Lajpat Rai beyond the Hindutva construct

Vanya Bhargav's book on Lajpat Rai, depicting him as someone who envisioned the nation differently at various times while always believing in inclusivity, renders it significant in today's context

Being Hindu, Being Indian: Lala Lajpat Rai’s Ideas of Nationhood

Author: Vanya Vaidehi Bhargav

Publisher: Penguin

Pages: 748

Price: Rs 1,299

For many Indians, Lala Lajpat Rai remains one pillar of the nationalist triumvirate Lal-Bal-Pal — Lala Lajpat Rai, Bal Gangadhar Tilak, and Bipin Chandra Pal. Fewer Indians would think of the Lala, or Lajpat Rai, as the person whose death, after being brutally assaulted while protesting the arrival of Simon Commission in Lahore, was the trigger for Bhagat Singh to seek revenge and thereafter walk to the gallows.

Even fewer Indians, including this reviewer, would have wondered for long why the radical Singh, influenced by Marxist thought, would have taken retribution on the British for their attack on a nationalist, considered by many as an antecedent of later Hindu Nationalist ideologues, especially Vinayak Damodar Savarkar. When the book’s full title was first shared, I was struck by the coinage, “Ideas of Nationhood” — which clearly indicated that Lajpat Rai was possibly guided by multiple opinions, each professing a different view of nationhood.  What were these and how were they strung within his persona?

Vanya Vaidehi Bhargav has set out to address these questions by structuring the book around the complex and evolving political vision and perspectives of the nationalist leader in various phases of his long political career. Starting in the 1880s and continuing till his death in 1928, the book has been split into four phases.

The first phase tracks the first two decades of Lala Lajpat Rai’s political life from the 1880s. This is the period in which he emerged as a political being in Punjab and was firmly ensconced within the world of the Arya Samaj. It was from this position that he reacted to the emergence of Sir Syed Ahmad Khan and his rejection of the Congress. Lajpat Rai was in complete disagreement with Khan’s view that Indian representation in the legislative councils must be drawn from the aristocratic elite and instead argued that there must be elected representation from a much wider section of Indians.

In this first phase, Lajpat Rai is shown by the author as having engaged with a wider Hindu identity, even exploring the idea of a Hindu nation. But he was consciously driven to include other religious communities in this nation. The author establishes that Lajpat Rai in his construction of Indian history did not at any point demonise Muslims. In her introduction and at various points of the book, she contends that scholars who have researched and written on the nationalist leader before her labelled him as someone who preceded Savarkar, and possibly contributed to the latter’s evolution in writing his tract, Essentials of Hindutva . Dr Bhargav contends that they did so by viewing the articulations of the early Lajpat Rai in isolation and not within a frame where he also expressed contrasting views.

There were more similar views of Lajpat Rai in the second phase of his life from 1900 to 1915. The author shows her subject as engaging with the notion of Hindu nationalism. But, other “religious nationalities” not just existed cheek by jowl in his imagination, he also considered a potential “unity” as a probability in a “future” Indian nation. There were complications, even problematic aspects, in Lajpat Rai’s formulations, because Dr Bhargav points to his acceptance of the viewpoint of the foreignness of Muslim rule, indicating that he subscribed to identity-based history, which eventually communalised the understanding of the past.

Part three probes the years when Lajpat Rai becomes a firm adherent of the emerging notion of inclusive nationalism. This was the period, from 1915 to 1922, when developments, most importantly the Khilafat movement, proved crucial determinants for the direction that the national movement eventually took. Lajpat Rai in this period was a decisive personality who gave strength to the developments and other key personalities. Dr Bhargav argues that Lajpat Rai’s position was certainly not that of a leader who is (still) considered by many as a precursor to Savarkar.

The final phase of Lajpat Rai’s life begins in the post-Khilafat period and ends with his death from injuries sustained while protesting the Simon Commission. The nationalist is now firmly part of the Hindu Mahasabha. The author depicts the nationalist as being an oddity within the Mahasabha, which increasingly adopted an anti-Muslim stance. In contrast, Lajpat Rai, the author contends, not only “did not turn to Savarkar’s ascendant Hindu nationalism, but aimed to realize a vision of secularism.”

The book paints the nationalist leader as someone who was secular but also accepted the notion of Hindus as a majority. Lajpat Rai’s presence as a towering nationalist underscores the notion that one can be Hindu and Indian at the same time. This is because he embraced the idea of India’s diversity and was willing to provide space to other religious communities. Significantly, Dr Bhargav establishes that in Lajpat Rai’s views, they could be part of a united India without being assimilated in the majority community.

The characterisation of Lajpat Rai as someone who imagined the nation differently at various times while always believing there was space for everyone makes this an important book in today’s context, especially when, over the past decade, there have been consistent attacks on Muslims.

Given this, revisiting the life of Lajpat Rai and understanding his philosophical fluidities becomes critical. As this exhaustive and probing book shows, Lajpat Rai’s life is evidence of the existence of multiple strands of nationalism during the national movement. The strength of this book lies in detailing them without taking a prior position on him.
 

The reviewer is an author and journalist based in Delhi-NCR. X:@NilanjanUdwin