SANSKRIT AND THE INDIAN LANGUAGE FAMILIES

In the making of the modern Indian nation a lot of myths and popular notions got created in the 18th and the 19th century. One of the common threads among these was that ancient India (read Hindu) was great and that India became backward and decadent during the medieval (read Muslim) period. This article attempts to explore some of these myths and popular notions about Sanskrit language and its relationship to Indian languages. These are: 1. Sanskrit is the mother of all Indian languages and 2. Indian languages are divided into two large families known as Dravidian and Indo Aryan families. The article argues that Sanskrit is not mother to any Indian language. It also traces the history of the creation of this notion. Then it argues that the division of Indian languages into Dravidian and Indo Aryan families is  false. It goes on to explain the true relationship of Sanskrit to Indian languages and argues  that all Indian languages form one family.

Contents

 

 I. Is Sanskrit the Mother of Indian Languages?

What is Sanskrit?

The Indian Languages Families

The notion of  Sanskrit as the Mother of Indian Languages?

Where did this notion come from?

Where did William Jones get his ideas from?

Sanskrit is not related to any Indian Language

The Future of Sanskrit

 II. The Myth of Indo Aryan Languages and Dravid languages

Indian Languages form one family

The Real Nature of Relationship between Languages

 

III. Concluding Remarks

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 I. Is Sanskrit the Mother of Indian Languages?

What is Sanskrit?

Sanskrit is the classical language of India. Today there is no speech community of Sanskrit, that is, nobody uses Sanskrit as the main language of normal daily use (except a couple of Brahmin villages in Shimoga district, Karnataka). But it is not a dead language either. It is taught in schools though practically no one learns. However, many upper caste Indians would know a few phrases/couplets of Sanskrit. In the vocabulary of standard modern Indian languages there are a large number of words from Sanskrit. It is the language of rituals for the upper castes. There are probably a few hundred people who know Sanskrit well, most of who are Brahmins. There are also a large number of Brahmin priests who perform rituals and they know enough Sanskrit to perform the rituals. The level of their knowledge varies a lot.

Sanskrit also has been the language of Shastra, of knowledge of the Indian tradition. Even in the 20th century the musicologist Bhatkhande wrote his book in Sanskrit. Over  the last two thousand years, there have been books in Sanskrit on politics, philosophy, religion, theology, ethics, mathematics, astrology, medicine and a host of other fields of knowledge. Panini's grammar, Patanjali's Yogashastra, Chankya's Arthashastra  Manu's Dharmashastra, Aryabhatta and Varahamihir in mathematics and astronomy are just some of the known books. Today many of them are translated into English and into some Indian languages and are used mainly by scholars. However, in the mainstream of Indian life, knowledge and industry, Sanskrit has practically no role. English and modern Indian languages rule.

Historically Sanskrit was the language of the people in North-West India, west of the river Ravi. The area covered then are today’s Afghanistan, Baluchistan and western parts of Kashmir, and Punjab. The area probably extended up to Iran whose language and culture had close affinity to the Vedic Sanskrit. The important centre was in Pakhtunitsan (the land of Pathans) or the North West Frontier province of Pakistan and was known as Gandhar whose main town Takshashila (today’s Taxila in Pakistan) was famous as a seat of learning roughly between 5th century B.C. and 5th century A.D.

The Sanskrit that we know today got the present classical form between the 3rd century B.C. and the 3rd century A.D when it got patronage from the Hindu kings. During this period Kautilya's Arthashastra, Manusmriti or Dharmashastra and an elaborate and perfect grammar was created. The other important language of the era was Pali, with its centres in Patliputra (Patna) and Nalanda under the patronage of Buddhist kings. Sanskrit and Pali coexisted and competed as language of the state during the 1000 years between the  5th century B.C. and the 5th century A.D.

With the arrival of the Muslim rulers, both the languages gradually ceased to be the language of the state. Persian replaced it although no Persian ever ruled over India! Pali more or less vanished from India, although it remained in Sri Lanka. And as every one knows, English replaced Persian and today in spite of many efforts by the supporters of modern Indian languages, English remains the language of power and knowledge.

Several questions arise. Why and how has Sanskrit survived? Latin does not have this kind of presence in Europe. Why was such a perfect grammar created? What is the relationship between Sanskrit and modern Indian Languages?

The Indian Languages Families

For the purpose of this article, India is linguistically defined as the area east of the Indus river system, south of the lower Himalayas. In the east it covers western regions of Bangladesh  and finally it is bounded by the Bay of Bengal, Arabian Sea and the Indian Ocean. In that sense the political boundaries of present day India do reflect, at least linguistically, a homogeneous region. By the same count, Sanskrit would appear as a language from across the border, a foreign language, although there are no takers of Sanskrit in its original land.

India today has 415 living languages, 196 of which are endangered and 9 are extinct. However the majority of these have small speech communities. While the 18 languages recognized by the constitution have large speech communities of a few crores, they do not include many languages  which are equally large, like Bhojpuri or Dakhni.

The two large families popularly known as the Dravid of the South and Indo-Aryan in the North make up the majority of Indian population. There are tribal languages in the Jharkhand area and in the North East which have relatively small speech communities, from a few thousands to a few lakhs. Here only the Dravid and Indo Aryan families will be discussed because they are the ones that are influenced by Sanskrit.

The notion of Sanskrit as the Mother of Indian Languages?

The popular notion about Sanskrit is that it is the mother of all modern Indian languages. The main argument is the profusion of Sanskrit words in all Indian languages. It is also noticed that in South Indian or Dravid languages relatively more Sanskrit word occur in their original 'tatsam' (as it is) form than in the North. In the North many words acquire a 'tadbhava' (as it has become) form.

The development of modern Indian language is traced  as: Sanskrit-Prakrit-Apabhransh-modern languages-for both the Dravidian and Indo Aryan language families. Although this formula is more applicable to the North Indian languages than to the South, it is taken as given.

These notions have been challenged by modern scholarship in many ways. First there is no Indian tradition of this kind of linguistic history. Secondly they have been challenged empirically too. However they not only remain popular, but are also in the text books, and many Ph.D.s on languages subscribe to these notions.

Where did this Notion come from?

As we said above, these notions do not occur in the Indian tradition. So where have they come from? They are essentially of European origin and for India they came through the British. They came through a new discipline called comparative linguistics. As Pt. Kashiram Sharma says, 'In the last two hundred years, in the name of comparative linguistics absolutely irrelevant and useless propositions and fictional accounts have been created which have poisoned the political, social and cultural environment of our country.'

It is said that comparative linguistics was born with a lecture by a learned judge called William Jones, which he gave at the inaugural function of the Asiatic Society in Bengal. William Jones was a judge at the Supreme Court of Calcutta and had learnt Sanskrit and Persian. In 1786, in the Journal of the Asiatic Society, Sir William Jones announced that:

'The Sanscrit language, whatever its antiquity, is of a wonderful structure: more perfect than Greek, more copious than Latin, and more exquisitely refined than either, yet bearing to both of them a stronger affinity, both in root of verbs and in the form of grammar(...)No philosopher could examine them all three, without believing them to have sprung from some common source, which perhaps no longer exists.'('On the Hindus', The Works of Sir William Jones, III, London 1807, 34-5)

Where did William Jones get his ideas from?

There is a long European tradition of these ideas. Umberto Eco in his book The Search for the Perfect Language has told this story. It starts from the Bible. 'In Bible the linguistic theme is taken in a very explicit fashion, in Genesis 11:1.We are told that after the Flood, the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech. 'Yet, men in their vanity conceived a desire to rival the Lord, and thus to erect a tower that would reach up to the heavens. To punish their pride and to put a stop to the construction of their tower., the Lord thought:” Let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech...Therefore is the name of it called babel; because the Lord did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the Lord scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth' (Genesis 11:7, 9).'

It occupied the European mind to search for this original one language and one speech, the perfect language. The search for this  perfect language is called  the  monogenetic hypothesis which assumed that all languages descended from a unique mother tongue. William Jones' hypothesis comes from this world view and the theory that Sanskrit is the mother of all Indian languages originated here, just as Latin is popularly considered as the mother of European languages.

However, once launched, this comparative linguistic took its own bizarre form in the colonial context. It gave rise to colonial historiography and colonial anthropology.

First it gave birth to the Indo European hypothesis which says that Latin, Greek, Persian and Sanskrit belong to one group and that Sanskrit was the original language of the group.  It also thus claimed one root for one family - the Aryans. Thus the Aryan myth got created with tragic consequences during Hitler's regime. It created the ideal of the 'white man's burden'. Thus Adolphe Pictet, the great linguist sang the hymn to the Aryan culture: 'It is not perhaps curious to see the Aryans of Europe, after a separation of four to five thousand years, close the circle once again, reach their unknown brothers in India, dominate them, bring them the elements of a superior civilization, and then to find ancient evidence of a common origin?'

Why did these so called Aryan languages travel? The myth of Aryan invasion to India got created. Apparently there was a famine and the Aryans in search for grass for their herds went wandering in search of greener pastures and landed in India. Not only that, waves of these invasions occurred and the later invasions pushed the earlier settlers in concentric circles, with its centre in North West, outwards to East and South and to deep jungles. Linguistic and anthropological evidence got created for all these mythologies. The excavations in the Indus Valley Civilization regions further 'proved' the Aryan invasion and even dated it!

Why did India buy all these theories when there was no Indian tradition to corroborate it? Nineteenth century Indian upper castes/classes were eager to denounce the negative aspects of Hindu religion and were ready to embrace the Western Civilization. This theory was very convenient. Western civilization owed its roots to India, ancient India was great and all the ills/bad things of Hindu society were due to  the Muslim invasion! This was convenient to the colonialists too. It created a Brown sahib and created the Hindu Muslim divide.

Sanskrit is not related to any Indian language

The first major attack on this concept came from Rt. Rev. Albert Caldwell in 1856 when he showed that the Dravidian languages are not related to Sanskrit at all. Then it was shown that Prakrit languages were not related to Sanskrit either. Using the same logic Pt. Kashiram Sharma demonstrated that Hindi is not related to Sanskrit either. Serious linguists do not believe that any of the Indian languages are related to Sanskrit.

In the struggle between Pali and Sanskrit, that is, in the struggle between Buddhism and Hinduism between 3rd century B. C. to 8th century A. D., Hinduism and Sanskrit won. Sanskrit became the official language of India – of the courts, of learning of the 'Shastras'. The story of how and why Hinduism and Sanskrit starting from Magadh in the North 'conquered' rest of India is a fascinating story and is still being explored by historians. But it did happen and Hinduism, with its caste system, untouchability and the power of Arthsahstra and Manusmriti occupied the regions from U. P. to Kerala and from Bengal to Gujarat. It created a stable rural society based on hierarchy of castes and occupation,  on caste based exploitation and oppression, impervious to change of rulers at the state level. Brahmins and Sanskrit played the legitimising role for the rulers.

For this learning Sanskrit became very important, just as learning English is very important today. Initially the Brahmins and the bureaucrats  had to go to  Takshshila to learn Sanskrit for several years. Even today in the ritual of Yagnopavit, (of twice born) the Batuk (learners) has to perform a ritualistic trip to Kashmir ( of a few steps) to start his education. It was unrealistic for scholars and bureaucrats to do this from all over India and face that extreme cold weather.

As a result, at Takshashila the Sanskrit scholars developed wonderful methods of  teaching Sanskrit to Indians. Since it was a case of 'adult learning of a foreign language', they created special learning tools, one of which was of creating the most perfect grammar in the world. In the  discipline of grammar and phonetics, no author had a greater influence than Panini with his Ashtadhyayi (5th century A. D.) Now one does not need a grammar to learn one's own language, but it was very useful when learning a foreign language. They also created rules for pronunciation and it was so perfect that after two thousand years, today it is still possible to hear the same pronunciation and recitation of Sanskrit from any part of India. They created dictionaries in verse form so that scholars learnt them by heart.

We have mentioned that Sanskrit vocabulary has penetrated many modern languages. This is due to the official status it enjoyed. It is the same as Persian vocabulary of legal terms that has come into all the Indian languages, and in modern times, English words have entered  Indian languages. Today any FM radio bears eloquent testimony to this.  With the arrival of Islam and Sufism social changes occurred at a faster rate in the North and influence of Sanskrit decreased rapidly. In the South the influence of Sanskrit remained stronger and that is why there are more Sanskrit Tatsam words in the South Indian languages.

However there is another side to it. All the Sanskrit words are not from Sanskrit. Sanskrit has borrowed many words from Indian languages, Sanskritised them (gave them Tatsam form) and today we are made to believe that many Indian words are vulgarised (tadbhav form) of the original Sanskrit word. English too has borrowed thousands of words from India. In fact there is a dictionary of these words called 'Hobson Jobson'. It is possible to create a similar dictionary of Sanskrit words borrowed from Indian languages. Fr. Caldwell provided long lists of such Tamil words. For example: Amba (mother), Atavi (forest), Neer (water) Pattan (town), Palli (village) Meen (fish) Shav (dead body) and so on. Other scholars have done similar works with other Indian languages.

The Future of Sanskrit

D. D. Kosambi once wrote that Sanskrit had literally no future since it did not have a normal future tense. (I do not know Sanskrit grammar so I cannot say what exactly he meant). Vir Bharat Talwar in 'Rassakashi' wrote that although Hindi had won the right to be the Court language in North India it could not replace Persian words. Now English words have replaced the Persian words. It is not possible to go  back in time. Dharma Vir wrote in 'Hindi Ki Atma', that a language absorbs those foreign words that suit its nature or genius. He gave the classic example of 'Table Kursi', where 'table' got absorbed in Hindi but not the 'chair'! Modern Indian languages have definitely replaced both Sanskrit and Persian and have absorbed Sanskrit, Persian and English words according to their nature.

Sanskrit will remain as a language of ritual to some upper caste Indians and a language for scholars of linguistics. Some experts opine that it may be useful for computer programming. The Backus-Naur Form or BNF grammars used to describe modern programming languages have significant similarities with Panini's grammar rules. Great libraries will have Sanskrit classics available for serious students.

 II. The Myth of Indo Aryan Languages and Dravid languages

The terms Dravidian and Indo Aryan families do not occur in Indian tradition. They have been introduced by the linguistics developed in the colonial era. So do these language families have any validity? Why and how have these concepts got created?

As we have seen above the comparative lingustics  gave birth to the Indo European hypothesis which says that Latin, Greek, Persian and Sanskrit belong to one group and that Sanskrit was the original language of the group.  It also thus claimed one root for one family - the Aryans. Thus the Aryan myth got created and Indian languages were called Indo Aryan languages.

After Caldwell established that the Dravidian languages are not related, the idea of two groups came. The North Indian languages wre called Indo Aryan and the South Indian group was called Dravidian. However as we have seen scholars have showed that the so called Indo Aryan languages are not to related to Sanskrit either. So it leads to explore the possibility that the notion of two large groups - Dravidian and  Indo Aryan is false.

Indian Languages form one family

It was Pandit Kashiram Sharma who proposed that in fact all Indian languages form one family. He published a booklet called : Dravid Parivar ki Bhasha: Hindi, (Hindi: a language of Dravid Family) from  Roorkee in 1968. The provocation for publishing and distributing this pamphlet is also interesting. ”I will never forget an incident I saw in Roorkee in 1967. The Angrezi hatao (Remove English) movement burnt 'Gandhi Vastra Bhandar' because its name was written in Devanagari and Roman. However  the 'Motel Polaris' got saved because they changed the name plate to Devanagari over night!”

What is the basis to argue that in fact they form one family? The Dravid and the Indo-Aryan families share a lot:

1.    They are in one large geographical contiguous area bounded by the seas, the Indus river system, the Himalayas and the river Brahmaputra.

2.    There is a ‘morph by morph’ equivalence between these languages. That is if you write the same sentence in the two  languages one below the other they will match vertically. In other words the sentence structure is similar in all these languages.

3.    There is a ‘Dravidian sub stratum’ in all these languages.

 4. There is an overlay of Sanskrit vocabulary in all these languages, particularly in the written form and spoken by the upper castes/classes.

 5. The ease with which Khari boli and Braj spread allover India: Braj spread in the medieval period, due to the Krishna Bhakti and Vaishnavism, to the East and even to South India. Khari Boli also spread from 12th century onwards due to the Sufis and Nirgun saints up to Tungabhadra in the South. In the South it became known as Dakhni. Later variants of Bombay Hindi and Calcutta Hindi also came into being during the colonial period. Similarly, The Dravidian languages, numbering 29, extend as far north as Jharkhand (the Oraon language) Madhya Pradesh and Chhatisgarh (Gond languages) and even in the North West beyond the Indus river system (The Brahui language).

 6. The script of all Indian languages are syllabic in nature and the order of the letters in the scripts is same with a few regional variations.

 7. The Indian Standard Sign Language: Sign language is a language used by deaf      people to communicate with each other with the help of signs made by hand. In theory each language or speech community has its own separate sign language. Or in other words there can be as many sign languages as there are languages. However this is not practical for purposes of teaching. So normally a family of languages evolve a common sign language. As we have tried to argue above, Indian languages as a whole form one family, so  it is no surprise that people working with deaf people have in fact evolved a standard Indian sign language. This is one more ‘proof’ to indicate that Indian languages form one common family and their division between Dravidian and Indo Aryan may not be correct.

The Real Nature of Relationship between Languages

Different languages are born in different eco regions. Malwa has Malwi, Awadh has Awadhi or Mithila has Maithili. Different forms of Marathi, Telugu or Kannada exists in different regions. If they share a larger eco region a family of language gets created. Thus Hindi is a set of some 30 languages or Marathi is of 6. Similarly India, as we defined it ecologically and linguistically  above, has one large group or family of modern Indian languages.

III. Concluding Remarks

Local languages can be super imposed by a ruling language. In case of India they have all been 'foreign'. First it was Sanskrit, then Persian and now English. Is there something special about Indian people or the Indian climate  that they are ruled by foreigners or at least by foreign languages? Such a colonial idea has been around for quite some time and was eloquently expressed in the book, 'The Continent of Circe' by Nirad Chaudhuri.

In fact India twice had an Indian language as a ruling/national language. First it was Pali. It remained from the time of Ashok to 9th century or so – more than 1000 years! Secondly today officially Hindi is India's national language although in fact English has taken it over. Why did Hindi fail? Among others one of the reasons was that its proponents subscribed to the Sanskrit origin theory and filled it with Sanskrit words and used Sanskrit grammar to teach it! However, Hindi in its various popular forms remains the link language in India.

Another way of looking at it is that India is a federal entity and it is artificial (imperial) to have one common language. In fact these imperial periods have been of relatively short durations but their linguistic impact is of much longer duration. And during all these 'imperial periods'  some provinces were always in a state of revolt, not excepting the present Indian state. The only difference is that in the past the revolting forces were mainly local kings or Kshatraps (though there were exceptions), whereas today a large number of people are involved in these revolts against the centre.

The rest depends on the political course that India will take in coming decades. If the centralised Indian state remains, English will dominate. If it breaks into federal units, modern Indian languages will take over with appropriate absorption of Sanskrit, Persian and English language words as well as words from each other. There may even be a move to de-Sanskritise the languages and to discover very good local words of lower caste/working class origin. This has happened before. In Kannada the great poet D. R. Bendre discovered and used many original Kannada words in his poems. Similar things have happened in many Indian languages. One can only hope that this will not give rise to a new kind of chauvinism/fascism like the Shiv Sena or Kannada Abhimanis.

References

1.   Bajpai, Kishoridas: Hindi Shabdanushasan, Varanasi v.s. 2013, Nagari Pracharini Sabha

2.   Bora, Rajmal:  Bharat ki Bhashayen: Aitihasik Evam Bhougolik Vivechan, 1995, New Delhi, Vani Prakashan

3.   Caldwell, Rt. Rev. Robert. : A Comparative Grammar of the Dravidian or South-Indian Family of Languages, 1856, Reprinted 1961, University of Madras

4.   Chaudhuri, Nirad C.: The Continent of Circe,1965, New Delhi, Jaico Books

5.   Dharmavir: Hindi ki Atma, 1987, New Delhi, Samata Prakashan

 6.   Eco, Umberto, The Search for a Perfect language, 1997, London, Fontana Press

7.   Sharma, Kashiram: Dravid Parivar ki Bhasha: Hindi, 1968, Roorkee

8.   Talwar, Vir Bharar, Rassakashi, 2002, New Delhi, Saransh Prakashan Pvt. Ltd.

T. BHEEMACHARYA (JANUARY 17, 1905-April 29, 1985)

My father was born in Tumminkatte, in the then Dharwar district of North Karnataka. Today it is in Haveri district. That is where the 'T' comes in his name though he never expanded to its full form in writing his name. For a long time I thought, due to my limited knowledge of Kannada, that it was Tunginkatte, the banks of the river Tungabhadra. In school, none of us children expanded it either. Later when the  state became more intrusive in our private lives and insisted on knowing its full form, I made it Tungabhadra, whereas my brother made it Tumkur!

 In 1913, as a child he was adopted by a rich childless family of Honnali, and we always treated Honnali as our home village/town. He himself did not like to stay there and went to a gurukul, where children were trained to become pontiffs of the the religon. Here they conversed in Sanskrit, using Kannada only to talk to women and servants in the tradition of plays by Kalidasa. He also appeared in the matricualtion examination of the then Bombay Presidency and won Shankar Sheth scholarship in Sanskrit and promptly left the gurukal, whereas his cousin stayed back and became a pontiff of the Uttardai matha. My mother believes that he left the gurukula because he wanted to eat onion pakoras, which he could not get in the gurukula.

At Dharwar at he became part of the group 'Geleyer gumpu' which had people like D. R. Bendre (who became a famous poet), R. R. Diwakar (who later became a Governor)  and V. K. Gokak (who became a famous academician). After intermediate he went to Mysore to study for the degree of Sahitya Vidvan in Sanskrit. Among his classmates was S. Radhakrishnan, who later became the President of India. My father got involved in agitation against the British, was shot in the leg and had an arrest warrant against him. The prime minister of the Mysore State, Mirza Ismail, came to the hostel in the evening and asked him to quit the state immediately before he was forced to execute the arrest warrant. My father reached Indore in 1922.

He seemed to have had some musical talent and so he became a disciple of the court muscian, Devidas Petiwale. In those days Bhathkhande had just published his critical volumes on the north Indian classiocal music in Sanskrit under the name of Chatur Pandit. My father  built an excellent library of the music literature that had just began coming out for his blind guru, read them and 'taught' his all that was happening in the world of music. I have seen a copy of book in Devnagari and Indian notation by Maharshi Devendranath Thakhur (grand father  of Rabindrnath Tagore) published in 1860s! He also learnt playing the Been, the North Indian Veena from Babu Khan, the last exponent of the instrument. Babukhan would come, give a lesson for may be up to 15 minutes, tell my father that he (my father ) was quick in learning, collect his fee of one rupee and would go and buy his bottle! Those were the days! He also learnt Tabla from Zehangir Khan who lived very close to our house.

He also became a tutor to the children of the Bhandarkar family, teaching the daughter Sanskrit and the son music. Later he became the vice principal for both the music college and the Sanskrit college in Indore. He passed B. A. and B. T. (Bachelor in Teaching) from Agra University and became a teacher in the Sanyogitaganj High School.

He wore Khadi but did not use a Khadi cap,  and dressed like Moti Lal Nehru. He kept in touch with the the politics of the country, read writings of Gandhi, Nehru, Bernard Shaw and Bertrand Russel. But his heart was not in politics, but in music and Sanskrit literature. In music he became a follower of Dilip Kumar Roy who approched God through music.

After independence, he was persuaded to take a government job and he worked for the department of industries, incharge of village industries. In summer I some times went with him on  tours and became familiar with handloom and silk industry and managed to shake hands with Nehru at Mandu where he (Nehru) was giving school dresses to the tribal children.

He used to eat late at night and I used to serve him. I managed to do every exercise in Wren  and Martin grammar book with him  and learnt  a lot of things on varrious subjects. On Sundays I also went on morning walks with him, a habit he kept almost till the end. He was acitve till the last day of his life. He fell in the bathroom while having a bath, lost his conciousness and died within a few hours without waking up. I had met him a few months earlier and we had discussed about preparing for death and he had said that sudden death (aksmat mrityu) is the best death. His last wish thus was fulfilled.

PREFACE

 

The contents of these  essays and story are based on what I learnt from my father. He was a scholar of Sanskrit,  was a partisan scholar in the theological debate between different schools of Vedanta, his, postion being  that of Dvaita, as he belonged to the Madhva tradtion. He was also a musician, was a disciple of Devidas Petiwale of Indore. The sensibilities of these essays and story are of course mine and belong to a different era. My father was a partisan to a specific sampradaya within Vedantic tradition of Hinduism, whereas I am an atheist and irreligious. Politically he was liberal and was close to Fabian Socialism, whereas I belong to the Marxist-Anarchist tradition. About my musical leanings, the less said the better. My  father once told me never to try a career in music as, in his opinion, I had no ear for music. He was probably right in spite of current educationists' belief that every child has artistic sensibilities.

 My father had a killing sense o f satire and he could and often did cut me  to pieces and put me in my place whenever my arrogance showed up. He was capable of using choice Kannada and Sanskrit phrases and idioms for this. For example 'Day by day our horse is turning into a donkey'  (Kannada: 'Barta barta nam kudre katte ayatu') or he would look up towards sky and pray to  Saraswati, the goddess of learning 'Please, let it not be my fate that I have to present my poems to person who has no sense of aesthetics' ( Sanskrit, Kalidasa: 'Arasikeshu kavitvanivedanam, sirashu ma likh, ma likh'). Then there were my friends and comrades who visited him and told him how much they learned from me about appreciating Indian classical music or Hindu religion and its philosophies. During my visits he will tell some one with a wonder in his voice that Viju's friends and comrades told him that they have learnt to appreciate classical music and Hindu religion and its philosphies!

So this is my affectionate 'revenge' for all those humiliations I sufferred.

Vijayendra

Honnali

3. 2. 2011

FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD

How Much Land Does a Man Need?

Today there are many young people who are attracted to the idea of moving to a small town or to rural areas. Some people who have had some years of exposure to mainstream well paying jobs have also felt that this is not what they want to do. Many people faced with the prospect of recession and loss of job, are attracted to the idea of organic farming.

This article is addressed to these people. It deals with the reality of the situation, past experiences and what can and cannot be done, what ought to be done and so on. In the past many people tried it with mixed results. Many could not do it. Farming is a skill and requires hard work and learning. In the initial years it cannot be mixed with other preoccupations. Many ended up with orchards which gave them steady income. Many who had ancestral land and who went back to it also ended up with orchards or other cash crops. Few succeeded in producing grains, dals and oilseeds, the essential triad of the food basket.

In this article, in the first part we will explore what farming and organic farming ought to be and then in part two we will explore what these young people can do including non farming options. The reference ecological region will be Deccan.

Part I

Organic Farming

To most people organic farming means farming without chemical fertilizers and pesticides. Some better informed people will include rain water harvesting through contour bunding, mixed crops, crop rotation etc. While all this is correct it does not adequately cover the contemporary sensibilities of which organic farming is a part.

Contemporary Sensibilities

The core statement of this can be stated as:

1.                  Equality

2.                  Scaling down the use of resources

3.                  Ecological Restoration

Equality

The demand for equality is as old as the class society, that is several thousand years. In the modern era this has been  articulated forcefully since the French Revolution of 1879

1

and has been part of the progressive movement ever since through out the world. With the birth of Marxism around 1848, it is increasingly being realised that equality can be achieved only through the organization of the working people – the people who have been deprived of equality and have been oppressed and exploited. In the field of agriculture, which is the basis of survival of all human societies, the demand for land reform, the demand for ownership of the land by the farmers, the slogan ‘land to the tiller’ has been around for more than a century and is still valid for India.

How much land a tiller should own? This has been worked out by the peasant movement, political parties representing them and various expert committees for different regions of the country depending upon the productivity of the land. No one should own more land this. For Deccan region it will be less than 3 acres depending upon the kind of land and irrigation facilities.

Scaling down the use of Resources

Due to the logic of capitalism, there is a tendency for consumerism, of increased use of resources. This has led to a catastrophic environmental degradation and can, if not checked immediately, lead to the destruction of most life form on earth and water including human beings.

A big chunk of this pressure of consumerism has fallen on agriculture and on land. To day agriculture not only produces food for the farmers and other villagers, it has to feed an increasing urban population and produce raw material for industry. Some of the products of these raw materials are either harmful (narcotics, tobacco) or useless (floriculture for export and for political functions) or are in excessive amounts (sugar and alcohol). The need of contemporary sensibilities is that agriculture should produce mainly food – say not less than two thirds of the produce should be food  and in food also basic food – grains, pulses and oilseeds – again let us say two thirds of the total produce and the remaining should be fruits and vegetables. Again as a thumb rule the marketable surplus should not be greater than one third. These figures are indicative of the spirit behind these proposals, the actual figures may vary around these figures. The point is that today agriculture is being used for purposes other than food and the rural people, the producers; themselves are starving and some of them are committing suicide.

Ecological Restoration

Mankind has over exploited natural resources and in the process the human population has exploded in the 20th century. There is a need to restore ecology and stabilize human population. For that agriculture should not only be organic, it should also be more efficient, so that we can produce same or more food from less land. The science of agro ecology has to be developed to its full potential. The aims could be:

1.                  Return one third of the agriculture land back to nature – to forests, wet lands, grass lands etc.

2.                  Restore forest and water bodies back to their health.

3.                  Specific conservation projects for critically endangered flora and fauna of the region.

To summarise, in terms of contemporary sensibilities on the land and agriculture question, our conclusions are:

1.                  Support demand for land reforms.

2.                  No one should own more land than prescribed by land reforms for the region.

3.                  Two thirds of all agriculture land should produce basic food, vegetables and fruits. Within that again two third should be basic food – food grains, pulses and oilseeds.

4.                  Of the total produce  two third should be for consumption for the farmer's family and only one third surplus - to be supplied to non farming communities and industry. This also limits the amount of land a family can own.

5.                  A third of the present agricultural land should be restored back to the nature.

6.                  The forest and water bodies of the region should be restored back to their natural health.

7.                  Specific conservation projects should be undertaken to restore degraded agricultural land back to forest, restore forest and water bodies back to health and monitor conservation of specific critically endangered flora and fauna.

Part II

Acquiring Land? How much?

In the light of above, if land reforms are carried out or if we believe in land reforms, actually there is hardly any land available. The excess land is owned by rich people and they should be deprived of it without compensation and the land should be given to landless peasants. Or there is distress sale by poor farmers due to loans etc. and we should help them to restore their economic situation and not take advantage of distress and make them landless. Finally if somehow we do acquire land, say 3 to 5 acres, what chances are there that we can succeed as farmers? Most of us do not have the skills and acquiring it at a later age is difficult. The common dream of making a commune of a few urban close friends has, as a rule failed. The reason is that there is varying degrees of motivation and readiness to adapt to the rural situation and the group breaks down.

So what can we do?

Once again, this is addressed to a specific urban group. Evidently, overnight they will not become socialists/communists and work for land reforms. If some of them do well and good and they won't need this article.

Majority are attracted to the idea of shifting to a low consumer base, to a simpler life. This is indeed a good thing and should be encouraged. In fact they should move to rural areas or to small towns (taluk/block towns) on an experimental basis and get to know the rural areas and experience it.

One should try to be clear about objectives. If one eventually acquires some land, one should be prepared to be a farmer himself. Otherwise one can still stay in rural areas, do some basic kitchen garden and be a useful citizen in rural areas using one's strengths – teaching, running library, organising meetings, running a shop etc.

Now there are several options and many of them can be tried concurrently. First to meet as many people in the area who have a similar background to yours and tried out similar ideas. One can learn much from them, both in terms of successes and mistakes committed. One can even stay with them and work for a longer time if they have been 'successful'. Some go for a tour around the country to meet famous organic farmers.

But a more important thing to do is to understand farmers and agriculture. This one can do only by meeting ordinary farmers. One could take a house -rent/buy/build in about 5 to 10 cents of land and start the basic kitchen garden. Many components of organic farming can be learnt this way. Composting, nursery, planting, irrigation, harvesting, seed collection and preservation etc. Since the scale is small, it will take less time and energy and mistakes will not be expensive.  

Concurrently one can make friends with the local farmers and other villagers. Village society is complex and it will take time to figure out what is happening. Only then one should plan and decide what one is going to do.

In case of choosing agriculture, probably the best way is to collaborate with a poor farmer who is in distress and with whom you have developed a good personal relationship over a period. Then one can enter some kind of agreement – you pay of his/her loans and lease in land and carry on agriculture in partnership etc. This way one can learn and even teach the farmer from what one has learnt from the books and over the years develop a good relationship.

But as has been said above, agriculture is not the only thing that happens in rural society. One can have one's kitchen garden and be still a useful person/family in the rural areas and lead a low consumption life and do something useful.

Appendix

Let me illustrate this with  a fictional account.

Somewhere in North Karnataka there is this taluk town called Bilgram. The town has an environmental group called Prakruti. Prakruti does several things. In the town they have an anti plastic bag campaign, a project for urban waste management through separation at source, home composting and kitchen gardens. They also have roof top rain water harvesting programme.

They have good links with the surrounding villages. They have adopted a few villages which have been involved in organic farming through some old Gandhians. The rural programme of these Gandhians also had some tank restoration programmes, planting trees etc.

Prakruti buys all the surplus of the adopted villages and and it is distributed among the members of the group and friends. Apart from grains etc. Prakruti also buys value added products like Ragi malt, chutneys and pickles which a village group produces.

In this situation in walks Alka from Pune. She has done B. Sc. in environmental sciences and an M. Sc. in sustainable agriculture. She has visited various farms and wants to do organic farming herself. The problem is that there is no land available which she can afford to buy. Around Pune it is Rs. 10 to 30 lakhs an acre. She has come to Bilgram hoping to buy cheap land.

She meets every one in the group, visits all the adopted villages and talks to several villagers. No one wants to sell land. But she likes the town and decides to give herself a fair trial. Then one of the villages comes with an offer. They said 'We will sell you 10 cents of land for Rs. 10,000/- and help you to build a house. You do some vegetable garden, some fruit trees etc. and teach us all that you know in organic farming that you have learnt.' She agreed because she was prepared to spend a few lakhs and here she was getting a deal to start her rural dream in a few thousands only.

After about a year she was well settled in the village and knew every body in the surrounding villages. There was one family where the man in the family had died . There were old parents, the widow and two children. Also they had a loan of some Rs. 60,000.

After meeting them several times, Alka came up with a proposal. She will pay up the loan and in return she will lease their land of 3 acres for three years. She will give them one third of the produce and also pay wages of Rs. 100/- per day to the lady whenever she works for her, which will not be less than 100 days a year. That is she will pay her Rs. 10,000/- per year for wages. These figures were arrived on the basis of NREGA experience.

At present Alka has had the agreement for one year and she has had good experience. The children are very happy with her because she helps them with their studies and gives gifts of story books. She  hopes that this arrangement can become permanent.

SOCIALISM TODAY

Down with Capitalism

The empire of capitalism and imperialism is coming crashing down. It is falling because of the brave struggle of the working people and because of the over exploitation of the natural resource by capitalism. The crisis of capitalism is also because of the internal contradiction of huge inequalities destroying markets and slowing economic growth.

Capitalism has caused immense poverty and hunger to the millions of working people. It also destroyed forests and endangered plants and animals to such an extent that many of them have vanished for ever.  It has burnt so much fossil fuel that on one hand it has created global warming which threatens to kill all life on earth. On the other hand depletion of this resource has reached such a level that it has become one of the main sources of crisis of capitalism today.

Onward March towards Socialism

The alternative to capitalism is socialism. For more than 100 years socialism has won various victories in different parts of the earth – in Russia, China, Vietnam and Cuba. In the process there have been mistakes. Today when capitalism is coming to end in a big way there is a good chance to rebuild socialism anew. The challenge is to learn from the past mistakes and take into account the new conditions. Cuba remains an inspiration in today's context.

Socialism Today

In the light of past experience, both of successes and shortcomings, the socialism today may look like this:

1.                       Human beings are a part of nature. They have to live with it and not off it.

2.                       Within human society there should be equality, brotherhood and democracy.

3.                       The socialist state will have ecological boundaries and will be organised federally within, with its neighbours and globally.

4.                       Within the socialist state there will be decentralisation and direct democracy at the grass root level (village pnachayat and city wards) and all units will be federally related. The 'centre' will have minimum powers.

5.                       The grass root level organisations will start with direct democracy and move towards 'a free association of free people'.

6.                       The technological base of such society will be to move towards ecologically sound processes. Food will come from organic farming and free range animals, birds and fishes. Other needs will be satisfied by humane use of domestic animals in farming and transport, leather and wood as main raw materials etc. It does not mean completely abandoning modern sensibilities and scientific advances.

7.                        The main agenda for humanity for the 21^st century will be to restore the earth's ecological health which has been damaged so severely by capitalism. Special attention will have to be given to endangered ecosystem, plants and animals.

Broad Objectives of Socialism Today

1. Equality

2. Reducing consumption of resources

3. Ecological restoration

What then should be done?

1.                       To organise people through trade unions and other people's organisations to struggle for rights, dignity and freedom. To fight against exploitation, oppression and slavery.

2.                       To oppose those projects of capitalism which are against the long term interests of the people and ecology.

3.                       To restore ecology and build socialism through people's collective action.

4.                       To create green jobs in the immediate future for the workers, particularly for those that are displaced by projects, for workers of factories that are shut down and for the new generation of young people.

5.                       Capitalist crisis can also lead to fascism and religious fundamentalism. Therefore we must oppose fascism and communalism in all forms, even when they seem opposed to capitalism.