Studies in People’s History

The Mahābhārata, a comprehensive epic, showcases the profound richness of ancient Indian culture and literature. It is an epic about the Great War between cousins, the Kauravas and the Pāṇḍavas, and its futility. The text is highly diverse and deals with issues around theology, ritual lore, law, philosophy, cosmology and astronomy, to name a few. Though it does not claim to be a manual on masculinity, the Mahābhārata provides enough material to develop constructs on masculinities, especially the one steeped in varna. We concentrate on the twelfth book of the Mahābhārata, the Śāntiparva, a remarkable section known not just for its vast expanse but also for a philosophic exchange between Yudhiṣṭhira and Bhīṣma that redefined Kṣātradharma and significant aspects of Kshatriya masculinity. It is worth exploring how Yudhiṣṭhira utilised the power of questions [praśna] to change the course of an implicit debate on ideal attributes of a Kshatriya man, especially a king, from an emphasis on aggression, deceit, violence, expansionism, humiliation and domination to accommodation, self-control, truth, non-violence [ahiṃsā] and non-cruelty [ānṛśṃsya]. This appears to be a historical response to the growing popularity of Buddhist and Jain traditions that spread between the second century bc and the third century ad, a time proposed for the Śāntiparva as well.

The article focuses on the second section of the Pañcatantra, one of the most popular texts from ancient India, to discuss the understanding of friendship as represented through the relationship amongst four rather diverse animals. Friendship is deliberately cultivated through courteous behaviour, the sharing of food and conversation. What is more, it is not simply instrumental—yet, when there is a crisis, friends bond together to save one another. In the process, they outwit those who are apparently far more powerful. Do such stories provide insights into how ordinary people may have responded to their rulers, surviving by staying beneath the radar? And do these present a contrast to the more hierarchical relationship between the ruler and the mitra envisaged in the Arthaśāstra?

This article makes a plea for a literary return in studying social history. It assumes that literary texts are products of particular social milieus and that they yield important data for social history. More particularly, it argues that when the same theme is taken up in literary works produced in two successive ages, they help in documenting social changes. This is sought to be illustrated with the help of two of the canonical mahākāvyas (poetic epics) in Sanskrit, namely the Kirātārjunīya of Bhāravi and the Śisupālavadha of Magha, both developing their themes from the Mahabhārata. The article underlines the importance of reading literary texts with a sense of history and writing history with a literary sensibility.

If social history is taken as history of society in its broadest terms, as suggested by Eric Hobsbawm, it can dwell on the conditions of life with special reference to its quality, judged simultaneously in ecological, socio-economic and cultural parlance. In Punjab in the second half of the nineteenth century, the agrarian economy and society underwent significant transformation within a given ecological background, and notable changes were found in the social, religious and intellectual arena. At a limited plane, the response of the middle classes to the colonial change led to a certain kind of social and cultural resurgence among the communities of Punjab. This article tries to search for the possibility of the existence of any pattern in the complex social change that Punjab experienced during this period. Based mainly on the study of the activities of the Brahmo Samaj and Dev Samaj of the region, it attempts for something of a construction for comprehending social history where environment, political economy and sociocultural developments would significantly matter pari passu.

The study is based upon documents from the National Archives of India and its Bhopal Branch, which offer us valuable information about the servants of the Bhopal princely family. Those men and women, Muslims and Hindus and of various castes, worked to sustain the lavish lifestyle and comfort of the rulers. A few of them were slaves; however, the majority were hired free persons. Almost ignored by other sources, they come out of the darkness in the palace documents, especially those referring to the visit of the Viceroy to Bhopal in 1891: To impress the visitors, the ruling family ordered all servants to dress in uniforms, which created many problems, at the same time disclosing important details about the princely domestics. As employees of the Bhopal government, the servants had to serve European visitors of a lower rank for whom special guesthouses were maintained. Who and how had to pay, reward and punish the servants was an important matter which concerned both the Bhopal rulers and their visiting British suzerains. The relations between the princely families and their servants subsisted within the framework of patriarchal tradition, where servants were usually perceived as subordinate members of an enlarged family.

This article examines the construction of masculinity in early twentieth-century North India through Hindi vernacular print. Focusing on three key narratives—upper-caste Hindu masculinity in the shuddhi and sangathan movements, ascetic celibacy in the writings of Satyadev Parivrajak and representations of Dalit manhood—it explores how masculinity became a site of power, hierarchy and resistance. While dominant Hindu masculinities reinforced caste and gender norms, Dalit men redefined manhood as a mode of assertion and dignity. The study highlights masculinity’s dual role as both a hegemonic tool and a medium for subaltern dissent and egalitarian aspirations.

Rahul Govind, The King’s Plunder, The King’s Bodies: Prize Laws, the British Empire and the Modern Legal Order, 2023, xii + 348 pp., ₹1,350 (Hardback), Tulika Books. ISBN: 9788195839416.

Suvobrata Sarkar (ed.), History of Science, Technology, Environment, and Medicine in India, 2022, 329 pp., ₹1,595 (Hardback), Routledge. ISBN: 9781032149691.