Pro.B Surendra Rao On ''D D Koasambi''
by B. SURENDRA RAO
D.D. Kosambi was a rare genius. In a world that revels in narrow
specialisation, he was truly a man of Renaissance versatility: a mathematician
of distinction, a polyglot, a Marxist, an active member of the World Peace
Council and a man who had strayed into Indian history (“… I had fallen into
Indology, as it were, through the roof.”) and yet created a major paradigm
shift there. He had creatively subverted — which means enriched — the
understanding and writing of Indian history.
A whole generation of historians has harnessed his ideas to new
areas and destinations, to test his theories and hypotheses, and drawing on not
only his critical, scientific temperament but also his strong social
commitment. That 45 years after his death his discerning admirers should yet
join together to re-visit him shows how strong his impact is on Indian
historiography. Professor D.N. Jha and the scholars who have participated in
this academic venture and produced this book deserve our compliments.
The book has eight essays that touch upon the myriad aspects of
Kosambi's work and legacy. D.N. Jha's essay highlights the various areas of
Indian history which Kosambi upturned to achieve newer perspectives and
refreshing harvests like numismatics, religious and secular literature,
ethnography and even archaeology.
Though Kosambi was a Marxist, he refused to be dogmatically so.
It was for him a method, a ‘tool of analysis' and not ‘a substitute for
thinking.' He questioned the received Marxist notion of Asiatic Mode of
Production and the simplistic slavery-feudalism-capitalism scheme of epochal
progress. But Kosambi could identify features of feudalism in India, which, he
believed, had its source both from below and from above, an idea which has been
productively debated and cultivated in Indian historiography.
IrfanHabib's essay points out that for all his sturdy
independence, Kosambi had accepted the universality of class struggle and hence
the foundational idea of Marxism. But what he would not compromise with was the
academic rigour with which to test a theory or a hypothesis. IrfanHabib
gratefully acknowledges that “He opened doors for many of us to new ideas and
new questions …”
ACCULTURATION
Not only did Kosambi adopt a framework in which to explain
Indian history, but as PrabhatPatnaik shows in his brilliant essay, he extended
the frontiers of dialectical materialism. His concept of ‘acculturation' by
which the tribal societies were anaesthetically subjugated and sucked into the
agrarian and hence class societies, was new to the usual Marxist analysis,
which also proves the point that the theory is much more open-ended than its
traducers would have us believe.
Kosambi's understanding of medieval India has been analysed by
Eugenia Vanina, who takes up certain issues like ‘ahistoricity' of ancient and
medieval India, the applicability of feudalism as an idea or the class
character of medieval literature and argues for the need to extend the
researches to areas such as culture, literature, mentalities, ethical values,
and scientific views.
K.M. Shrimali's attempt to explore Kosambi's idea of religious
histories of India is done by strenuously juxtaposing it with the work of
MirceaEliade. He points out that contrary to the belief that Marxism denies
religion and culture, Kosambi sought to study religion in the larger historical
contexts and as responding to various ideas. SuviraJaiswal's essay on ‘Kosambi
on Caste' takes up several strands of debates and shows how material conditions
and ideologies together went into its making and consolidation.
KesavanVeluthat in his essay points out that Kosambi,
notwithstanding his uncharacteristic modesty about his facility in Sanskrit,
was the first to analyse Sanskrit literature within the framework of historical
materialism to show its class character. He contends that Sheldon Pollock's
rejection of Kosambi's thesis is based on exceptions which proverbially prove
the rule. The last essay by C.K. Raju deals with Kosambi's work on mathematics
which the author interestingly and illuminatingly links with the status of
science management in post-Independence India which has consecrated the idea
and workings of hierarchy.
All the essays seek to reaffirm the place of Kosambi in Indian
historiography. He could be faulted in matters of some details and judgments;
but it is less important to criticise or defend them than acknowledge the
shifts he had effected and the larger debt we owe him. Some critics have
gleefully noticed his influence only with the Left, which at least concedes
that scientific and critical history is possible with, and palatable to, a few.
THE MANY CAREERS OF D. D. KOSAMBI: Critical Essays: Edited by D.
N. Jha; LeftWord Books, 12, Rajendra Prasad Road, New Delhi-110001. Rs. 275.
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