are the Gatagrees with him or not, there is no question review to discuss in detail every single eSsay. useful when it is a question of working out .
70) we.
ofdenyingthe very Oistinguishedand original Written at different times for different how in Muslim or British India, surplus was .
once~~.
contribution!> that lrfan Habib has made to audiences, they perform unevenly when extracted from the producers of the counuy knownthe study ol Mughal-lndian history. The brought together between two covers. by the ruling classes. He is intere.'itcd in the increll.!.
achievement ut· his youth, Agmrian System Besides, they do not seem to have been mechanisms of surplus extraction, this is movin;of Muglwllndia, (Bombay, 1963), was a revised in any way, so there is a large degree what he has learnt from Marx. and it is marks.
pathbreaking. courageous and magniticent of repetition of themes and mat~rial between something he does well for the periods for Christ'.
book. The anic\es collected in this book, the different essays. The essay on which relevant information is available. U5 to.
however, belong in the main to a later period 'Potentialities for Capitalistic Development Students interested in learning the tools of separatof lrfan Habib's career when he was, in the &:onomy of Mughallndia' (1968) this kind ofanalysis will benel1t from looking epigra1deservedly, called upon to play roles larger still shines for its careful consideration of at Habib's exercises. .
for a 1'1.
tbar that of a specialist on Mughal agrarian evidence, its intelligent argumentation and But the limitations ofhis Marxism ~ome the six .
hinory. His strengths are not consistently an open-mindedness that avoids the habit of obvious when we look at his treatment of ofChil.
VISible in these essays but as essays from deciding issues by ideological preferences, the material for ancient India. Fir5t of all, potenti.
somebody whose commitmem and devotion either Marxist or nationalist. Habib is there is a peculiar kind of tccbnologic;~l cratisa.
to anti-imperial and pro-people historio-generally sure-footed and interesting on determinism that drives the analysis. Just as .villagegraphy is beyond question, they deserve our medieval India. In his debates with con-for Gordon Childe the appearance of hronle .
Wh<.
serious attention. tributors such as Morris David Morris and signalled the appearance of European-The essays show how widely Habib ranges Alan Heston to the Cambridge Economic universal 'reason' in history (see the owo .
onlyin Indian history, from the Indus Valley Histon' of India, vo[ II, he is polemical in discussion in Michael Rowlands, '{'hildc also .
Civilisation to the colonial economy, with, a hurd-hitting manner. He makes a good case and the Archaeology of Freedom' in David Chilo naturally, a few essays on what might be for the argument that British rule m India Harris (ed), The Archaeology of Gordon vato, considered his home-turf. the economic was economically extractive (i c. for sup-Childe: Contemporary Perspectives. inter history of India under the Mughals. There porting the nationalist point about the 'drain Chicago. 1994. pp 35·54), Habib invc:ils n are also three survey-type essays on 'The of wealth' from India to Britain) and similar progressive faith in iron. On-..-e iron "''.
sati<J Peasant in Indian History', 'Caste in Indian deleterious for traditionallndian handicrafts. emerges. it ineluctably leads to all kind.~ of Hist History', and 'The Social Distribution of He also su~tains Amiya Bagdti's point that revolutionary ,hangcs that span OOl just a attribu Landed Property in Pre-British India'. huving a national as distinct from a colonial one or two hundn.:d year~ but liten11ly hugeS< of yea.
Colonialln4ia merits three polemical essays, government would have made a big hundreds of them. The presence of iron in all of which enjoyed wide audiences when difference to Indian industrialisation in the the up~r Ganga region. Habib tells us, i~ social they were originally published. The e.~says 19th and early 20th centuries. Habib -or testilk-d to around 1000 BC or MOO BC <rr politic .
etc, W.
are connected by Habib's imerest in a for that matter other nationalist-Marxists 63, 117). "In its immediatle to suggest thut all comp.W.iJKh_it was the caricature of all that one normally thinks of gathering population kept on expanding. lOr a 1 sockti.
great achievement of Marx to establish both as the 'complexity' (to borrow a word often and the Nagas. Kolis and the Ni.sadas would ·'doestlin theory and in actual work of description applied by some leading Indian historians flourish ... They were imponant enough even .
Econ(].
JS38 Economic and Political Weekly July 13, 19% .
' .
.
.
.