Vipassana Meditation Part I: The Practice

I recently went on a Vipassana meditation retreat organized by the Michigan Vipassana Association. The chief person that started the revival and popularization of this technique on the global stage is S. N. Goenka, a Burma-born Indian from a Hindu business community. He was successful in business and participated in what he would later call a “rat race.” After suffering from an intolerable migraine, he became interested in Vipassana meditation and the meditation surprisingly cured the migraine and inspired him spiritually. He became a long-time student of the Burmese Vipassana practitioner and monk Sayagyi U Ba Khin (1899-1971). U Ba Khin passed on to him the technique that he learned from previous Burmese teachers. U Ba Khin told Goenka one day in the 1970s to spread the practice of Vipassana in India. This technique later became further popularized in the west since the 1980s, and a sizable community formed in the Michigan area in the 21st century. 

Part of our walking areas, near a lake

In the 10 days, we did not have access to cell phones, electronics, or books. We maintained noble silence and did not speak to each other. The new students had to abide by the five precepts while the old students had to abide by eight precepts. We took refuge in the three jewels and meditated during the day. At night, we listened to Goenka’s English dharma talks made for a predominantly Western group like ours in 1991. He emphasized that this dharma is universal for finding the “Kingdom of heaven within” or the “brahmanic / nirvanic peace” within, and never used the word "Theravada," which is the name of the Burmese Buddhist tradition. The "universal" practice would needs sila (qualities of morals), samadhi (meditative concentration), and paññā in Pāli (or prajñā in Sanskrit, meaning wisdom). According to Wikipedia, paññā “is insight in the true nature of reality, namely primarily anicca (impermanence), dukkha (dissatisfaction or suffering), anattā (non-self) and śūnyatā (emptiness).” There is the first type of paññā attained from listening to wise people and the second type of paññā attained from intellectual reasoning. Goenka emphasized that without experience one cannot attain the third kind of bhavana-maya paññā. Impermanence (anicca) can directly manifest itself through our meditation experiences. After the first three days of observing our respiration, as a way of sharpening the mind and concentration, we were told to observe our sensations. One sensation would arise and we instructed not to react. Whether it is an itching one, hurting one, or a temperature related sensation. While I did not follow this strictly and shifted here and there, I tried my best not to react most of the time and the sensations that usually would only go away with some kind of willful intervention went away by themselves. In this way we can understand how things are impermanent and we should not get ourselves too attached to the current situation and try to change it by reacting.

S.N. Goenka

Goenka says that these three qualities are like a a tripod and cannot work without the other. Some Indian traditions have tried to dispense the quality of sila and just work on samadhi, thereby achieving fantastical results in what Goenka would call “mind games.” That was exactly my issue with purely achieving samadhi: I had some clue of what samadhi felt like and what moral actions were, but very little idea of the next step of practice.

How did I gain this understanding prior to this retreat? My initial contact with meditation was also somewhat connected to Vipassana. My college friend Rachit’s grandparents had started practicing during their self-exploration years (presumably after retirement) and told him a lot about it. He found out that there were weekly meditation sittings in the interfaith center at our American college. So we started going regularly at first and then sporadically later. I stopped after finding the instructions a bit too superficial. The person conducting the meditation sittings, a learned professor, seemed to have a chip on his shoulder against his previous profession. He would often compare the superiority of Zen Buddhism against his previous knowledge field. I found this comparison unhelpful and thought I could just meditate at home and stopped attending the sittings circa 2013. For the most part, I didn't meditate, until this past week.

Even though Goenka was speaking to a western audience in the Vipassana dharma talks, he still has the Hindu traditions in mind. His deductions the obviously were results of engaging in debate with other Indians. So at times it also seemed that he had a chip on his shoulder. But since Vipassana was already very successfully influencing people of all faiths in India (see documentary Doing Vipassana, Doing Time), Goenka obviously attracted many assents from his polemics. He also used the Indian rhetorical form of story-telling commonly found in many Hindu religious discourses to his advantage. I also found it beneficial for me to compare the different traditions. He was answering the questions I had about the contrasting traditions, such as Vedanta: If both Vedanta and Vipassana advocated for disillusionment, rational analysis, detachment and samadhi, then what is the difference? Goenka would say that sila (moral rectitude) is the difference. I think another understated difference was that the dharma could be practiced by a householder (male or female) who was busy with mundane tasks as well. In contrast, it was probably after the encounters with colonial missionaries did the Hindu reformers start to think about what to do in this life to attain a higher spiritual path other than asceticism and devotion. 

Goenka did not shy away from controversial stances: he would ridicule the promissory offerings done by the bhakti devotees or the people who would recite “Hare Ram” every day: “Why do the Gods need you to say their names? If I set up something and asked people to say ‘Hare Goenka’ everyday, what madness!” I had just watched two documentaries about Kabir to gain spiritual motivation, so I really appreciated some aspects of bhakti devotion. Still, I knew where his critiques lied: if the people just want to achieve some kind of benefit through recitation instead of emulation, it is not dharma. The bhakti singer Prahlad ji, a major character in the documentaries, wrestled with the same dilemma.

Prahlad: "Your place has more sagun (gods of form) worship. Yet you believe in nirgun (formless divinity)."

Interlocutor: "Yes."

Prahlad: "Why do you believe in nirgun?"

Interlocutor: "Nirgun is the truth."

Prahlad: "And sagun?" 

Interlocutor: "I don't believe in it."

Prahlad: "Sagun is not the truth? Why is sagun untrue?"

Interlocutor: "It's the trickery of the pundits! Of Brahmins.

Prahlad: "But set aside Brahmins for a moment. Sagun doesn't mean Brahmin. Sagun means that which is visible, has forms and features. Our body is too sagun. So is the body a lie?"

Interlocutor: ...

That was what one of my co-meditators pointed out as well: we observe a lot of our physical reactions and sensations, while at the same time we want to overtake the impermanent physical aspects. So which point do we know that we have attained realization? To answer that, the next post will discuss the experiential aspects and how different people had different meditation results. 

Further Reading:

Three Myths About Meditation, Debunked

Meditation Now: Inner Peace through Inner Wisdom

The Clock of Vipassana has Struck

A Difficult Pill: The Problem with Stephen Batchelor and Buddhism’s New Rationalists

History, Practice, and Theoretical Hegemony

In the process of discussing my paper on Muharram rituals with a very knowledgeable Muslim friend, he often remarked that I have the tendency to relativize aspects. I often say that certain statements are someone’s opinions rather than facts or the truth. I also tend to be fairly non-judgmental when listing these opinions in the paper. He in turn thought that there lacks a standard of or quest for truth in my research process. I thought that within academic discipline, one should have certain degree of suspense. But I also agreed with him to some extent, because as a non-Muslim, I do not share the same set of questions as many Muslims when studying Islamic rituals. The larger problem was that I found him to have little understanding of the purpose or methods of historical inquiry and told him so. In comparing different forms of rituals, history cannot say that this or that form is superior but rather it would just present the changes and link it to further larger trends. Furthermore, the rituals that have antiquity are not always even the “right” or “Orthodox” tradition judged by the believers themselves. The believers may often cite historical antiquity as a source, but they may not as well. I found that this passage I read today from Henry Corbin’s book Spiritual Body and Celestial Earth addresses this tension we could not name ourselves:

Our authors suggest that if the past were really what we believe it to be, that is, completed and closed, it would not be the grounds of such vehement discussions. They suggest that all our acts of understanding are so many recommencements, re-iterations of events still unconcluded. Each one of us, willy-nilly, is the initiator of events in "Hurqalya," whether they abort in its hell or bear fruit in its paradise. (Prologue, 1960)

 The difficulty of posing a dialogue between History and practice can be gauged by this analysis. What historians see as a relic of the past cannot be accepted by the people who continue to view the Shi‘a schism as a political event that forms the “grounds of such vehement discussions.”

Jaipur during Muharram, 1983. Photo by Sudhir Kasliwal

My friend also charged that I do not cite Shi‘a authors in the discussions regarding Shi‘a faith and practices, which partly invokes the age-old debate between who has the right over interpretation of experience and knowledge: the practitioner or the theorist. Recently I have been reading the book The Cracked Mirror which explores this debate. The discussion highlights the definition of experience is crucial. Scholar Sundar Sarukkai notes how Indian philosophers, unlike Cartesian thinkers, do not distinguish between knowledge and experience. Once one accepts this challenge, it is difficult to say whether a unique experience should be the superior basis for the truth pertaining to that experience over a kind of “knowledge.” Both experience and knowledge can be first-hand and true, if we can attain an common denominator of what is true. But the problem is that nowadays, academics don’t necessarily have one. So experience often trumps knowledge. 

Sarukkai also used the ideas of Jürgen Habermas to address the moral burden of theory proposed by scholar Dr. Gopal Guru. Guru has noted the phenomenon of theoretical hegemony, in which some groups are seen as data (people of color and Dalits) while other dominant groups are seen as more theoretical (white men and Brahmins). Habermas’ hopes that theory can contribute to liberal democracy to prevent the rise of neo-Nazis. Sarukkai interprets Habermas’ need for “moral responsibility” into his “guilt” as a post-Holocaust German. He does not mention how post-Holocaust Jewish scholars have responded to Habermas, which would be very interesting to read. In contrast, Gopal Guru would not find “guilt” helpful in the Indian situation for changing hegemonic discourse: once Dalits understand the importance of regaining academic resources and theoretical capabilities, then the process would require more assertion from Dalits. I also agree that while many upper caste scholars have recognized the need for other theories articulated by “Others,” the effectiveness of noblisse oblige is questionable.

Another friend, who is an anthropologist, has noted yesterday on how anthropology as a discipline now accepts more theories from the non-Western “Others.” She prides on the fact that anthropologists are closer to non-Western “Others” than other disciplines. She notes how it is very difficult to engage with academics on a theoretical basis if one continues to cite ethnographic data to refute the theory. One should rather engage in formulating one’s own theory and analytic frameworks. But in my experience, the resistance to learn about examples from “the field” or an alien context from scholars of all backgrounds (West and non-West) is acute. I can only hope that this kind of attitude does not extend to “alien” theories as well. I also questioned the effectiveness of this approach, especially after reading parts of The Cracked Mirror. So far I have not learned theory in academia based on Indian / South Asian concepts. Another historian present chimed in on how Subaltern Studies could represent a new kind of South Asian theory, but after I retorted, he also self-deprecatingly said that his comment was made in jest. There are attempts in China to formulate theories, but I have not read them in detail to comment.

In general, I tend to agree with Habermas’ idea that everyone should share the moral burden of interpretation rather than attribute that one certain group has more moral or theoretical authority. But the problem of theoretical dominance cannot be undone through moral exhortation. Brahmin / “White” Guilt cannot be the only source that propels the rise of theoretical interpretation by “Others.” So while I may cite Shi‘a authors on their observations of Muharram, perhaps it will still be years to come before I actually read or encounter a Shi‘a theory on religious studies or rituals partly due to the hegemony that excludes these theories.

Islam, Legitimacy, and Judgment Day

Yesterday I got into a heated discussion regarding the legitimacy of government while introducing David Graeber's ideas regarding anarchism and his possible academic course on direct action. The discussion also veered towards the question what should a person do while living under what he considers oppression. My interlocutors were male and they were wondering about this. We used the word zulm for oppression since it seemed more suitable to both contemporary and historical situations. (It can also mean wrongdoing, darkness, and inequality.) Sometimes they thought I was too idealistic. But I countered that it is also idealistic in the same sense to stop eating a brand of so-called halal chicken once you find that the chickens were not treated humanely, as one of the interlocutors did. He threw away his 5 euro stock of chicken after learning about the factory's treatment of chicken and also dissuaded his roommate from eating the chicken as well.

I learned that that in one interlocutor's idea of Islam, there are three responses to zulm: 1st option is that you engage in "direct action," 2nd option is that you voice your opinion against zulm, and 3rd you acknowledge it in your heart. The 3rd option is the least you can do. (I have yet to find the text for backing this up.) 

During this discussion I sketched out a broad scope of why certain political scientists and historians are interested in the history of political formation and sources of legitimacy. Scholars of Islamic history see a promising division of power between the ulema (scholars of Muslim religious law) and the king. But why did it not lead to a parliamentary reform like in Europe, where the aristocrats also limited the power of the king? I still have not read enough to cite authors, but I know that scholars of Iranian Islamic history have strove to figure out what role the ulema played in politics, e.g., Michael M. J. Fischer (2003) and Said Amir Arjomand (1989). Graeber said in his talk at the Gottingen Literature Festival that the state's legitimate use of the monopoly of violence is derived from the law; the law's legitimacy is derived from the constitution; the constitution is written (in the case of certain countries) from a violent popular revolution. So the question bothering many activists and social scientists is: how does one actually distinguish which revolution is the "right" one? And rather not a mob or one that could be usurped by forces of zulm? 

The question of Mahdi (the Expected One) came up since I said that this idea can be used for political ends, such as power consolidation or gaining legitimacy. Scholars also find that the Mahdi is still used to challenge political authority (Eickelman, 1998). Islam shares aspects of the eschatology with Christianity, such as that there will be a Day of Judgement. But prior to the 2nd coming of Christ, the Islamic eschatology usually sees that the Mahdi would come as a religio-political ruler prior to the Day of Judgment. Different sects in Islam are disputed over the identity of the Mahdi. The Twelver Shi'as, for example, see their Mahdi as the hidden Twelfth Imam who will come out of hiding. Some Sunnis accept there would be a Mahdi but do not endow him with as much divine authority. I quoted the following from The Oxford Handbook of Millennialism:

The Safavid dynasty in Iran was truly an apocalyptic dynasty from the beginning. Shah Isma'il (r. 1501-24), the founder of the dynasty, made messianic claims (as well as possibly even of divinity). Prior to the appearance of the Safavids Iran had been majority Sunni, but through the use of a charismatic blend of Sufism and Shi'ism, in some cases making extreme claims about the authority of the dynasty, the Safavids managed to convert most of the country by the middle of the seventeebth century. A key moment for the dynasty happened under the young Shah ‘Abbas I (r. 1588-1629) at the turn of the Uslamic millennium in 1591-91, when he suppressed the hitherto powerful Kizilbash group, which had been the backbone of messianic beliefs and the most fervent supporters of the Safavids. Thereafter, like the Ottomans, the Safavids moved away from the use of apocalyptic and messianic themes.

The same section of this book mentions that the Mughal ruler Akbar also used this theme when creating his "heterodox" version of Islam, Din-i Ilahi. He was even given the title of "Lord of time."

Cited in John F. Richards The Mughal Empire: The new Cambridge history of India:" In the RN 50 (1604 A.D.), these Nur ala Nur ("Light unto Light") gold coins (10.9g) were struck. The front says: "By the stamp of the emperor Akbar gold becomes bright" / "On this gold the emperor's name is Light (upon Light)." mint location (Agra). (source:cngcoins.com)

I read again in Sanjay Subramanyam's article Connected Histories, where he ponders on how these ideas form similar frameworks for comparative history and how messianism played a crucial role in Akbar's court transition--

Akbar is reported to have asked if Muhammad was mentioned in the Gospel, to which [Portuguese Jesuit Antonio] Monserrate responded by insisting that he was not, being a false prophet. Monserrate now writes that Akbar wondered aloud, somewhat disingenuously, 'Surely Muhammad cannot be he who is to appear at the end of the world as the adversary of all mankind (that is he whom the Musalmans calls Dijal)', the reference being to the idea of the masih al-dajjal, the Anti-Christ who appears in some Islamic legends as riding on an ass at the end of time.

This incident, a trivial one, begins to assume significance when set in its wider regional and supra-regional context. For a millenarian conjuncture operated over a good part of the Old World in the sixteenth century and was the backdrop to such discussions as that between Akbar and Monserrate, which took place just eleven years before the year 1000 A.H (1591-92). This was a time when many Muslims in southern and western Asia, as well as North Africa  awaited signs that the end of the world was nigh, and when the Most Catholic Monarch, Philip II of Spain, equally wrote gloomily: 'If this is not the end of the world, I think we must be very close to it; and, please God, let it be the end of the whole world, and not just the end of Christendom.'

As a response to my challenge, regarding how easily certain people can usurp the idea of the Mahdi, one of my interlocutors said that there is a hadith that says if there is a statement that predicts the precise Day of Judgment, that statement is certainly false. He went on to list different ways of testing the veracity of hadiths. That is a very intriguing topic that I will definitely read more about. My interlocutor said that there should not be a rejection of religion from politics entirely, because then that would be assenting to the rule of Chengiz (Genghis, meaning, the rule of the sword). He sees that justice is the only measure of a true Islamic polity, rather than the cultural authenticity, such as wearing traditional dress or not. But then for me the discussion gets kind of caught in a loop because in his ideal world, an Islamic regime would automatically be just. But there is no possibility under any other regime or anarchist collective consensus for the same result. So now, despite forms of zulm, it is better to just wait and see.

Contested Sites of History in Delhi and Hyderabad

Sometimes you find famous historical sites from a tourist guide and other times you realize how historically significant a site you visited was by doing reading. The latter often comes as surprises and it recently happened to me twice. I am currently researching on urban spaces and Muslim identity in India for a term paper.

Two separate articles mentioned a shrine near Mandi House, Delhi, and a Hindu temple under Charminar in Hyderabad. The shrine of Baba Sayyid Nanhe Mian Chishti was very famous for thwarting government attempts of demolition. (See article here: Jinnealogy Everyday life and Islamic theology in post-Partition Delhi by Anand Vivek Taneja) Anwar Sabri, the old caretaker of this mazar, took care of the place since the 1970s. He claims that

there have been no accidents at the Mandi House circle, where seven roads come together. The municipal authorities often gave him trouble, not wanting him or the grave here, and he has spent at least one night in jail. But the baba appeared in a dream to an engineer with the New Delhi Municipal Corporation, who was planning a “beautification” of the area that would led to the demolition of the grave to make way for a fountain. After the baba appeared to him in a dream, the engineer begged his forgiveness, moved the fountain in his plans to accommodate the grave, and even presented the baba with bags of cement to make the grave pakka, permanent... Many of the devotees, including many actors and staff from the nearby National School of Drama, have been coming here for the past thirty years, Anwar Sabri says. The baba has granted the wishes of many.

 Photo credits: Anand Vivek Taneja

When I was reading about the shrine, I kept on thinking whether or not I had seen it. Finally, I saw the picture on the next page and had the a-ha! moment. It was indeed the one I saw. Suspense was cleared. At that time, Deepak and I bought some snacks to eat before the main theater event. I asked whether or not we should sit on the ledge (where the yellow and black stripes are painted). I didn’t notice the shrine behind us, I just wanted to grab the nearest clean place I could sit. He noticed and said we could not because it was a holy site for Muslims. After reading the amazing story, I wondered if Deepak knew about it.

Picture I took at Mandi House while waiting for the play to start. The circle connects six big roads and one small road; it understandably attracts a lot of traffic and it is said that ever since the shrine was taken care by Mr. Sabri there have been no accidents. 

I also noticed the Hindu temple after visiting Charminar in December, 2015. This architecture is known for its Islamic legacy from the times of the Nawabs. I was a bit surprised to find a Hindu temple near it. Aesthetically, the two did not mesh together. But many visitors of Charminar were Hindu and paid their respects at the site. I thought this was probably an example of secular India, in which people of different religions want their religion represented everywhere. I read about this temple later in Dr. Zehra Fareen Parvez’s thesis: “the makeshift Hindu temple that was illegally constructed at the floor of the Charminar.” She explains that this construction was exchanged for Muslims’ unwritten right to use amplifiers for call of prayers or other announcements in Hyderabad. “Although amplification is banned in the city, there is a mutual understanding between the police and Muslim neighborhoods that the law will not be enforced.” I chuckled at this peculiar but quintessentially Indian arrangement. There are also people who falsely claimed that this temple existed before 1960s and clashes occurred in 2012 over this issue.

Bhagyalakshmi Temple which started as a shrine. Photo taken by Ayush Nadimpalli

To quote an anonymous Quora answer,

The Archeological Survey of India, in a [Right to Information] reply, finally conceded that the controversial Bhagya Laxmi Mandir, adjacent to historical Charminar is a recently constructed ‘unauthorized’ structure. Claims of this temple existing before 1960's is also rubbished by the following picture taken from The Hindu archives of 1957.

 I have much more respect for the Archeological Survey of India after reading about this dispute. The scholar in the article about the Delhi shrine lamented the lack of care for Muslim shrines and restricted access to the ASI files. But given that in India history is everywhere, involving lively debates (and sometimes physical fights), it is indeed a very tough task to treat all of them with due discretion.

Potential for Industrialization in China and Europe

The obsession with European economic dominance is widespread among writers writing in Chinese and English alike. Chinese intellectuals particularly became concerned by the end of the 19th century. Many Western countries used their superior command of technology and military to subdue the ailing Qing dynasty and the future of a sovereign state was uncertain. Since industrialization has been a closely connected idea with modernization, Europeans also have celebrated their unrivaled progress across the globe, contrasting itself to other “savage” regions or a “stagnant” Third World.[1] Even as people accept that “China came within a hair's breadth of industrialising in the fourteenth century,” China’s later demise is still subject to much debate and influence of the stagnant-Orient view. [2] David Landes suggested that Europe’s multiple, competing polities in contrast with the “all-encompassing empires of the Orient or of the Ancient World,” which allowed for more technical dynamism. [3]

Stagnation does not out rule economic growth: China experienced economic growth even in the Qing dynasty, which was notorious for its lack of innovation. Thus the indicator of change should not be growth, but rather technological dynamism in for a meaningful comparison of China and Europe. Joel Mokyr argued that “technological opportunities and constraints by and large determined where and when improvements were to occur” in various places. [4] Thus this paper will examine this debate with a focus on technological innovation. In the chapter of The Levers of Riches comparing China and Europe, Mokyr demonstrates how China’s different government-civil relations, different bureaucracy, lower demand for foreign goods, and Luddism ideology against social conflict and rapid change in comparison to Europe created a disadvantage for technological transformation. But many revisionist economists have engaged this debate and demonstrated that Europe only gained certain advantages through technological merit, and most other advantages through fortuitous global conjectures, such as colonial expansion. As historian Kenneth Pomeranz argues, the number of European macroinventions from 1500 to 1750 was very small and the advantages of merit only played a significant role after 1830. [5] Pomeranz holds the view that before then, many trends in China were similar to Europe, such as efficient economic institutions and labor division patterns. Furthermore, Europe had many ecological constraints that could have stalled progress. Thus for him, Europe’s rise was not inevitable based on earlier socioeconomic trends. This paper will first compare Pomeranz and Mokyr’s approach to this debate.


China’s Lead and Disuse of Technological Innovations

Both Mokyr and Pomeranz acknowledge China’s technological innovation prior to Europe. Improvements in plows, rice cultivation through wet-field techniques, new fertilizers, and hydraulic engineering helped a stable supply of nutrition. [6]  China also led by at least one thousand five hundred years in iron casting technology and one thousand years for paper and the modern horse collar prior to Europe’s adaptation. Weaving equipment for spinning silk appeared as early as 200 B.C. and was later adapted to cotton. While the mechanic clock has been lauded as a “macroinvention” in Mokyr’s book, China during the 11th century also created water clocks. (A macroinvention is “an invention without clear-cut parentage, representing a clear break from previous technique.”) In the 15th century, China also created water-worthy ships, but later could not maintain its superiority due to Ming dynasty’s closed-door policy that terminated sea exploration. Many of China’s technologies were often imported or reinvented in Europe later.

Yet certain inventions in China were not used as much as the European scales of capital accumulation. Iron casting was used for weaponry, but not later improved weaponry such as guns and cannons. China thus had to import weapons from the West in the 19th century when it faced invasion. Mokyr also provided many social and political reasons for China’s slowing innovative progress. The imperial state structure placed a heavy emphasis on meritocracy and examinations. The resources and prestige lay in entering the government, which caused the flow of talent towards bureaucracy rather than fields involving technology. The state could also halt projects very quickly with its central control. Once the Chinese state stopped supporting technology and knowledge dissemination as much as the Song dynasty, there was a discontinuation due to lack of support from the private sphere. Many historians interpreted the role of intellectuals inhibiting the progress, from lack of interest in technical knowledge to benevolent intentions to limit social conflict.[7] Pomeranz himself agrees that the elite men-of-letters conducted few scientific discussions. I agree with Mokyr: he has successfully showed the degree which China’s technological edge lessened its chances for industrialization.


Europe’s Inevitable Rise?

Mokyr showed that inventions played a crucial role in the Industrial Revolution. While Pomeranz accepts that Europe had revolutionary inventions, he indicates that the current increase in studies of private initiatives-cum-miracles are due to the dominant pro-market narrative. Pomeranz complicates this claim of technological progress and shows how European state interventions played a significant role. The usual argument was that labor-saving innovations came about because laborers in the “West” were freer and received higher wages compared to the “Rest.” “The Rest” busied over saving over land, capital, or another scarce material. The European exceptionalists often champion the process of Proto-industrialization, in which they saw encouraged people to engage in non-food related work, while the rural areas started creating surplus in food for town. [8] The increase in demographic growth in towns reinforced this process. Historian Andre Gunder Frank holds that China only engaged in a similar process between 1500-1800 (increase in labor and population) after Europe introduced the currency system of New World Silver. Pomeranz challenges this idea on many grounds: China had domestic demand much larger than exports to Europe; China had more labor mobility than Europe and the state facilitated migration; low wage costs do not necessarily inhibit the use of labor-saving technology; many British technologies aimed to save money on fuel, such as coal, rather than labor; finally, the people who did invent technology for saving labor were not aware of it.[The Great Divergence. 52] “In a study of eighteenth-century English patentees, Christine MacLeod finds that most declared the goals of their innovation to be either improving the quality of the product or saving on capital...only 3.7 percent cited saving on labor as a goal.” This is understandable since Europe had used certain land-intensive products inefficiently, such as fuel wood.] Thus Pomeranz supports Jan DeVries’ argument that Europe invested much labor over many years which had high yield--an “industrious revolution” rather than one of rapid productivity increase.

Pomeranz also argues that the while the inventions were labor-saving, only some inventions had long term importance. Global conjectures of colonial conquest mattered more for solving land problems. The expanded land abroad allowed western European countries to feed a growing population despite diminishing per capita resource at home. This development saved labor and allowed the inventions to have larger impacts compared to the marginal technological improvements in China and India.



Female Labor and Involution

Labor output serves a key category in the evidence for proving that China was involuted. Pomeranz also discusses the point made by many social historians regarding China’s female labor and nature of demand. DeVries has argued that in Europe, labor increased and reallocated for industrial and semi-finished goods, such as bread and candles, due to more employment of women in non-domestic workforce. Philip Huang adds that China’s society only increased female labor for domestic needs and thus lacked demand for the same goods. Pomeranz holds that 1) Chinese women also participated in the non-domestic workforce and 2) Empirically, like Europe, China also had an increase in demand for finished goods and services, such as candles and ritual expenses; 3) China also copiously consumed sugar and tobacco and experienced an equivalent rise of the commercialized leisure life in Europe.

Pomeranz uses Jack Goldstone’s studies of Chinese female participation in the workforce and emphasizes that they earned above above subsistence rates in silk production.[ Goldstone, Jack A. 1996. 'Gender, Work, And Culture: Why The Industrial Revolution Came Early To England But Late To China'. Sociological Perspectives 39 (1): 1-21.] But he differs with Goldstone’s explanation that the Chinese society’s reluctance to allow women to leave the house for work hampered industrialization. The ideal was for men to plow the fields and women to weave at home. Yet there were many writings indicating women working alongside men in the Lower Yangzi Delta fields throughout the 17th and 18th century, while writings about Anhui, Guangdong and Fujian indicated women working outdoors throughout the 19th century. Pomeranz also cited the cultural impression made by empresses gathering mulberry leaves for silkworms as evidence of the widespread acceptance of women working out-of-house. He concludes that there is little historical evidence regarding the non-elite attitude towards women and thus he does not accept Goldstone’s hypothesis that China did not industrialize due to cultural norms that promoted female seclusion.

The Military Competition and Property Debate

Pomeranz has observed in the Introduction that recent scholarship tend to explain Europe’s success through endogenous growth. Pomeranz does not hold the Marxist theory of primitive accumulation, since Britain had accumulated surplus values prior to its colonies. Still, he attributes Europe’s crucial aspect of success to its spatial advantage in colonies (“peripheries”), the slave trade, and other forms of overseas coercion. He also revisits Eric Williams’ thesis of colonial accumulation’s role in Britain’s industrialization, and argues that without the military fiscalism, Britain would have later experienced a labor-intensive rather than capital-intensive growth.

Yet this difference deserves attention: China also had tributaries, yet the state did not establish itself as an economically productive empire. Pomeranz also puts forward that Chinese merchants and laborers had large presence in the sparsely populated land of southeast Asia. They created much revenue through land-intensive products, such as sugar and grain, but southeast Asia “never became for coastal China what the New World was for western Europe.” The “state had no interest in directly providing military and political backing” for these merchants. Why did the Chinese state not engage or exploit this linkage? The rulers of the Qing dynasty were more invested in Central Asian expansion and had budget surpluses every year to concern itself with revenues and taxes. Landes, K. N. Chaudhuri and M. N. Pearson to some extent supported variations of an explanation beyond China’s particularity: without intense military competition, major Asian empires did not need as much commercial revenues as Europe; thus these empires did not regard commercial property or revenue as important as tributaries. Pomeranz questions this claim and cites DeVries that argued military competition in Europe urged states to “put more offices, tax farms, and titles on the market was an impediment to this transformation, not an aid.” He also adds that war increased rate of asset and skills lost, and increased business costs.

But I still find the military competition argument persuasive and I hold that China’s unique imperial culture inhibited its industrial revolution. Pomeranz discusses Qing rulers’ paranoia regarding militarizing oversea efforts and “suspicion of any combination of mercantile and naval power in the same set of hands” as major reasons for the lack of support for a Chinese East India Company in Southeast Asia. But he does not explore cultural reasons that halted China’s seafaring initiatives in the earlier Ming dynasty. He also does not delve into the Chinese ideologies of the time that could have been comparable to Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations or John Locke’s discussion of property. Pomeranz focuses on many aspects that de-emphasizes cultural difference, but these differences cannot be ignored in the discussion when comparing processes of industrialization.

Furthermore, most scholars mentioned have treated China more or less as a nation-state with a coherent citizenry, when in reality it was an ever-changing multi-ethnic empire during many of the periods discussed. Many comparative histories of technology assume China to be a coherent nation while each dynasty had its unique interests and priorities. Yet there is much debate within Chinese history regarding technology that these narratives overlook, such as the extent to which the Mongolian-established Yuan dynasty changed the dynamics and progress created during the Song dynasty. This picture can be lost in comparative approaches between China and the West. Rather than interrogating the multiple Chinas at stake, the discourse is shaped around questions like “how China can take over the West” or why it did not. This is a worthy question for another paper to explore.


[1] Landes, David. 1969. The Unbound Prometheus. Cambridge University Press. 7, 11. “The nations of the Third World have yet to effect their industrial revolution, and the gulf in wealth and standard of living between them and the economically advanced countries has increased to the point of scandal and danger. The disparity has been aggravated by the partial character of their modernization.”
[2] Jones, Eric L. 1981. The European Miracle. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 160.
[3] The Unbound Prometheus. 15.
[4]  Mokyr, Joel. 1990. The Lever of Riches: Technological Creativity and Economic Progress. Oxford University Press. (Kindle Locations 1287-1289).
[5] Pomeranz, Kenneth. 2000. The Great Divergence. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. 47.
[6] The Lever of Riches. Kindle Location 3356.
[7] Fei, Hsiao-tung, 1953. China's Gentry. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
[8] Kriedte, Peter, Hans Medick, & Jürgen Schlumbohm. 1981. Industrialization before Industrialization. 12.

Fighting Britain's War: India and World War II

Book Review of Yasmin Khan's Raj at War and Raghu Karnad's Farthest Field.  

The World War II has been taught based on the experiences of European countries on either side and the U.S.; the stories of China and India are usually absent from English bookshelves. In South Asia, nationalist agitations and Partition of 1947 dominated the stories of first half of twentieth century. Both Indian and European and people tend to forget the extent to which World War II influenced the Raj and the people under it. Millions of Indian soldiers were enlisted to fight for the allies in World War II and India also provided more than £2 billion worth of goods and services. Strategically, India was also situated between “both the Middle East and the China theatre” and supplied both troops and consumables. The impact in South Asia was also significant: The war increased social tensions and caused inflation. Indians also learned that the White Man was not inherently superior: Polish refugees at home, Japanese gaining upper hand over the British in the air, and Germans killed abroad by their fellow Indians all proved this point. The Raj could not protect its imperial subjects, and its credibility subsequently suffered. The Indian nationalist leaders also learned more about Britain’s political priorities, which were clearly not in favor of South Asian development. For leaders like Jawaharlal Nehru, any wishes for the Raj to be a paternalistic leader of the Commonwealth vanished.

This year, two major books have replenished the scholarship on India and World War II. Historian Yasmin Khan’s book The Raj at War provides a lot of details and the statuses of people from all walks of life, from political leaders to businessmen, from new Tommy recruits, European nurses, and prisoners of war in India to Indian Lascars fighting for better wages. Her scope covers not only the war zone but also the factories and bedrooms. Journalist Raghu Karnad’s Farthest Field also serves to fill the gap of Indians in World War II, partly based on the experiences of his Parsi ancestors. Both books address the issues of political loyalty, the scorched earth policy, memories, and demise of the British Empire’s prestige. Both books acknowledged how different sections of society benefited from the War: businessmen in particular seized the chance for profits through supplying military needs, such as food and accommodation. Yet Karnad provides a more scathing critique of the War and colonialism.

One of the main reason for World War II’s forgotten status in India was its conflict with the national narrative. The main subject of Karnad’s book, Bobby, was not a story told or mentioned to Karnad’s generation. The Indian Army men’s “subaltern service to the British Empire became a quixotic memory, its political valency vague and its heroism diluted.” Like many unpredictable twist-of-fate moments in South Asian history, Bobby’s section, the 2nd Field of the Bengal sappers, was reorganized as a Mussalman unit and became part of Pakistan’s army. An even more cruel twist was that many demobilized soldiers slaughtered Indians of other faiths systematically during Partition. The grand dream of post-colonial countries usually glides over the fact that British Indian Army fought on the Dutch imperial side, against the Indonesian anti-colonial republicans led by Suharto.

Without the hindsight of Partition and Independence, the World War II was a trying time for Indians to determine political loyalties. Like in the case of World War I, the 1939 and 1942 Defence of India Act centralized British control in India for war efforts: state institutions had “powers of preventive detention, internment without trial, restriction of writing, speech, and of movement” over the King’s subjects in India, and in practice, mostly targeted against Indians. Punishments would be meted for “any contraventions which included that of death or transportation for life if the intent was to assist any State at war with His Majesty or that of waging war against His Majesty.” As a result, police and military’s power increased; the state’s civil and military functions blended. Many Indian activists were quashed unlawfully; official British statistics recorded 1,060 protesters killed. Nationalist agitations had increased to a certain level at that time. At the same time, the British and zamindari long-term neglect for agriculture increased the difficulty for the average Indian family to avoid working for the Raj. Even regions like Punjab which had increasing levels of wages suffered from famine. Congress Party leaders were largely uncertain how to take advantage of the situation. While Gandhi launched the Quit India movement and detested foreign soldiers on Indian soil, he did not call for an entire sabotage or even a peaceful hartal against the war effort; rather, he called for the Indians involved to act on their own consciences according to their own situation. Khan argues that it solidified anti-war sentiment despite its less dramatic character. Ironically, due to the War, the previously banned Indian communists now emerged from the underground as allies with the Raj against fascism.

The Raj at War highlighted how this era was truly contradictory and confusing, with South Asia pulled at both sides--Independence through fighting for the Indian National Army and thus aligning with the Japanese? Loyalty to the Raj? For example, writer K. A. Abbas wrote about his anti-fascist inclinations, but also disillusionment with the Raj. Yet India did not lack activists who directly opposed the Raj: The younger generations approached the issue more radically. Quit India activist Aruna Asaf Ali disregarded her husband Asaf Ali’s more moderate approach. She was regarded by the people as the modern day Rani of Jhansi and successfully evaded police search through a game of cat-and-mouse up till 1946. Moreover, there was a huge gap between military and non-military people’s political opinions, and even when they argued with one another, usually none were convinced. Similar to the starving Indian, the Nepali soldiers also lacked agency in the choice, since slavery was just recently abolished and their king volunteered to support the war effort. Karnad also cited how Parsis were traditionally loyal British subjects, even as his own family tried to deter men from entering direct service. Rather than outright support of swaraj, both books showed that the politics of Indians were in flux in the 1940s.

Aruna Asaf Ali

Aruna Asaf Ali

The Japanese were not the ideal allies for the Indian freedom fighters, since they also harbored imperial ambitions. Subhas Chandra Bose ceremonially celebrated the Andaman islands as territory under his government Azad Hind, even though in reality the Japanese authorities did not cede sovereignty. Under the influence of the Axis propaganda as well as material concerns, many Indian soldiers in South East Asia changed sides: Leaflets urged them to join INA and pursue self-determination against the Raj. Still, the INA was a dwarf in comparison to the giant British Indian Army.

Pilots of Azad Hind Sena, part of INA

Arguably, Indian soldiers for the first time fought for their own sovereignty from the Japanese, even though it was under a foreign master’s command. The Andaman and Nicobar islands were occupied in 1942 and many Indian cities were bombed by the Japanese Army. There were also intertwined destinies between Burma and India as the Raj’s subjects: the Japanese invasion caused many refugees of Indian origins flee from Burma. Many of the poor died on the way due to malaria or starvation.

Still, the War at large a British concern. The subjects who were usually loyal to British interests, such as rulers of princely states and North East tea plantation owners, donated many resources for the war effort. Others involved usually had no political stake, such as the Imphal jail convicts used for carrying loads or the Naga porters who facilitated refugees evacuation, or the tea plantation laborers who participated in building the India-China Ledo road and aerodromes. Even those Indians who did not support the War also could not outright deny the need for it, such as Nehru, who abhorred fascists but also wanted independence. In reality, this meant that the Raj got what it needed.

The war effort diverted most of the resources away from the Indian people. Viceroy Lord Linlithgow to a large extent disregarded the issue and spent no efforts lobbying on behalf of the situation. The viceroy who succeeded Linlithgow also tried to lobby the British parliament to send more grains for relief, but only achieved the promise for a quarter of what he asked. Khan equivocated and pointed to different reasons of the Bengal Famine, such as Bengal’s over reliance on rice, even while she cited evidence of the British being primarily culpable. Many famine victims saw the war as the cause of their plight. The Raj’s premature scorch earth policy destroyed and requisitioned a lot of boats of the fishermen. In comparison to Khan, historian Madhusree Mukerjee argues for a more direct causal link between the Bengal famine and the war effort. She wrote, that Raj’s readiness “to use the resources of India to wage war against Germany and Japan” was the primary reason for the famine. But given theories put forth by Amartya Sen (hoarders were the most responsible for famine), it is difficult to assess due to the varying statistics regarding how much grain was available after grain was given to war efforts.

Why did the British also forget the loyal subjects, especially the troops? This was mostly due to the idea of racial superiority as well as indifference to the native population during as well after the War. For example, when the Indian troops serving outside of India received better equipment than the natives defending the motherland. Winston Churchill, who was notorious for his racism and disdain, had said “by putting modern weapons in the hands of sepoys,” commanders were creating a Frankenstein. The former Commander in Chief Claude Auchinleck proposed the British government to establish a memorial for the men who serviced “Britain and the Empire” for the past two hundred years as well as in the “Old World” territories. But the proposal was delayed due to disagreement over the memorial site, then no funds were acquired and the plan for the memorial was discarded in 1949.

The major difference between the two books, aside from the sources, is that Karnad provides a more existential assessment of World War II: The White Man battled in sites that upheld Western civilization. The “Black men sent running and shooting in the jungle” such as Bobby’s army, would in comparison be seen as “ants disputing anthills.” The purpose of protecting democracy is elusive to most of the colonies; in “North and East Africa, in the Middle East and India’s North-West frontier,” both World Wars had the “climate of imperial control and contestation.” Karnad points out that behind supposed ideological differences between Axis and Allied powers, Germany and Japan “had mainly copied and outstripped Britain’s own example” of empire. He argued that the imperial war continues in different forms, such as 2008 drones over the village Datta Khel, where the Air Force also flew and battled. In contrast, Khan is much more measured in her assessments and hesitant to draw these solely regressive connections. She acknowledges the irony that Commonwealth soldiers helped in liberating Ethiopia from Italy’s colonialism, but the effects on Indian soldiers’ politics are hard to document. She also writes about black G.I.s and Indian soldiers sharing of notions of equality and visions of a new world order. She also addresses how some people viewed the Army as a modernizing force, and cites the increasing level of literacy among soldiers. Through both books’ new narratives, the nature of the War and the impacts on British colonies has become much clearer, but not necessarily clear enough. Further work needs to be done on the relationship between colonialism and the World Wars, with a focus on post-colonial countries and their positions during the Wars as well as the Wars' effects on subsequent nationalism and decolonization.

Edited from a paper for a JNU history course. Please contact me if readers need a footnoted version.

Two Talks: Bihar Elections, Caste-Based Affirmative Action

Intellectual life at Jawaharlal Nehru University is on fire. One usually never needs to venture off campus to get food for thought. After submitting three tutorials and a rough draft of two thousand words, I had some breathing space to attend many talks this past week. Four of them were especially interesting and I will reproduce some of the points below of the two which are most related: Bihar elections and Affirmative Action in India. Another post on informal labor and feminist organizing in India will follow soon after. Please note that I did not use a recording device and sometimes left early. This blog post is my takeaway of the talks. Readers can always find the people's original works to follow up on their opinions.

Public meeting at a mess in JNU, Prof. AK Ramakrishnan (the content of that meeting is not discussed in this post)

I went to a panel discussion on Bihar politics. I have also been drawn to this issue because two friends from Bihar, Abhay and Kishlay, are politically conscious youths from Bihar and have been closely following the events. I was puzzled by the extent to which politicians with constituents outside of Bihar even had to make the decision whether or not to enter the state election campaign. One friend said that the elections in Bihar had a coattail effect, akin to that of the president elections in the U.S. 
In acknowledging of this influence, The moderator / chair Prof. Manindranath Thakur said quite aptly that nowadays, most scholars now look to Bihar to understand Indian electoral politics. There are roughly four stages of Bihar politics, from 1952-1967, the Congress Party dominated the scene. From 1967 to 1972, the Congress Party was still central but had to form coalition governments with other parties. From 1972 to 1990, Congress Party had a comeback wile the chief minister changed with a volatile trend. Since 1990 to now, Bihar politics has been dominated by OBC activism by folksy and later corrupt politician Lalu Prasad Yadav and his party Janata Dal, later RJD. Before 1995 there were no special Dalit booths and afterwards their voter turnout increased significantly. Initially Lalu and Nitish Kumar started in politics together, then they split for decades with Nitesh heading the Janata Dal-United (JDU). Now BJP poses a larger threat in the region for this coming election and Nitish Kumar and Lalu have joined arms again against BJP and its NDA coalition. 

Among the four panelists, political analyst Ajit Kumar Jha gave one of the most forthright opinion on the matter. Unlike the elections in 1995, when only 1 survey poll was done by him and Yogendra Yadav, this year there have been around 10 survey polls. Only 3 of the 10 polls indicated that they favored the other parties over BJP. Thus Mr. Jha does not think the secular bloc can stop Modi, not because Modi is strong but because the previous government has bankrupted many constituents' goodwill. Mr. Jha sees Nitish Kumar frantically copying the styles of Narendra Modi's campaign, such as spending large sums on campaigning. Nitish has also built large museums like Modi, while Mr. Jha thinks it would have been better spent on infrastructure for his campaign. But Nitish has not established a successful campaign equivalent to Modia's Smart City for the village-dominated Bihar. Agriculture performance has been dismal and thus constitutes little leverage. Furthermore, according to his poll stats, more and more Dalits and upper castes are voting for the BJP. 

More reading

"Bihar politics is like Game of Thrones. There are no ideologies, no principles and certainly no ethics. Its pure politics, unadulterated and unsparing to the weak."

Caste politics: Why the Bihar election is tragic, regardless of the outcome. 

Ruled or Misruled: Story and Destiny of Bihar

by Santosh Singh

"Ruled or Misruled offers a 360 degree journey of Bihar politics since Independence, especially since the Congress’ downfall in 1990. An out and out reporter’s book, tells an interesting and tumultuous journey of the post-1990 legends of Bihar politics - Nitish Kumar, Lalu Prasad, Ram Vilas Paswan and Jitan Ram Manjhi with the legendary clash between Nitish Kumar and Narendra Modi - with the untold version on the 2010 dinner cancellation and Nitish’s ambition, providing the third angle."

So how does the panel relate to the second talk I went to? Caste reservations and caste identity politics, such as the one we see in Bihar, go hand in hand. Many elites and middle class believe that caste politics have ruined Bihar. They often conflate the loud and seemingly rough politicians with the policies, and charge at caste reservations as ways of currying favor. But Professor Ashwini Deshpande's talk on affirmative action in India gives a nuanced and contextual study of Scheduled Castes and Other Backward caste reservations to debunk many of the myths held by the mainstream. In her words, "Everyone has an opinion [about Affirmative Action] but there are few rigorous studies."

Here is a breakdown of the several arguments she responds to and counters.

Common Argument 1: The benefits don't reach the poorest of the poor. 

Yes, that's true. But Affirmative Action is not an anti-poverty program, it only aims for public sector jobs and colleges. To get there they are already the privileged within their backward caste. It won't solve all caste inequalities, but Affirmative Action desegregates the elite and that is a huge development.

Common Argument 2: Job efficiency lowers after introducing Affirmative Action

Her study with Weisskopff of University of Michigan Does Affirmative Action Affect Productivity in the Indian Railways proves otherwise.

Common Argument 3: If lower castes do not get in with the same merit, their confidence decreases while their sense of inferiority increases.

The Shape of the River is a book about African Americans who were accepted in elite universities (Princeton and Ann Arbor); they said despite initial difficulties, it was worth it. Many college graduates reflected that they would go again even if they knew ahead of time about the humiliation they had to face.

Common Argument 4: The clustering effects bring the more privileged backward castes the benefits and positions, while replacing the economically poor upper castes. It's a regressive policy.

Empirical studies on the Indian case (Bertrand et al 2010) showed that in an engineering exam, the Dalits who got in the school were significantly better off than the other Dalits who didn't get in, while the upper castes who didn't get in sought other opportunities and were not so different than the upper caste students who enrolled. Thus the policy is not regressive.

Common Argument 5: Affirmative Action reinforces caste divisions rather than weaken them, such as the Patel agitation.

After the Right to Education Act, there have been reservations based on economic class as well. But the elites continue to complain. In Deshpande's opinion, having to share privilege is the main problem for these elites. 

One important point she made was that many discussions of caste reservations pertain only to the lower caste. The people under general category sounds like they don't have castes, while they do indeed benefit for being Brahmins or Kshatryias. 

I am very heartened to see defenders of progressive policies such as Prof. Deshpande. The same arguments are made by Chinese in the mainland against minorities as well as recent Chinese immigrants in countries that have even more progressive Affirmative Action policies. I hope that there would be more studies similar to Deshpande's angle done on minorities in mainland China as well.

More Reading:

Her book Affirmative Action in India. OUP, Oxford India Short Introductions series, 2013.