Lala Lajpat Rai’s Ideas on Caste: Conservative or Radical?

Lala Lajpat Rai is remembered in popular imagination first and foremost as a fervent anti-colonial nationalist who sacrificed his life for India’s freedom. Apart from an exponent of such ‘extremist’ nationalism, he appears in historical scholarship as a prominent leader of the Arya Samaj, which is often viewed as embodying a form of ‘Hindu revivalism’ (Bandyopadhyay, 2004, pp. 234–235, 240; Heimsath, 1964, pp. 299, 309; Sarkar, 1983, pp. 70–76). More recently, he has been evaluated as a ‘Hindu nationalist’ or ‘proto-Hindu nationalist’ (Bhatt, 2001, Chapter 2; Jaffrelot, 1999, pp. 11, 18, 2011, pp. 81–86). This article systematically examines Lajpat Rai’s thought on caste and analyzes it through the category of ‘conservatism’. In doing so, it constitutes a novel undertaking in three ways. First, while Lajpat Rai has appeared in histories of ‘extremism’ (Tripathi, 1967), the Arya Samaj (Adcock, 2013; Jones, 1976) and Hindu nationalism (Jaffrelot, 1999, 2011), his thought has, to a very large extent, remained unanalyzed. In the rare instance when it has been examined somewhat more closely (Bhatt, 2001), analysis is based on selected portions of his thought rather than the outcome of systematic intellectual study. Second, while certain other aspects of his thought—his views on the Hindu ‘community’ or the nation—have been occasionally touched upon (Bhatt, 2001; Nair, 2011), his thought on caste has been entirely ignored. In undertaking a systematic intellectual study of Lajpat Rai’s ideas on caste, this essay takes a step towards filling these two significant gaps in scholarship. In addition, it seeks to evaluate his ideas through a hitherto neglected category: conservatism.

Using this concept in the Indian context is not easy. In Britain, Europe and USA, conservatism exists as a long-standing body of political doctrine, which has found historical and contemporary expression in organizations and political parties. This has allowed political theorists in the West to delineate core features of the conservative ideology, which include an attachment to ‘tradition’ and an opposition to large, sudden and revolutionary change (Freeden, 1996, p. 340; Green, 2002, p. 281). In contrast, one does not find in India’s history a political ideology or movement by this name. Consequently, the category is rarely used in political or academic discourse today, posing a challenge for anyone seeking to understand Indian history or politics through it.

When invoked at all in the Indian context, it has been cursorily used to describe the ‘Hindu nationalist’ Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) (Bengali, 2014; Chemnick, 2016). If the ‘Hindu nationalist’ BJP is considered an expression of conservatism, historical personalities like Lajpat Rai, claimed by the BJP as an icon (Press Trust of India, 2015) and considered by some scholars as its ideological ancestor (Bhatt, 2001; Jaffrelot, 1999), might also be viewed as falling within the same ideological family. Some may also assume the conservatism of Lajpat Rai due to his association with Arya Samaji/Hindu ‘revivalism’. Revivalism is often contrasted with reform movements which critiqued Hindu institutions and practices, and attempted to modify them in line with rationalist ideas of the West (Bandyopadhyay, 2004, pp. 234–235). Revivalists are seen as rejecting such ‘reform’ as a surrender to Western ideas, and instead rationalizing Hinduism and glorifying an ‘ancient Hindu civilization’. In short, Hindu revivalism has been seen as concerned with defending Hindu tradition and resisting reform. This has promoted the assumption that revivalism is equivalent to conservatism. According to this assessment, Lajpat Rai, a prominent leader of the ‘Hindu revivalist’ Arya Samaj, can also be considered a conservative.

However, some scholars have rightly pointed out that ‘revivalism’ did not constitute an opposition to change per se. Much like ‘reformers’, ‘revivalists’ also often sought change and, as in the case of the Arya Samaj, could even adopt a radically reformist stance (Heimsath, 1964, pp. 228, 299, 309; Sen, 2003, pp. 35–36) ² . The difference was that this change was sought not by reference to the West but under the pretext of reviving what was interpreted as the true form of tradition that had allegedly existed in some ancient past. Therefore, Charles Heimsath mentions Lajpat Rai as a ‘revivalist’ who, although criticized ‘reformers’ for basing reform on Western line, himself also supported radical reform (1964, p. 321). In this view, Lajpat Rai and the Arya Samaj are juxtaposed against proponents of Sanatan Dharma, which is seen as engaged in the defence of ‘orthodox Hindu tradition’ (Jones, 1989, pp. 106–107). Since conservatism is seen as entailing a defence of tradition and a resistance to change, Sanatan Dharma is seen as the historical expression of Indian conservatism. On the other hand, the assumption that openness to any change precludes conservatism encourages the conclusion that Lajpat Rai’s revivalism always remained outside of conservatism.

Does Lajpat Rai’s ‘Hindu nationalism’ make him conservative? Or does his revivalism and openness to reform disqualify him from being described as such? In order to gain clarity on this issue one has to go beyond perfunctory, throwaway uses of this category to a more self-conscious understanding of what may constitute Indian conservatism. As mentioned above, the concept of conservatism, born of particular historical contingencies in the West, does not translate easily for India. Rather than existing as an explicit or coherent political ideology or movement, conservatism in India finds expression as a social force and individual proclivity. These consist of intermittent resistances to social change that seeks to transform existing hierarchical structures towards a new egalitarian order. Caste order and patriarchy constitute the two main hierarchical structures that Indian conservatives seek to preserve. Therefore, to determine whether a particular Hindu nationalist is conservative, one must examine his or her attitude towards these institutions. Similarly, attachment to religious tradition does not necessarily imply conservatism as hierarchies have often been challenged within and through religion ³ . Nor does religious reform automatically constitute radicalism if it leaves hierarchies untouched. To determine whether followers of Arya Samaji ‘revivalism’ or even Sanatan Dharma, or indeed any other religious movement, were conservative, one needs to examine their attitude to the hierarchical order. This is precisely what this short essay seeks to do for Lajpat Rai. The following section analyses his thought on caste in the light of the working definition of conservatism that has just been outlined. While cognizant that an individual’s views on the gender hierarchy must also play a role in their consideration as conservative, here I confine myself to Lajpat Rai’s views on caste.

As Rosalind O’Hanlon points out, it was not so much the content of Hindu religious texts that was important in reinforcing social hierarchy but the differential access to them that maintained and legitimated it (1985, pp. 77–78). Differential access to sacred texts like the Vedas was an important determinant of the different levels of religious purity which the caste hierarchy reflects. A Brahman’s ability to recite the Vedas was essential to his religious privilege and access to the Vedas a crucial part of his religious power over lower castes who were denied access.

In a tract he wrote in 1898 on the Arya Samaj founder Swami Dayanand, Lajpat Rai approved of the latter giving lower castes the right to recite Vedic mantras and his prescription that ‘everyone had the right to seek guidance and gain knowledge from them’ (Lajpat Rai, [1898] 2003, Vol. 1, p. 408). This implicitly denied the Brahmins’ privileged access to the Vedas merely by virtue of their birth. This refusal of the Brahmins’ exclusive right to interpret the Vedas dispensed them as intermediaries between the individual and God, a social role that rested on the notion of their supposed superiority by birth (Adcock, 2013, pp. 11, 45; Zavos, 2000, p. 46). Lajpat Rai’s disregard for the idea of differential access to the Vedas had implications for his beliefs about the hereditary caste hierarchy and reflected an openness towards the possibility of a more egalitarian socio-religious order. This is noteworthy considering Sanatanist Hindus, despite their inventiveness (Adcock, 2013, p. 34; Dalmia, 1995), continued to define the hereditary caste hierarchy as the core of Hindu tradition (Zavos, 2000, p. 53). It would indeed be simplistic to describe the religious revivalism propagated by Lajpat Rai in the 1890s, and which aimed to ‘revive’ this relatively more egalitarian ‘ancient’ Vedic religion, as ‘conservative’.

By the time he wrote his 1915 book The Arya Samaj: An Account of its Origin, Doctrines and Activities, Lajpat Rai was more explicit in his enthusiasm for Dayananda’s attack on ‘the unquestioned authority of the mere Brahmin by birth’(Lajpat Rai, [1915] 2003, Vol. 5, pp. 211–214). He praised Dayananda for keenly grasping the ‘central curse’ that afflicted Hinduism: the authority of the Brahmin by birth who was considered superior despite his ignorance of the Vedas. He affirmed the teaching that a man born of Brahmin parents was an ordinary man, his birth alone bestowing on him neither social superiority nor the right to preach religion if he had no knowledge of the Vedas (ibid., pp. 212–213). A man’s position as Brahmin was determined by his knowledge of the Vedas. Moreover, since everyone had the right to read and interpret the Vedas directly for themselves (Lajpat Rai, 2003, pp. 214–215), everyone had an ‘equal right to become Brahmins’. He also held that any individual could become a Brahmin by the force of their ‘personal character’ (ibid., pp. 213–214). In short, Lajpat Rai asserted the right of lower castes to ‘become Brahmins’ and gain social position by acquiring the knowledge of the Vedas or even simply by strength of their moral character.

It was in the five years between 1909 and 1914 that ‘Depressed Classes’ started featuring prominently and conspicuously in Lajpat Rai’s discourse, which began showing considerable egalitarian or radical potential. He now referred to not just the Vedas—‘the original source of Hindu religion’—but other textual traditions of Hinduism such as the Itihasa and Puranas to argue that ancient Hindu society entailed an open, flexible caste system in which even ‘outsiders’, admitted after certain rites, could rise according to ‘merit’ to the highest social positions (Lajpat Rai, [1909] 2003, Vol. 4, p. 271). An individual’s ‘fall’ was personal rather than hereditary (Lajpat Rai, [1910] 2003, Vol. 4, pp. 280–281). Interestingly, the concept of ‘merit’ now often appeared independently of any emphasis on the acquisition of divine Vedic knowledge or moral conduct, suggesting that, although ostensibly religious, it might have been conceptualized in largely secular terms. The secular notion of merit opened up the possibility of greater caste mobility. By retaining the category of the Brahmin and the notion of becoming one by ‘merit’—defined in religious or secular terms—Lajpat Rai appears to legitimize some form of social hierarchy. However, the principle of equal opportunity entailed in it provided for a greater flexibility and mobility that undercut the notion of a rigid, hereditary hierarchy.

Apart from permitting upward mobility by merit, Lajpat Rai also began to view the shastras as sanctioning the shuddhi of untouchables and containing ‘concrete evidence’ of ancient Brahmins ‘assimilating’ non-Brahmins by giving them the right to wear the sacred thread (Lajpat Rai, [1913] 2003, Vol. 4, pp. 305–306). According to Lajpat Rai, because the sacred thread was the only visible marker that differentiated caste Hindus and low castes, it was extremely effective in raising the social status of the latter (Lajpat Rai, [1913] 2003, Vol. 4, p. 298). As C.S. Adcock has argued, although the shuddhi of low castes (which entailed granting them the sacred thread) has been viewed by scholars as constituting merely a nominal change in their status, it could also be viewed as a refusal of their low-caste status, and a means of admitting them to their rightful place in Hindu society (2013, pp. 127–128).

To Lajpat Rai, the Hindu shastras even revealed that in ancient times, contemporary caste taboos regarding food and touch were absent. Nor was it prescribed where to live, whom to socialize with or marry: ‘The Hindu Shastras are replete with such examples. It appears that in ancient times… whatever their vocation, it did not matter where they [the people] lived and what they ate, where they married and with whom they established relations. Nothing was done under compulsion. But now it is not so’ (Lajpat Rai, [1913] 2003, Vol. 4, pp. 305–306). He urged that these ‘shackles’ needed to be ‘broken in theory and in practice’. Even from the Manusmriti, publicly burnt in 1927 by B.R. Ambedkar precisely for its sanction of caste hierarchy and violence towards lower castes, Lajpat Rai gleaned only evidence of the prevalence of inter-caste marriages: ‘Manu takes special pains to fix the caste status of the offspring of mixed marriages… which conclusively establishes the prevalence of these marriages at the time of the compilation of the present Manu-Samhita’ (Lajpat Rai, [1909] 2003, Vol. 4, p. 272). This disregard for the taboo on inter-caste marriage is significant considering the view of many Dalit intellectuals, Ambedkar among them, that endogamy was the very essence of the caste hierarchy (Ambedkar, 1989, p. 8) ⁴ . Lajpat Rai went further than many caste Hindus to acknowledge what Anupama Rao refers to as the role of sexual regulation in reproducing the caste hierarchy (2009, pp. 232–233).

By the 1910s, Lajpat Rai had moved on from suggesting a relaxation of the caste hierarchy through a ‘revival’ of what he had considered its original form embodied in the ancient Vedas. Reflecting the shift in his will to strengthen the Hindu ‘community’ while accepting its internal diversity, he now utilised a variety of non-Vedic Hindu textual traditions to argue for similar, sometimes even greater, reform along the same lines. If this appeal to the Hindu shastras represented ‘revivalism’, this Hindu revivalism was radical indeed.

This religious radicalism was supplemented by attempts to challenge hierarchy through secular means. Despite having argued for their scriptural sanction, Lajpat Rai insisted that no amount of shuddhi ceremonies would bring about the ‘real uplift’ of the Depressed Classes; these merely amounted to one of the many superficial remedies pursued by leaders of the Hindu ‘community’ (Lajpat Rai, [1912] 2003, Vol. 4, pp. 284–285). Instead, what was ‘urgently needed’ was their education. While discussing the agenda of the Punjab Hindu Educational Conference in 1912, Lajpat Rai emphasized the vital importance of special efforts towards the education of Depressed Classes (Lajpat Rai, [1912] 2003, Vol. 4, p. 397). Their education would ‘produce leaders and reformers’ among them and ameliorate their social ‘status and position’ (Lajpat Rai, [1910] 2003, Vol. 4, p. 282). Calling it a shame that Hindus considered untouchables polluting and denied them opportunities to improve their position, he asserted the ‘right’ of every human to be judged by merit and not birth, and appealed to caste Hindus to establish schools for untouchables (Lajpat Rai, [1914] 2003, Vol. 4, p. 314). Lajpat Rai was clearly willing to countenance the possibility of lower caste education resulting in a more egalitarian socio-economic structure. Further, referring to the Ludhiana Municipal Committee’s refusal to let Ramdasis use the municipal water tap as an illustration of the ‘fatal egotism and brutal callousness’ of upper caste Hindus, he asserted that ‘the only remedy then is to educate these [Depressed] classes and to rouse in them a sense of wrong that is being inflicted on them by these arrogant Hindus’ (Lajpat Rai, [1912] 2003, Vol. 4, p. 285). This can hardly be seen as conservative. According to Lajpat Rai, ignorance of lower castes hindered their social uplift as it permitted perpetuation of caste Hindu prejudice against ‘social intercourse’ with them; the removal of this ignorance through education, he thought, would make upper caste prejudice disappear (ibid., p. 286). Underplaying the possibility that many caste Hindus may have seen the caste hierarchy as divinely ordained, the secular education of Depressed Classes was envisaged by him as a means to end caste Hindu prejudice and establish the former’s social or civic equality. Lajpat Rai’s focus on education as a means of dismantling the caste hierarchy bore some resemblance to late nineteenth century non-Brahmin leaders of Jyotirao Phule’s Satyashodhak Samaj, who pushed for education among low castes to intellectually emancipate them from doctrines of Brahmanic Hinduism (O’Hanlon, 1985, p. 234). It was also significant in the context of access to education being, as Rao has noted, a long-standing demand of ‘Dalit’ publicists for its value in ‘demystifying the Brahmin trickery at the heart of their continued dehumanisation’ (2009, p. 70).

To be sure, Depressed Classes had entered Lajpat Rai’s discourse in 1909 as a response to the Morley–Minto reforms and arguments of Muslim League spokespersons regarding Muslim representation in councils in the years and months leading up to them. The League had demanded separate Muslim electorates and representation in excess of Muslim numbers in accordance with their ‘historical and political importance’. In advancing these claims, the ‘high-born’ spokespersons of the League had also suggested that if the ‘uncivilized portions of the country’ were excluded from the political category of Hindus, this would ‘accord the Mussulmans a larger proportion to the real Hindu majority’ and obtain a form of representation more acceptable to Muslims (Sayyid Ali Imam [1908] in Muhammad, 1980, Vol. 2, p. 59; Shaikh, 2012, p. 153). In 1909, Lajpat Rai wrote that the maintenance of rigid caste hierarchy and the neglect of Depressed Classes was ‘politically unsound’; it enabled Muslims to push for their exclusion from the category of Hindus while counting them for purposes of representation, and simultaneously demand representation for themselves in excess of their numerical strength (Lajpat Rai, 2003, Vol. 4, p. 269). Attempts by League spokespersons to undercut the notion of a Hindu majority were impelled partly by their fears of being reduced to an insignificant political minority in a newly emergent political system where numbers suddenly mattered. It was in response to threats of Hindus being political downsized that Lajpat Rai emphasized the need to attend to the Depressed Classes. He explicitly stated that the ‘greatest strength’ of Hindus, not shared by any other community of India, was their numbers (Lajpat Rai, [1909] 2003, Vol. 4, p. 273). If caste Hindus continued to ill-treat ‘untouchables’ and deny them rights, the latter would leave the Hindu fold, thereby causing Hindus to lose their majority and their ability to claim political rights on that basis (Lajpat Rai, [1913] 2003, Vol. 4, p. 307, [1914] 2003, Vol. 4, p. 321). To be sure, this Hindu majoritarianism was more complex than it appears. As he saw it, if ‘Muslims’ were utilizing their former dominant position in India as rulers (their ‘historical and political importance’) to demand representation in excess of their numerical strength, and bolster their political position by arguing for the subtraction of lower castes from Hindus, the latter could legitimately utilize their greatest strength—their numerical majority—to assert their political rights.

While Lajpat Rai’s intention was clearly to maintain the numerical majority of the Hindu ‘community’, this does not diminish the significance of his attitude towards the caste hierarchy, especially in the light of the claim that, by the 1910s, the dominant position in the ideology of Hindu politics emphasized the ‘horizontal organization’ of Hinduism (Zavos, 2000, p. 111). As John Zavos argues, this entailed side-stepping thorny issues of caste division, hierarchy and oppression by simply binding together different castes in the name of catholicity and tolerance. For example, Lala Lal Chand, like Lajpat Rai a leading figure in the Hindu Sabha movement, argued that while the Hindu community was a ‘living body’, the ‘feet’ need not be given the status of the ‘head’ (Adcock, 2013, p. 131). Similarly, U.N. Mukherjee, the author of Hindus—A Dying Race (1909), had by 1911 eschewed caste reform. He now recast Hinduism as an idealized pluralism, eliding power relations related to caste, justifying caste differences and even untouchability as a part of an organic ‘Hindu’ whole (Datta, 1993, p. 1310, 1999, pp. 35–36). As P.K. Datta shows, this had been Mukherjee’s response to the immediate challenge posed by the Gait Circular, a note released by the government in 1910 which threatened to exclude low castes from the category of Hindus for purposes of census enumeration. The Brahmo Samajist Ramananda Chatterjee similarly reacted to the Circular by asserting that ‘the essential characteristic of the Hindu social organism’ was that ‘some are considered higher and some lower, some clean and some unclean’ (Jaffrelot, 2011, p. 110). As we have seen, Lajpat Rai continued, at times even accelerated, his efforts to challenge the caste hierarchy even after the publication of the Gait Circular. In fact, he appreciated the jolt it had given to the ‘orthodox pandits of Kashi’ and warned against the dangers of apathy setting in again (Lajpat Rai, [1913] 2003, Vol. 4, p. 311). Lajpat Rai’s participation in the Hindu Sabha movement and simultaneous expression of caste-related radicalism is also significant considering that recent scholarship, nuanced in its recognition that the Arya Samajist approach to caste and Hindu unity was often distinct from the horizontal approach of the Hindu Sabha movement, encourages the impression that Lajpat Rai, a prominent Arya leader of this movement, might have adopted this latter, more conservative approach (Adcock, 2013, pp. 130–131; Zavos, 1999, p. 70). This was clearly not the case.

Moreover, Lajpat Rai’s appeals to relax caste hierarchies on grounds of political expediency coexisted with principled appeals grounded in moral considerations. As he himself clarified, ‘to appeal in the name of expediency, when the latter strengthens the demands of morality and humanity, involves no breach of principle’ (Lajpat Rai, [1909] 2003, Vol. 4, p. 270). Lajpat Rai often appealed for the relaxation of the ‘cruel’ and ‘shockingly unjust’ hereditary caste hierarchy out of a sense of ‘humanity’ and a consideration for ‘human rights’ (ibid., 2003, Vol. 4, p. 280, [1913] 2003, Vol. 4, pp. 290–293, [1912] 2003, Vol. 4, p. 285). To him, humanity meant the end of social barriers that divided men into groups, so they would start treating each other as brothers, with mutual love and respect. It also meant that ‘no one should frame laws for others despotically and take advantage of the poverty and ignorance of his fellow beings’ (Lajpat Rai, [1912] 2003, Vol. 4, pp. 291–292). In challenging the caste hierarchy on grounds of humanity and human rights, Lajpat Rai’s discourse shared an affinity with early ‘low-caste intellectuals’ such as Gopal Baba Walangkar and Jyotirao Phule, the latter being influenced by these ideas as they appeared in the works of European religious radicals like Thomas Paine (O’Hanlon, 1985, pp. 193–199; Rao, 2009, pp. 39, 47). Lajpat Rai probably himself drew on ideas of humanity found in the political thought of ascendant ‘labour and socialist circles’ (Jackson, 2007, pp. 20–21) which he had encountered on his visit to England in 1905, and with whom he closely interacted during the early 1910s (Lajpat Rai, [1905] 2003, Vol. 2, pp. 203–205, refer 2003, Vol. 4).

Lajpat Rai declared, ‘We are living in a democratic age. The tendencies of democracy are towards the levelling down of all inequalities’ (Lajpat Rai, [1909] 2003, Vol. 4, p. 270). His enthusiasm about the possibility of politically mobilizing the ‘masses’ in the Swadeshi agitation (1905–1908) had reflected his keenness to include the subaltern in an expanded definition of ‘the people’. Conceiving ‘democracy’ in terms of greater collective agency of ‘the people’ in this expanded sense, he used its egalitarian pull to argue for greater equality between castes. Likening upper castes to ‘slave owners’ in a way reminiscent of Phule’s 1873 work Gulamgiri (Slavery) (O’Hanlon, 1985, p. 111), Lajpat Rai implored them to end their oppression of Depressed Classes and ‘treat all equally’ (Lajpat Rai, [1913] 2003, Vol. 4, pp. 293–294). For him, this move towards greater caste equality was linked to a ‘sheer sense of justice’ and demanded by the principle of ‘social justice’ (Lajpat Rai, [1909] 2003, Vol. 4, p. 270, [1913] 2003, Vol. 4, p. 306), with his linking of justice with equality again reflecting his appreciation of socialist thought.

Finally, Lajpat Rai sometimes also argued for civic equality for low castes based on an implicit notion of liberal democratic citizenship. The Ludhiana Municipal Committee’s refusal to allow Ramdasis the use of the municipal water tap was for Lajpat Rai particularly unjust since this denied a ‘public’ facility to ‘tax payers’: ‘Just think of the arrogance and inhumanity of a decision refusing a tax payer the use of a municipal water tap… Hindus refusing the use of a public water-stand to a brother Hindu… is a sight to make the gods weep’ (Lajpat Rai, [1912] 2003, Vol. 4, p. 285). Caste exclusion had to be abolished as it foreclosed the future possibility of a full realization of a modern way of organizing politics. These principled arguments were bolstered by highlighting the practical futility of attempts to maintain caste taboos in the face of upper caste use of modern technologies and innovations like the railways, modern medicine, aerated water and public taps which rendered touch anonymous (Lajpat Rai, [1913] 2003, Vol. 4, p. 303)—an argument also found in writings of early lower caste intellectuals like Walangkar (Rao, 2009, p. 69).

Lajpat Rai’s moves towards a more egalitarian order should not lead us to conclude that he could never be conservative. At times, he felt the need to mention that Depressed Classes did not necessarily have to be ‘raised’ to the ‘same level’ as caste Hindus but only to one from which they could rise by their own efforts to the highest positions in society (Lajpat Rai, [1909] 2003, Vol. 4, p. 269). Once, in 1910, Lajpat Rai expressed apprehension regarding investing untouchables with the sacred thread as he worried this would cause friction (Lajpat Rai, [1910] 2003, Vol. 4, p. 281). In 1912, he once contradicted his own radicalism by arguing that schools for Depressed Classes would have a ‘simple’ curriculum leaving ample time for them to learn their hereditary occupations (Lajpat Rai, [1912] 2003, Vol. 4, p. 287). While considering inter-caste marriages as ‘progress’, he seemed, at times, to resign himself to the inevitability of slow progress and the need to proceed along ‘lines of least resistance’. His anxiety not to completely alienate ‘orthodox’ Sanatani Hindus sometimes made Lajpat Rai adopt more conservative stances. While Lajpat Rai often espoused radical views on castes, with this radicalism peaking in 1913–1914, he sometimes also expressed conservative stances in the same period in 1909, 1910 and 1912. Not moving in a wholly linear fashion to a progressively radical position on caste, he sometimes wavered, hesitated and retreated to conservative stances.

That Lajpat Rai could, in moments, even adopt a strongly conservative position is evident in his 1904 article titled The Social Genius of Hinduism (Lajpat Rai, [1904] 2003, Vol. 2, pp. 301–322). Here, he argued that the Rigveda’s division of Hindu society into the four varnas, each of which was to perform separate functions, made Hinduism a ‘complete system of social duties’. In ensuring the ‘mutual interdependence of all parts of society’, this reflected the ‘essential oneness of the whole’ and ‘the unity of the social organism’. Similarly, at this juncture, the Manusmriti, which he considered the book of ‘orthodox Hindus’, had revealed to Lajpat Rai the ‘original social conception of the caste system’ in its prescription that every caste had to perform duties not just for themselves but for other castes: ‘The Brahmin is enjoined to study not for the benefit of his soul only, but to teach others as a purely social duty. In the same way, it was the duty of Kshatriyas to protect all… similarly, the duty of the Vaishya was to produce and trade for all and that of the Shudra to labour for all’. This vision of the caste system in the Manusmriti showed that Hinduism aimed at promoting ‘the social good and prosperity of the whole community’.

Lajpat Rai’s article was intended to counter certain Hindus whom he believed had capitulated to ‘Western’ denigrations of Hinduism as being ‘essentially individualistic’, ‘antisocial’ and lacking a national spirit. These Hindus, he thought, believed that Hinduism could not be reformed from within since it was rotten at the roots, but had to be reformed by borrowing from the West. Lajpat Rai’s aim was to highlight that Hindu texts ranging from the Rigveda to the Manusmriti showed that ancient Hinduism was ‘not entirely devoid of the idea of nationality’, and the caste system, with its putative social harmony, cooperation and unity, was adduced as evidence. Lajpat Rai challenged the assumption that these qualities resided only in resources of the West from where they had to be borrowed. By firmly locating them within Hinduism, the latter could be portrayed as abundantly resourceful and therefore worthy vis-à-vis the West. This was also intended to provide Hindus with the confidence that this national orientation could be revived by turning to their ancient shastras. By arguing that Hinduism contained the national spirit in its ancient shastras which now merely needed to be revived, Lajpat Rai saw himself as asserting autonomy from the West ⁵ . However, in the process of defending Hinduism from severe criticism in the colonial context, and depicting the caste system as proof of its social and national spirit, Lajpat Rai ended up glossing over its hierarchy, inequality and exploitation, thereby undertaking the intellectual manoeuvre typical of a conservative Hindu. This was a clear instance of a conservative Hindu revivalism. Unlike in the 1890s when he had sought the revival of the caste meritocracy he saw in the Vedas, his revivalism in 1904 sought to resuscitate an ancient social and national spirit, proving the existence of which led him to rationalize the caste hierarchy.

Overshadowed by other concerns after 1915, when caste reappeared in Lajpat Rai’s discourse in the mid-1920s, his stance was more conservative than before. With the admitted objective of conciliating ‘orthodox’ Hindus, as president of the Hindu Mahasabha in 1925 he hesitated to go beyond the ‘minimum’ laid down at a special session in 1924 (Lajpat Rai, [1925] 2003, Vol. 11, p. 234). Here, it had been decided that since Sanatanists considered giving the sacred thread to untouchables, teaching them the Vedas and inter-dining with them against Hindu scriptures, these activities would not be conducted in the Mahasabha’s name (Jordens, 1981, p. 142). Lajpat Rai stated his personal preference for the complete removal of untouchability and flagged his view that in ancient times, shudras were allowed to ‘rise’ to higher castes, but his conservatism was evident in his response to the increasing prominence of the non-Brahmin movements of western and southern India. He urged the Brahmins of these regions to readmit ‘at least’ those non-Brahmins to the dwija (twice-born) rights of wearing the sacred thread and performing yajnas who were dwija by occupation (Lajpat Rai, [1925] 2003, Vol. 11, pp. 274–277). While equality between Brahmins and non-shudra non-Brahmins was argued for, the lower hierarchical position of shudras and untouchables was left intact.

Lajpat Rai was also contemptuous of the new politics of caste that had emerged by the mid-1920s. This politics sought to challenge the exclusion, oppression and invisibility that the hierarchal caste order subjected ‘untouchables’ to by claiming political recognition and representation for them as a group separate from Hindus. Unable to concede politics as a legitimate vehicle by which low castes could challenge caste hierarchy and achieve emancipation, he dismissed the political claims of the Adi-Hindu movement in the U.P. (Lajpat Rai, [1928] 2003, Vol. 15, pp. 239–241). He also brushed off B.R. Ambedkar and M.C. Rajah as either ‘hired agents’ of the British and Muslims, or as naively playing into their attempts to divide Hindus. Caste reform could only be countenanced within the ‘social’ realm, with untouchables located within the boundaries of the Hindu community. This in itself did not necessarily have to be a conservative stance had Lajpat Rai, particularly in this new context of increasingly assertive and overt caste politics, intensified or even simply continued his erstwhile attacks on the caste hierarchy, as Swami Shraddhananda did (Adcock, 2013, pp. 152–154). Shraddhananda, a contemporary of Lajpat Rai, was, like him, an Arya Samaji associated with the newly revived Hindu Mahasabha. However, his continued espousal of caste reform led him to criticize and eventually leave the Mahasabha in 1926 for its symbolic and horizontal approach to Hindu unity. But Lajpat Rai’s priorities lay elsewhere.

During these years, he spearheaded the mobilization of a politics of community through Hindu sangathan (organization) in order to ‘kill’ or at least push back what he regarded as the Muslim politics of illegitimate and extortionate ‘communalism’. In his province of Punjab, Fazl-i-Hussain, as minister for local government and education, had extended communal representation to local bodies and educational institutions (Jalal & Seal, 1981, p. 426; Nair, 2011, p. 72). At the all-India level, Muslim League resolutions rejected joint electorates and asked for the further extension of communal representation within legislatures to levels above the weightages granted in the 1916 Lucknow Pact. They also pushed for its extension beyond legislatures to the government service, local bodies and universities (All-India Muslim League, 1970, pp. 368–369, 1975, pp. 272–273). Lajpat Rai demanded either the complete abolition of separate electorates and communal representation, or at least a ‘reasonable settlement’ that could go to the extent of conceding communal representation and the weightages granted in the Lucknow Pact. However, holding that their agreement to the extension of communal representation would amount to ‘political hara-kiri’ (Lajpat Rai, [1925] 2003, Vol. 11, p. 261), he exhorted Hindus to organize a politics of community to restrict the Muslim politics of community to ‘very narrow limits’. With this being his primary and urgent objective, he chose to maintain the integrity and symbolic unity of the Hindu ‘community’ by ‘conciliating’ Sanatanist Hindus and sidelining his earlier, more radical efforts to dismantle the caste hierarchy.

It might be asked whether Lajpat Rai’s relatively more conservative stances on caste towards the end of his life show that he was ‘ultimately’ conservative. I argue that such an attempt to permanently pigeonhole Lajpat Rai to find an overall coherence for all contexts and all times obscures rather than illuminates the complexity of his thought, and forecloses the possibility of intellectual shifts in time. Indeed, such generalization constitutes falling into a pitfall Quentin Skinner warns intellectual historians about: the ‘mythology of coherence’ (2002, Vol. 1, pp. 70–71). Lajpat Rai’s adoption of conservative stances at particular historical junctures does not imply that his radical stances at other junctures were disingenuous; if a conclusive statement has to be made about his thought on caste through his life, it is that he stood squarely between conservatism and radicalism.

Interestingly, while Lajpat Rai justifies his radicalism on caste by an appeal to principles, these rarely undergirded his conservative stances. The latter simply occurred without justification and were left untheorized. They were merely the outcome of his practical mode of reasoning where, rather than starting from a pre-decided, final principle and responding to contexts according to it, he often started from the particular context or audience, and from there attempted to navigate differences to arrive at some provisional agreement ⁶ . His attentiveness to the extent of Sanatanist opposition to caste reform could, in times of perceived crisis (such as ‘Muslim communalism’ in the 1920s), make him abandon efforts towards caste equality. This might very well have been conceived as a temporary abandonment for pragmatic reasons, without constituting a complete renunciation of caste equality in principle. Indeed, that his conservatism was relegated to silent expediency and was left untheorized might also provide a partial answer to why conservatism was never properly formulated as a political ideology in India.

The systematic study of Lajpat Rai’s thought helps to clarify the possible conceptual relationships between Hindu revivalism and conservatism on the one hand, and Hindu majoritarianism and conservatism on the other hand. For several years, Lajpat Rai’s Vedic Hindu revivalism entailed a radical attitude to caste. This confirms that the desire to ‘revive’ an ancient Hindu past perceived as being embodied in its scriptures in itself does not constitute a conservative stance merely because of its appeal to ‘tradition’. Hindu revivalism does not automatically imply conservatism. Moreover, Lajpat Rai’s attempts to maintain a Hindu majority also coexisted with caste-related radicalism. In bringing this complexity to light, this article builds on scholarship that complicates the picture of a straightforward affinity between the Arya Samajist approach to Hindu unity and a politics of Hindu majoritarianism. However, it departs from it in revealing that despite his participation in the Hindu Sabha movement and concern about maintaining Hindu numbers, Lajpat Rai could still demand radical caste reform. If the attempt to maintain a Hindu majority is considered a politics of Hindu majoritarianism, the latter evidently does not always signal a conservative stance. In fact, Lajpat Rai’s majoritarianism coexisted with ideas of humanity, equality and social justice drawn from liberal democratic and socialist thought. At the same time, as shown by Lajpat Rai’s 1904 article and his intellectual position as a Mahasabha leader in the mid-1920s, a Hindu revivalist and Hindu majoritarian position can also entail a conservative attitude to caste.Thus, clearly, descriptions such as ‘Hindu revivalist’, ‘Arya Samajist’, ‘Brahmo reformer’, ‘Sanatanist’, ‘Hindu majoritarian’, ‘Hindu nationalist’ or ‘Indian nationalist’ are unhelpful in gauging whether an individual is conservative or radical. What is crucial is whether these intellectual positions are aimed at conserving the hierarchical order or dismantling it.