Caste, Gender and the State in Eighteenth Century Maharashtra /

Caste, Gender and the State in Eighteenth Century Maharashtra /

] Caste, Gender and the State in Eighteenth Century Maharashtra I Peshwa rule in eighteenth century western India is unique in recorded and documentable history for its combination of secular and ritual power in the hands of the Brahmanas. Although

Brahmanas have been among the dominant groups of society all over traditional India, in Maharashtra they held a position of unrivalled prestige under the Peshwas.! Their importance in the eighteenth century was noticeable even in the time of Shivaji.

Although a Maratha himself Shivaji, like earlier Indian kings, staffed his administration with Brahmanas, who came to be prominent in the Maratha judicial system and in the collection of land revenue, crucial functions of any state. In 1713 Shivaji's grandson appointed a Chitpavan Brahmana as Peshwa. Thereafter the Peshwas accumulated such prestige and power that the office became hereditary in their family and they became the de facto rulers of Maharashtra. The Peshwas ruled from Poona while the nominal Maratha dynasty sank into insignificance at Satara.

Shivaji had used Brahmanas but had ensured that the balance of caste forces was so maintained that power was not concentrated in any one caste or sub-caste." His political system was also an attempt to bridge the gulf between Maratha-Kunbis and the Brahmanas, and knit the conflicting elements into an integrated society while at the same time establishing centralised control over the Deshmukhs, non-Brahmana landed chiefs with extensive powers left intact under Muslim rule.' As his control expanded he installed

Deshastha Brahmanas (who would be joined to him by ties of

4 REWRITING HISTORY

interest and sentiment and would, therefore, remain loyal to him) in his administration as a counterpoint to the traditional Deshmukhs. When the Peshwas began to wield authority they in turn realised the value of a loyal constituency and appointed the Chitpavans in important positions.' The initial employment of the Chitpavans in the Peshwai was not so much as clerks but as messengers and spies. In course of time Chitpavan power was consolidated; crucial factors in this process were that, in addition to the possession 'of literacy and a measure of prestige that they shared with all Brahmanas, the Chitpavans demonstrated great industry and assiduousness and a perfecting of strategic generalship.? Their militarisation was recalled with pride by one of the prominent nineteenth century Chitpavan Brahmanas, Vishnu

Shastri Chiplunkar:

Those people who traditionally were priests and are now clerks threw away in that century (the eighteenth) their priestly functions and pens and became Kshatriyas. Some became kings, some became soldiers. This was an unprecedented and remarkable change in which people of Parshurama's land demonstrated their bravery all over the country.°

With this militarisation in the eighteenth century the Brahmanas came to combine secular power with sacerdotal status and attained a unique authority (as symbolised by the term Maratha-Brahmana) scarcely rivalled in other parts of India. The terms Poona, Deccan, and Maratha-Brahmana came to be regarded as synonyms of the Chitpavan Brahmanas and also of those other Brahmanas wno had followed the Chitpavan example of combining political activiry with the traditional pursuits of the Brahmanas.

Success in military and political activities was interlinked with economic prosperity and various kinds of privileges for the Chitpavans. Their clerks and writers (who had a virtual monopoly of all the secretariat or dafiar offices) were able to have their goods exempted from customs duties and ferry charges when they imported grain and other goods from places outside the territories of the Peshwas.' By far the most important economic advantage was the establishment of control over land.2 The Brahmanas adopted various strategies for this. For example, in the seventeenth century, the Deshastha Brahmana family of Moroba Gosavi founded a lineage at Cincvad in the vicinity of Poona where the establishment of a site sacred to Ganesh also meant extending land

Caste, Gender and the State in Eighteenth Century Maharashtra

control over several villages surrounding Poona, particularly after Ganesh became the patron god of the Peshwas.?

Brahmana power in general and Chitpavan power in particular has been summed up thus for Maharashtra:

Of the significant concentrations of power in society, namely the institutions of religion, the administration, and the ownership of land, the Chitpavans virtually controlled all three. Their status in the scale of caste assured their supremacy over the institutions of religion; their ties with the Peshwas secured for them a monopoly over the administration; and finally the ties of caste once again encouraged the Peshwas to create a landed aristocracy which was recruited from Brahmana families and on whose loyalty they could rely in all circumstances. This is not to altogether deny the existence in Maharashtra of landlords, or administrators, or soldiers who were non-Brahmanas. This is merely to assert that the privileges enjoyed by the Chitpavans through their special ties with the Peshwas enabled them to dominate the rest of the community.!°

The principal watandars had also been invariably drawn from the two dominant communities, high-caste Marathas and Brahmanas. But because it was the Brahmana watandars who rose to such high positions under the Peshwas, it is not surprising that the Peshwai was called Brahmanya ra 11 The Brahmanas, particularly the Chitpavans, thus became a constituent element in what Gokhale has termed the military-bureaucratic elite. A section of the Chitpavans have been characterised as the 'aristocratic' power-brokers in eighteenth century Poona since they had elevated themselves, through dynasty formation, to the status of an aristocracy. Apart from them there were also the 'money-movers', prominent banking families who constituted an important segment of the elites, many of whom had earlier been holders of the lucrative offices of Khot, Mahajan and Kamavisdar through which they accumulated capital. With this they began money-lending. The Peshwa's family married into both the military-bureaucratic elite and the financial elite, cementing their common Chitpavan background and their mutual dependence. There was thus a close nexus between banking, administration and military power and the rural-urban continuities in eighteenth century Maharashtra.'

The most notable feature of these developments had been the successful entry of Brahmanas into military and financial roles, both regarded as alien to their varna.!3 Even those Brahmanas who were not part of the military, financial or landed elite were privileged by

G6 REWRITING HISTORY

virtue of their caste. The control of political and social power by the Chitpavans was best expressed through the institution of the dakshina which represented an informal alliance between the Chitpavans and the state.!* The dakshina, literally a gift, was the means through which the Peshwas extended support to the Brahmanas in their role as 'custodians' of Hinduism. It involved the distribution of enormous sums of money as charity to thousands of 'scholarly' Brahmanas after they had been examined by a body of shastris who ascertained their knowledge of the sacred texts of Hinduism. In return for the recognition that the grant of dakshina accorded, the Brahmanas gave unstinting support to the state.!> The support is also attributable to the general policy of Brahmana pratipalana (protection of the Brahmanas) pursued by the Peshwas. Throughout the second half of the eighteenth century all categories of Brahmana men enjoyed land revenue remissions, exemption from transit dues, house taxes, forced labour, death penalty and enslavement.!° While all Brahmanas shared certain privileges in the form of exemptions, the grant of lands, or large gifts of dakshina, they were subject to competing pulls from within the sub-castes among themselves. In this the Chitpavans had a natural advantage as kinsmen of the Peshwas but it is significant that the Peshwas could not openly treat kinship as the rationale for favouring some

Brahmanas over others. Religious grants, dana, were supposedly strictly the prerogative of those Brahmanas who were qualified as satkarmi (technically performers of good deeds, more generally bearer of high status), as the inampatra (grant deed) often stated that the recipient Brahmana was a satakarmadhikari and thus qualified for dana. Under the Peshwai, with the Chitpavan

Brahmana dominance, political considerations began to affect questions of caste purity. This impinged on the fortunes of sub-castes like the Saraswat Brahmanas. Controversy regarding their status erupted in the reign of Madhavrao I who held that they were not trikarmi (high status) Brahmanas and therefore of a lower order than other Brahmana sub-castes.!? Thereafter he resumed most of the religious lands of the Shenvis around Poona (on the ground that they had had no right to receive them in the first place), and redistributed them among the Chitpavan Brahmanas.!8 The Peshwas thus played off one set of Brahmanas against another, projecting themselves as upholders of the dharma while reinforcing

Caste, Gender and the State in Eighteenth Century Maharashtra

the position of, and their alliance with, their own subcaste of the Chitpavans.

In view of the high stakes that internal stratification and ranking among the various sub-castes entailed, it is not surprising that there were a number of disputes between the sub-castes among the Brahmanas, and between the Brahmana sub-castes and other high-status groups. Wagle points out that there is recorded evidence to show that the Chitpavans had disputes with the Chandraseniya

Kayastha Prabhus, the Saraswats, the Pathare Prabhus, and the Shukla Yajurvedis.'? The fact that the Chitpavans were one of the parties in all of these disputes indicates their high stakes in such contests. Clearly, purity of caste was continuously being contested and reiterated for ideological and material reasons throughout the eighteenth century."° The Peshwas' usurpation of political power and the consequent

Brahmanisation of the state had consequences for other social categories too. The 'alliance' between the Marathas and Brahmanas, forged in the time of Shivaji, had virtually collapsed. Shivaji's political system was less concentrated in one caste as it had been built on attempting to bridge the gap between the 'elites' and the ordinary folk, i.e., between the Brahmanas as administrators and the lowly Marathas as soldiers.

The Peshwai, with its marginalisation of the Marathas, particularly of Shivaji's lineage at Satara, was a source of conflict which was postponed to the future since the balance of social forces was in favour of the Brahmanas at that point of time. Following the Peshwai's conscious process of Brahmanisation, an imperative which may be attributed to the need for self-legitimation, it appeared to nineteenth century observers that there were only two grand classes in Maharashtra: the first consisting entirely of Brahmanas and the second composed of all the inferior castes.2! The caste structure of Maharashtra was however more complex than this: it had the Brahmanas with their various sub-castes and the Prabhus at the top; followed by the numerically largest Maratha caste, including the elite comprising 96 families who claimed Kshatriya descent such as Shivaji's lineage and the rest known as Kunbis who were 'peasants'; several artisan castes who were castes of roughly similar status as the Kunbis; and the untouchables such as the Mangs, Mahars and Dhors.?? Maharashtra did not have its own trading caste since, on the whole, trading activity was limited. It has been argued that in the absence of an

8 REWRITING HISTORY

indigenous trading caste the polarisation between the Brahmanas and the non-Brahmanas has been especially sharp as it has not been mediated by another social stratum.2?

As in the case of neighbouring Gujarat, as well as in other parts of India, in Maharashtra too the residential pattern both in the towns and the countryside reflected the caste system, with the caste Hindus residing within the main village and the untouchables occupying areas outside the town or village.

II In analysing the nature of the caste system as it operated on the ground in eighteenth century Maharashtra it might be useful to look at the attempts to establish and consolidate Brahmanic ideology and power in the region during the centuries preceding it.

Brahmanism, as the dominant ideology, does not appear to have had a continuous or uncontested presence in the Deccan although there is evidence of Brahmana penetration as far back as the rule of the Satavahanas (circa first century B.C. to third century A.D.).

Adopting a conscious Brahmanic position, a Satavahana king proclaimed that he had stopped the 'contamination' of the four varnas. He furthered the interest of the twice-born and patronised

Sanskrit, referring to the Prakrit spoken in the area as 'gibberish' and associated with a backward people."4 But at the same time the strength of both Buddhism and Jainism is attested to by archaeological and inscriptional evidence from the region."°

From the twelfth century onwards the attempts of Brahmanic ideology to establish hegemonic control are more clearly discernible.

According to Kosambi, Brahmanism was the dominant ideology in the twelfth century. Hemadri, the Chancellor of the last Yadava ruler of Devagiri, who wrote the Chaturvarga Chintamani, was concerned in this work almost entirely with Brahmanical rites and rituals codified from earlier religious texts. But Lakshmidhara's treatise Krityakalpataru, written roughly at the same time, indicates certain tensions in the attempt to impose Brahmanic ideology upon a pre-existing complex of cultures. The section on jurisprudence particularly captures some of the contradictions inherent in conflicting practices wherein attempts were made to impose

Brahmanical textual norms upon local custom. While it shows that common law was practised and decisions for each caste and locality

Caste, Gender and the State in Eighteenth Century Maharashtra

were based upon particular custom, the work itself repeats Smriti doctrine without mention of the innovations in practice.?6

The history of Brahmanism in the region was accompanied also by a simultaneous critique of it, thereby contesting iis undisputed hold upon the people. This is evident in the strength and vitality of the Bhakti tradition in Maharashtra, as is recognised by historians even though a number of other questions about the Bhakti tradition are among the most controversial and hotly contested issues in the historiography of Maharashtra.2" From the point of view of this study I shall summarise and highlight the questions as they relate to caste, Brahmanism and gender.

According to Kosambi, the reaction to increasing Brahmanisation was expressed in Maharashtra by two different groups, both oriented towards Krishna worship. The earliest was the Mahanubhav or Manbhay sect. It was founded by Chakradhara in the twelfth century and went back to the ideals of primitive tribal communal life. It was the Mahanubhavs who produced the earliest Marathi literature.2® The use of black garments, absolute rejection of the caste system and a Heal simplified marriage ritual were some features of the sect.2?

However, the Mahanubhavs drew a sharp distinction between the householder and wandering renouncer.

Their antagonism to Brahmanic ritualism and to the caste system made the sect popular with the 'untouchables'° (hereafter Dalit in consonance with the term used by the oppressed castes to describe themselves). The other movement, the Varkari, was built around the seasonal pilgrimage to Pandharpur, a custom which Kosambi dates back to the Mesolithic age.?! The Varkari movement has also been described as something of a Brahmanical response to the challenge of the Mahanubhavs and was an attempt to incorporate a modified devotionalism within the bounds of caste.*"

The Varkari tradition is attributed to a mystic named Pundalik who transformed the ritualistic worship of god Vithoba at Pandharpur into an 'interiorised adoration prescinding caste differences and institutional priesthood'.** It was crystallised by Jnanadev, a Brahmana who was regarded as an outcaste because he was the son of an apostate monk. The Varkari sants were drawn from a wide social base; Namdev was a Shimpi (tailor), Gora a potter, Chokhamela a Mahar and Tukaram a Kunbi,*4 and they all wrote in Marathi.2° It is not easy to discern the complex position of the sants in relation to caste and the Brahmanism of their times.

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Kosambi regards Jnanadev as a contradictory figure striving after the Vedic lore denied to all but the initiates, extolling the Brahmanas as veritable gods on earth while pointing out that the Kshatriya, Vaisya, Shudra and 'untouchable' retained their separate identity only as long as they had not attained god.>° The tradition of god Vithoba as the god of the humble goes along with the persecution of the sants by Brahmanas in legends about them.*"

The generally painful tenor of the lives of the sants reflected in accounts about them is viewed by Kosambi as evidence that they were regarded as the opposition by the Brahmanas.*® One of the earliest of the Varkari sants was Chokhamela, born in the second half of the thirteenth century. The legends about his birth and death involve traditional Mahar village duties. Chokhamela was killed while repairing, along with other Mahars, a wall which collapsed ppoe them. Since his bones chanted Vitthala even after his death,?" they were buried near the steps of the temple at Pandharpur.

Other legends recall how god Vitthala helped Chokhamela perform even the lowliest duties of the Mahars. What is significant is that there is no evidence to suggest that Chokhamela ever protested against the traditional duties of the Mahar. Nevertheless some of the abhangas attributed to him do refer to untouchability and his anguish at his despised place in society (he was barred from entering temples despite his devotion).

In one of the abhangas he cries out, 'If you had to give me this birth, why give me birth at all?' Yet another rationalises his low birth as 'this impurity is the fruit of our past'.4° Devotionalism seems to have enabled Chokhamela to protest and questicn as well as accept the traditional role of a Mahar, seek succour in Bhakti and perform his obligations, finally looking forward to delivery from suffering through devotion.

In contrast to Chokhamela's location was that of Eknath, who was born in a Brahmana family of considerable fame from Paithan, a trading centre of some importance in the sixteenth century during the time of the Ahmadnagar Sultanate. Eknath's work reflects the influences of his location, living in a closed Brahmanical world and yet being in contact with the many different men around him.*!

His hagiography positions him as one who was most conscious of the presence of 'untouchables' in society and of their spiritual capabilities. Using the Bharud style, he contributed numerous drama poems meant to be enacted, many of which are written as

Caste, Gender and the State in Eighteenth Century Maharashtra

if they are the statements of the Mahars. One of the most popular Bharuds is a conversation between a Mahar and a Brahmana in which the Mahar teaches an arrogant Brahmana the true nature of devotion, a formula reminiscent of the Buddhist Jataka tradition.42

But again as in Chokhamela's case the aspects of conforming to caste duties, obligations in the world of everyday existence and work,® and of caste distinctions being attributable to karma are evident in Eknath's abhangas. What marked him off was his compassion and the belief that God was present in all humanity.

It was Tukaram's abhangas which ultimately came to be the most popular in Maharashtra, and the Bhakti tradition reached its zenith in the first half of the seventeenth century.

Reflecting his harassment by family obligations and by the orthodox Brahmanas, his abhangas, too, carry an anti-caste theme but affirm a life in the world rather than renunciation because it gave the devotee repeated opportunity to worship God. Tukaram survived famine, and the contempt of his fellow-beings, especially Brahmanas, ultimately to drown himself in a river.*4 There is also a rich tradition of women sants going back to the Mahanubhavs. Their poems are part of the Marathi Bhakti corpus; among them were Muktabai, the sister of Jnanadev, Bahinabai, who combined devotion with domestic responsibilities, and Janabai, a lowly dasi, who performed a series of never-ending tasks allotted to a menial in the house of Dama Shetty, the father of another sant,

Namdev. The hardship of being a dasi and a woman are themes in her compositions. In the execution of heavy domestic labour,

Vithoba was her constant companion, helping her to complete the tasks which were otherwise too burdensome.*? As in the case of men sants coming to terms with caste, the women sants both found space and had to negotiate their roles as women within marriage

(as Bahinabai records in her autobiographical account) and with their social obligations, as with Janabai.

Locating the influence of the Varkari cult in moderating the impact of caste and countering Brahmanism has been one of the major concerns of nationalist historiography, as discussed above, but it is also a deeply controversial issue. In one strand of evaluation by historians, Bhakti has been seen as bridging the divide between 'elites and plebeians', and of contributing to a unique pluralist

Maharashtra dharma.4° However, following the more radical critique of Ambedkar and the post-Independence Dalit

12 REWRITING HISTORY

intelligentsia the evaluation of Bhakti's democratising impact has been more guarded.*" This view has pointed to the existence of conflicting trends within the Varkari cult containing compromise with caste as well as egalitarian impulses as outlined above. The response of the Brahmanas to the movement also contained elements of compromise. As early as the thirteenth century the Brahmana minister of Yadava rulers, Hemadri, visited Pandharpur and the Varkari cult may have received some official patronage through the visit.4® In Pandharpur itself temple ritual remained in the control of Brahmanas whose antagonism to the 'untouchables' often appears in Chokhamela's abhangas. And finally with Ramdas, the seventeenth century Brahmana 'sant' who had no connection with the Varkari cult, the tentative Brahmana compromise was followed by more aggressive Brahmana reformulations of the sant tradition. His approach was a counter to the renunciation of political concerns by the sants and their interiorised form of devotion.

Ramdas urged a strong political regeneration of religion.® Perhaps the multiple strands of Bhakti, the conflicting pressures that were part of the movement through its earlier vital phase, and the resurgence of Brahmanism as the dominant ideology during the eighteenth century, shaped the way it survived in the Varkari cult's annual pilgrimage to Pandharpur from Alandi. After participating in the fifteen-day journey in the 1960s Irawati Karve wrote that the Brahmana group that she was part of sang the abhangas of Chokhamela in which Chokhamela drew attention to the inner essence of the devotee rather than his outward lowly form, alon with others. They, however, cooked and ate their food separately.°

The distinction of caste society thus remained unchanged and so the practices of caste faced no major onslaught or transformation.

The caste system as a form of organising labour and surplus appropriation, which was well established by the time the Varkari cult originated, was unaffected by the cult. Since both hierarchy and obligation imposed upon the lower castes remained intact,

Bhakti ideology was not fundamentally subversive of the established order and may even be regarded as representing the interests of the dominant elements in that order.?! Zelliot's summing up of the complex strands is that while Bhakti has remained a rich reservoir of living ideas, even when it has lost its vitality, providing an ideology to be dipped into by those seeking an alternative to

Caste, Gender and the State in Eighteenth Century Maharashtra

Brahmanic ritual and the caste system, it has more appeal for Brahmana reformers than for Dalit radicals.>? It is not an uncritical legacy for those who wish to transform the material location of the Dalits, and those at the receiving end of the caste system.

From the point of view of this study, even if one accepts the view that at least in its heyday Bhakti helped to bridge the gap between the upper castes and the lower castes through a common devotional tradition, it must be recognised that there were other developments in religious practices with the consolidation of the Peshwai. Under them the Pandit Kavis in the Peshwa court, whose best representative was Moropant, articulated a new religious ethos incorporating Brahmanised folk cults rather than any form of worship; rituals now became prevalent manifestations of religiosity at least among the upper segments of society. Poona and the Peshwa regions witnessed a great proliferation of the Ganesh cult. The Peshwai's political and cultural needs resulted in a frenetic phase of temple-building, making for an increased patronage of Brahmanas, and therefore of increased Brahmanical control over society.>4

Ill In eighteenth century Maharashtra the Peshwai sought to recreate, at least ideologically, the Brahmanical Hindu kingdom which tried to strictly uphold the Brahmanical social order.*? In this situation privileging Brahmanas and suppressing other castes went together."°

In Poona, the seat of the Peshwai, for example, Mahars were not allowed within its gates after 3 p.m. as their long shadows would defile people of higher castes. They were also required to carry an earthen pot tied around their necks to contain their spittle lest it defile an unwary caste Hindu, and also to sweep off their defiling footprints. Another manuscript indicates that a Sonar who performed religious rites according to Vedic mantras had his tongue cut off for 'defiling' the sacred verses.*"

In consolidating the sacred Brahmanical traditions the Peshwai was seeking to tighten the functioning of the caste system which may have been more flexible during the centuries preceding it when state power had been in the hands of a range of social groups and Brahmanism itself was being contested. Now that state power was in the hands of Brahmanas, 'leakages' in the functioning of the caste system were plugged and shifts in the local status arrangements were

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not tolerated. In this connection Fukazawa's argument that there was a close connection between the caste system and the state's enforcement of it, is relevant. In his study of eighteenth century

Maharashtra, Fukazawa argues forcefully that far from the caste system being an institution which continued without any relation to the secular political powers, state power was a crucial factor in its development and diversification. He shows that the caste system in Maharashtra was not a 'spontaneous' social order of the people but very much a state order of society, controlled and protected by the state. In his view the Peshwai and its central bureaucracy sought to preserve the caste hierarchy in the areas under its control through the legal apparatus of the state.*® An analysis of materials available in the Peshwa daftar indicates that apart from suppressing the lower castes, the state played a decisive part in upholding the caste system in two ways. It removed and restored the caste status of individuals who had deviated from the traditional religio-social code of conduct. Further, the state often confirmed internal splits within a caste and enforced certain codes of conduct to be observed by, as well as between, separate castes.> The Peshwai self-consciously functioned as a dharmarajya'; it privileged Shastric law over customary law, as in the case of the Yajurvedi Brahmanas of the Bassein region, who like many other pensinsular Brahmanas practised cross-cousin marriage. The practice, regarded as an aberration attributed to the laxity in the application of dharma during Portuguese rule, was banned. Those who had begun to practise it were treated as a separate caste and were fined for their improper behaviour.°° The Peshwa government's concern as upholder of the dharma extended not only to the behaviour of the upper castes but also to the lower castes.

For example, disputes about the pedigree of a weaving community were decided upon, and weavers of good pedigree were separated from those descended from female slaves; intermarriage between the two groups was banned and weavers of good pedigree had a certificate issued to them by the Peshwai. A tribute of Rs 5,000 was then levied upon them. The government thus confirmed and systematised division as the dharma pratipalana (protector of the dharma), but at the same time used every possible occasion to raise money by levying fines and tributes.°!

The Peshwai's agenda in relation to the Brahmana caste was

Caste, Gender and the State in Eighteenth Century Maharashtra

twofold. The government suggested and formulated codes of behaviour for Brahmanas based on its understanding of the Shastric law. It is significant that the Peshwa state was far stricter in its upholding of caste norms for the Brahmanas than for any other community to which the transgressor might have belonged.

(Fukazawa cites the example of a Brahmana who converted to Islam while he was away from his native village. After some years he returned to his village and was readmitted to his original status by his caste-fellows. However, the Peshwa government, the final authority for sanctioning readmission to a caste, overrode the decision of his caste-fellows).°* At the same time as upholding an extremely strict code for Brahmanas, the Peshwas also ensured through various actions that the Brahmanas retained the highest status in society by expressly forbidding lower castes from imitating usages and customs only practised by the former, including wearing the sacred thread and performing certain rituals.°? The Peshwa's unambigious upholding of Brahmana superiority over other sections of the elite is very interesting. On the complaint of the Brahmanas of Sasken district in 1790 that the Prabhus, a Kayastha caste (next only to the Brahmanas in importance because of their literacy skills), were within their houses secretly engaging in practices that were privileges only the Brahmanas enjoyed, the Peshwai commanded the Prabhus to behave like Shudras. They sent almost 200 letters to bureaucrats and representative Brahmanas all over the kingdom instructing them to ensure that the Prabhus observed the code laid down for them. The code stipulated that the Prabhus should not recite the Vedic mantras, and that they should visit only temples confined to Shudras. Even the greeting namaskar used by Brahmanas was denied to them. Instead, they were to use the term dandvat among themselves, as was customary among the Shudras. (The untouchables were expected to use a third term, johar') The Prabhus were not permitted to use Brahmanas as their servants, and finally they were commanded not to oppose the remarriage of widows"! — that supposed 'privilege' being the prerogative of the Brahmanas. fob The Peshwai's privileging of Brahmanical traditions in relation to hierarchy as laid down in the most conservative Shastric texts is best exemplified in its attitude to the Bhakti traditions in Maharashtra. Pandharpur, the great centre of Bhakti worship, was brought under the totalising power of the Peshwai which ordered

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seven rules of worship to be executed by the officers of the state.

The image in the main shrine was of Vithoba, a central figure in the Bhakti cult. As part of the attempt to democratise worship in the Bhakti movement Vithoba became accessible to the lower castes during the period of its influence. Among his worshippers was the 'untouchable' Chokhamela, and there came to be installed, north of the main shrine, a stone image of the saint which the 'untouchables' frequented for their worship. By the -eighteenth century, emboldened possibly by the pro-Brahmana Peshwai, the Brahmanas complained that the place was so narrow and crowded that the visitors touched each other, thus 'polluting' the Brahmanas.

The state then ordered the 'untouchables' to perform their worship of Chokhamela from a distance, or from the nearby Maharvada.

They were prohibited from approaching the temple of Vithoba and were threatened with punishment if they failed to conform.

Thus we see that state power was crucial in closing off the spaces sought by the lower castes in democratising access to worship even within Bhakti. Under the Peshwai the untouchable Mahars were required to demolish their huts if they were located too close to the village, as a record shows.°© Another record shows that despite upper-caste suppression, not all untouchables were reconciled to their fate. The Mahars in the Konkan area demanded that Brahmana priests officiate at their marriages. This demand was supported by the local bureaucrat, who in his enthusiasm even attached the office of the Brahmana priests who did not do so. The Brahmana priests then appealed to the Poona government. On the advice of specialists, themselves Brahmanas, the Peshwai decided against such a practice. The government reprimanded the local bureaucrat, and threatened to deal with the 'untouchables' suitably if they continued to 'trouble' the Brahmana priests.°"? Thus the Peshwai acted effectively on behalf of the Brahmanas and against the lower orders. Sanctions were imposed on those who transgressed these injunctions. The state also ensured that the 'untouchables' would continue to occupy the lowest rungs of the social and religious ladder. What is significant is that there was a demand even among the 'untouchables' for better treatment and that it was ultimately state power that suppressed such demands and kept them in the lowest position in society.

Thus, the internal functioning of the caste rules and the maintenance of the established hierarchies were of crucial

Caste, Gender and the State in Eighteenth Century Maharashtra

significance to the government. While a situation of contestation between the Brahmana sub-castes was manipulated according to political expediency by the Peshwas themselves, the state, the ultimate arbiter of status within the caste system, was unwilling to tolerate such contestation between the lower castes and tke

Brahmanas. No explicit situation of contestation appears to have been possible for the individual, especially of the upper castes in relation to the caste group to which the person belonged, because it was the Peshwai that defined what Brahmanical law was, even in such situations.

It is within this background of Peshwai Brahmanism that we can locate gender and explore the workings of Brahmanical patriarchy in eighteenth century Maharashtra.

IV The Peshwai, with its notions of Brahmanya and the rigid hierarchies of the caste system, could not but have a direct and crucial bearing on gender relations in eighteenth century Maharashtra. Apart from other things, the Brahmanya implied a certain strictly regulated code of conduct for women, differing to some extent according to caste, but always the index in fixing ranking within the caste hierarchy. Administrators and observers in the nineteenth century have noted the linkage between castes seeking and being regarded as of higher rank by adopting new ceremonial practices, the most important of which was a prohibition in the remarriage of widows.°8 Other castes lost their ranking by admitting the remarriage of widows. As noted earlier, the Prabhus whom the Peshwa regarded as unfit for the higher status they were seeking, were also prohibited from enforcing a ban on the remarriage of widows because this would establish their case for high status equivalent to that of the Brahmanas. In Brahmanical patriarchy the relationship between caste and gender is crucial: ultimately the degree to which the sexuality of women is controlled is the degree to which a caste group is regarded as maintaining the purity of blood and can thereby establish its claims to be regarded as high. This is the key to understanding gender in eighteenth century Maharashtra under the Peshwas.

The sexuality of all women was closely monitored under the Peshwai although according to different norms for each caste. The Brahmanya implied that questions about women e.g., about

18 REWRITING HISTORY

legitimate el, remarriage, ascetic widowhood without remarriage, tonsure, excommunication for lapses, and when and how women must marry, were all regulated by the community headed by the Brahmanas and then ultimately of the state's concern. Most significantly, the sexual 'offences' of women, especially widows, were punishable with imprisonment and, uniquely, with enslavement. Women lived under the continuous and combined surveillance of the community and the state. As Fukazawa pointed out in respect of caste, we might say that ultimately gender codes were not spontaneous, not merely an arrangement of society — they were extended, consolidated and reinforced by state power under the Peshwas.

Marriage and codes of legitimate sexuality of men and women, but particularly women, were major elements in the organisation of gender relations, especially of the upper castes. Elaborate rules were devised in this connection relating to prohibited and desirable factors in settling marriage alliances.'? Proper rituals had to be completed for the marriage to be regarded as legal in the case of the high castes. Practice among the high castes of the asura form of marriage where bride price was taken or wives abducted was frowned upon by the Peshwai.'! Instead, gradually the practice of dowry was gaining ground.'? In general the Peshwai favoured textual law over customary law in the matter of the marriage of Brahmanas and forbade cross-cousin marriage as we saw above, as part of the privileging of Shastric law.

Marriage alliances, a crucial means of consolidating the exchange of women by men, were central to the functioning of patriarchy, caste and class. The best documented cases for the eighteenth century are those of the Peshwa's family where marriages were a means of establishing political and financial linkages.'"? Polygamy was an institutional way for the ruling elite to expand such political alliances. However, it is not our contention that all Marriages were necessarily arranged according to political or financial considerations.

Nevertheless, we can conclude that marriage alliances were part of a web of social relations for most people with varying degrees of compulsions and benefits operating within the larger context of achieving legitimate reproduction.

The most significant element in ensuring legitimate reproduction was the requirement of pre-pubertal marriages for women. As early as the second century A.D. Manu had considered

Caste, Gender and the State in Eighteenth Century Maharashtra

eight the ideal age for the marriage of girls."4 The need for such an age was that girls would already be the sexual property of their husbands at the time of puberty. All sexual activity would then be exclusively concentrated upon the husband and there would be less possibility of women going 'astray'. Immediately after puberty

(referred to locally as shanee,' literally inauspicious, probably regarded so because women become 'dangerous' and need to be safeguarded thereafter)" the garbhadhanam ceremony would be performed,"" thus harnessing female sexuality for the sole purpose of ensuring legitimate reproduction. The upper castes followed the practice of early marriage (in the case of the Peshwa family between the ages of five and eight) scrupulously. For most Brahmana families the age varied from five to ten. The Yadi Dharmasthapana of the year 1735 issued by the government to regulate the lives of Brahmanas laid down that all Brahmana women should be married between the ages of seven and ten.'® Severe strictures were faced by fathers who failed to perform their duty of organising the marriage of their daughters at the proper age.

In case a girl began to menstruate before she was married her marriage could only be performed (if anyone was willing to marry her) after the prescribed ceremony of a penance"? called nirnaya sindhu. Such was the force of the obligation that fathers must marry their daughters off before puberty that the government released a whole family of 16 prisoners since the marriages of two girls, aged

10 and 11, were pending! The government even provided clothes and ornaments worth one thousand rupees to cover the expenses of the marriages.*° Further, the anxiety about daughters' marriages

(with a nine-year-old girl regarded as far advanced in age) was a matter that has been referred to in the surviving correspondence of the period. It was treated as a venture to be given the highest priority for completion in cases where fathers had died leaving behind unmarried daughters. The Peshwai in turn did not forget its obligations to the Brahmana dharma with regard to monitoring customs relating to female sexuality even while racked by internal dissensions. At the end of the eighteenth century the government under Nana Phadnis passed 20 orders to the mamlatdars and Brahmanas of certain talukas stating that the government had come to know that the Brahmanas kept their daughters 'unmarried' after the age of nine. Brahmanas were advised to refrain from such a practice and officials were ordered to keep a close watch on them,

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and to impose excornmurtication upon those who violated the government order.®!

From the available evidence it is clear that the Peshwai regarded the family as a key institution and took a very serious view of adultery as a violation of social norms. All castes were expected to conform to the pattern of confining sexual activity within marriage

(and confine marriage within the endogamous circle) as the cases cited below' show. Given the high premium on a strictly regulated sexual code ror all men and women, surveillance of all categories of women, and _ restricted movements, amounting to virtual confinement within the private domain of the household in the case of high-caste women, formed the pattern prescribed by the texts and the customs prevalent in eighteenth century society to prevent

'illicit? sexual activity. Institutional structures designed to prevent 'illicit' sexual relations did not however fully succeed and there were a number of publicly recorded instances of adultery.°* Kadam has pointed out that women were held to be solely responsible for such acts. The severest condemnation was reserved for such occasions with women facing public and private measures of punishment. For example, a Brahmana woman visiting her natal home was seduced and impregnated by the son of a priest. When the husband got to know of the relationship he discarded his wife and demanded that the priest arrange a new marriage for him. Fearing public criticism, the priest did so by giving the husband Rs 800 and the husband then got himself another wife. There is no indication that the priest's son was punished but the woman was soon found dead and it was widely believed that she had been murdered by the priest.*9

Socially sanctioned and enforced punishment including 'private' remedies such as the one cited above may have been possible since the state shared and upheld similar and sometimes more rigid patriarchal concerns. The case of Ahili, a non-Brahmana woman who was charged with having adulterous relations with another villager, is significant. The mamlatdar fined the adulterous man and imprisoned Ahili. However, the husband appealed to the Peshwa that Ahili had not been punished sufficiently. The Peshwa government under Nana Phadnis then ordered that Ahili's nose be cut off in the presence of an official sent by the government.®4 The symbolic castration of Ahili was probably meant to be a deterrent to other potential offenders.

Adulterous women could be imprisoned after conviction as, for

Caste, Gender and the State in Eighteenth Century Maharashtra

example, in a case recorded in 1772-73. A Brahmana woman named Rukmi was charged with having committed adultery with both Brahmanas and Shudras. She also ate with the Shudras. The defaulting woman was imprisoned (probably for a considerable term) put on a food ration of two seers per day, and supplied with two saris per year.®? The punishment meted out to the Brahmana woman suggests that she had committed a double offence; adultery was offence enough but Rukmi, by including Shudras among her partners, was committing the most reprehensible offence for a Brahmana woman, that of a pratiloma (hypogamous) connection.

A significant aspect of the punishment meted out to women accused of adultery was the inclusion of enslavement ordered by the state. In 1788, for example, a woman was convicted for adultery and imprisoned for three months. At the end of this period when she was to be freed it was found that there was no one to vouch for her future 'good' behaviour, i.e., there was no one available to keep her under effective surveillance. Since the authorities were apprehensive that the 'errant' woman would repeat her offence she was sold as a slave (batik) for Rs 50.8° This case is significant because it regards unguarded women as a permanent hazard; handing such a woman over to a master leaves it to the master to dispose of her sexuality and her labour in whatever manner he chooses.

Punishments for adulterous women are more numerous, suggesting that adulterous men got off comparatively lightly, if punished at all. For instance a Brahmana man who committed adultery with a Brahmana woman in 1773 merely had to perform a prayascitta consisting of 24 pradakshinas (circumambulations) of Brahmagiri and Harshagiri (sacred spots in the vicinity of Poona).8"

The one category of adulterous men who faced punitive action were those who were involved in relations with women of a higher caste, particularly if the woman was a Brahmana.

In 1772, a non-Brahmana named Balaram Manikram exhibited illicit love for a Brahmana woman. Balaram's property was confiscated and sold and a fine of Rs 1,000 was recovered from the sale.°8 In contrast to the comparative laxity shown towards men involved in adultery, none of whom appears to have faced imprisonment, a woman could face imprisonment or enslavement even without being adulterous.

In 1799 a woman was abandoned by her husband when she made public his impotence. Interestingly, she was then convicted of

22 REWRITING HISTORY

leading an immoral life and fined. Since she could not pay the fine she was reduced to the status of a kunbina and was made to labour for others.8? Here punishment was not for the actual violation of the strict sexual code for wives but the violation of strimaryada

(code of conduct for women), something no good wife would do.

Under the pativrata dharma the impotence of the husband was not regarded as being of any consequence; certainly it was a taboo subject, not to be made public, since it made the sexual needs of the wife explicit, and delinked them from reproduction."

Adultery was regarded as offensive, not merely because of the problem of ensuring legitimate reproduction, but also because it represented 'excessive' sexual energy which gender codes considered deeply reprehensible in the case of women. Punishments, especially imprisonment, were structured by caste considerations but always fell unequally upon men and women. Adulterous women of the middle and upper castes (not just Brahmana women) were regarded as serious offenders in the eighteenth century because, as in the past, caste and class reproduction were jeopardised. Therefore, the Peshwa state acted vigorously against 'errant' women of all castes.

It is significant that in the case of women of the lowest castes, their offence of excessive sexuality was punished by making them available to men of the higher castes through state intervention or by forcing such women to render their labour to the government.

A recent view on the issue of adultery is that the Peshwai, especially in its last phase, charged lower-caste women with adultery in order to enslave them. A distinction was made between batiks and kunbinas; while kunbinas laboured in karkhanas (artisanal units of the state) and the field, batiks were used to provide sexual services and formed the main recruitment field for the davani tamashas.

Since the government itself was a major owner of female slaves, turning 'adulteresses' into slaves would provide a ready supply of female slaves in the court, kitchen, stable, granary and natakshala.

The Peshwa state thus simultaneously upheld normative gender codes for all castes in the matter of adultery but maintained caste distinctions in practice in the way the offence itself was dealt with.

Pragmatic use was made of the sexuality and labour of the 'adulterous' low-caste woman."! In this context we might also note

Fukazawa's analysis of slavery in the Peshwai. He provides evidence of females predominant in the institution of slavery, with only six males among a total of 90 slaves enumerated in the records."

Caste, Gender and the State in Eighteenth Century Maharashtra

The relationship between labour, caste and gender was germane to the conceptualisation of widowhood. The maximum difference, in practice, between castes in eighteenth century Maharashtra existed in the case of enforced widowhood and the remarriage of widows, with the strictest ban on remarriage reserved for the highest caste: the Brahmanas. Elsewhere I have explored the underlying patterns of enforced widowhood and enforced marriage among the high and the low castes; here the focus is on the enforcement of ascetic widowhood for certain castes, ultimately by the authority of the Peshwai, along with the practice of a secondary form of marriage called pat for widows of certain other castes."

As we have noted earlier, the Brahmanya of the Peshwai reserved the most privileged position for the Brahmanas but also expected the strictest observance of caste norms from them. Violations were dealt with by enforcing permanent excommunication from the social community of Brahmanas. Brahmana women, in turn, were closely guarded as wives and expected to observe ascetic widowhood of the most extreme kind after the death of their husbands. The outward symbol of ascetic widowhood, the tonsure of Brahmana widows, was also strictly enforced in Maharashtra. Resistance to the custom was virtually impossible for the widow in the eighteenth century since widows, as propertyless, shelterless women, lived in the custody of kinsmen and within the larger social unit of the caste group into which they were born. But it is significant that even if the immediate kinsmen of a widow made it possible for her to remain untonsured, the ultimate authority of the Brahmanical state in the form of the Peshwai acted to uphold the Brahmanical gender codes enforced by religious authorities. There are instances of widows who remained untonsured for certain periods of time with support from their natal kinsmen, mainly fathers or brothers.

However, the Brahmana community invariably secured excommunication orders from a religious head such as the Shankaracharya, as for example in the case of Malharpant of Karhad who was banned from marrying till his untonsured widowed sister was tonsured.

When Malharpant defied the ban, he was excommunicated under orders from the Shankaracharya.4 In another case a brother who had given shelter to his unshaven widowed sister was excommunicated along with his entire family.

The Shankaracharya also ordered similar excommunication of a father because his widowed daughter had retained her hair.?> We

24 REWRITING HISTORY

may note that there is an indication here of something of a counter-ideology to the oppressive practices for Brahmana widows, especially in the instances of very young girls and young women.

The miseries of the experience of widowhood could evoke a sympathetic response from the natal family, both men and women.

But since fathers and brothers had custody or guardianship over the widows in their families, only they are visible in references such as the one here. An important example was that of Bhaupant, a great figure in the Peshwa's court. Unable to bear the tragic future of his infant daughter, Bhaupant wished to resign his official position.

Since he was very important to the Peshwa's administration the Peshwa sought learned opinion on the remarriage of the young widow. Learned opinion in Poona was not encouraging but the pandits of Banaras were more sympathetic. However, the whole venture was abortive since the Poona Brahmana priests convinced

Bhaupant's wife that the marriage would be un-Shastric and heinous, and she refused to go through with the remarriage of her daughter."° In the nineteenth century, too, it was often fathers and brothers who are described in recorded sources as anguished by their widowed daughters'/sisters' condition and supporting changes in social practices.

Despite the indications of a counter-ideology it is clear that it was weak. The dominant ideology was committed to the need for tight control over widows. We have evidence that the ultimate authority of the Peshwai was fully invoked to maintain enforced widowhood including tonsure from the Yadi Dharmasthapana, literally memorandum of the establishment of the dharma, of 1735; six separate orders related to Brahmana widows. One of them

(Order number 15) lays down that the Brahmana child widow, on attaining puberty, is to discard the hair on her head, along with ornaments and the blouse.?" Thereafter the Brahmana widow was permitted only a single garment (ekavastra) in the characteristic colour of dark maroon worn by Brahmana widows in Maharashtra.

Order number 37 gives details of when the tonsure of widows is to be performed: the first or the tenth day after the death of the husband.?8

The tonsure ceremony itself was fairly elaborate as it was accompanied by religious rites such as the homa, prayascitta and the all-important dakshina. The relationship between material and ideological elements in enforcing the rite of the keshwapan (tonsure)

Caste, Gender and the State in Eighteenth Century Maharashtra

is evident from an account of expenditure of a widow from a Vaidya family in the year 1798. The total expenditure of the various ceremonies was forty-one rupees, the major beneficiaries for the dakshina in various ways were the Brahmanas themselves since almost three-fourths of the money spent was given to the Brahmanas. Apart from this some money was spent on cloth, gold and silver, which was also shared by the Brahmanas.2"

The possibility of contesting the Brahmana dharma on the tonsure of widows appears virtually impossible from the order of the Yadi Dharmasthapana which laid down that only on the completion of the keshwapan of the widow was the death pollution in the house of the dead Brahmana terminated; only then was the purification of the house and the widow completed. Until the completion of the keshwapan of the dead man's widow, other

Brahmanas were barred from having any relationship with the entire household, all of whom were regarded as impure.!°° The widow thus carried the burden and the responsibility for the purity of the entire household upon her tonsured head. In view of such strict orders and the surveillance maintained by the community of Brahmanas, who had much to gain from the reiteration of the belief structures regarding tonsure (ideologically and materially), all acts of attempted resistance were swiftly and effectively suppressed by patriarchal structures working through the Brahmana community, the religious authorities and the Peshwai.

The Peshwai also felt the need to reiterate in 1735 the social and ritual distinctions through which the structural opposition between the wife and the widow was expressed. In one of its orders it forbade the Brahmana widow to eat along with married women; a corresponding order banned the married woman from sitting in a pangat (row of persons taking food) with Brahmana widows.!°! The distinction between the wife and the widow was to be assiduously, and at all times, maintained in the Brahmanya.

The opposition between the wife and the widow was conceptually most apparent in the case of Brahmana and other high-caste women: the basic opposition was between the sexually active woman as reproducer, ideally of sons, and the sexually inactive non-reproducer, the woman whose sexual existence had ended with the death of the husband. The question that arises is, why was it that the reproductive potential of a whole class of women could be regarded as dispensable in the conceptual

26 REWRITING HISTORY

framework of Brahmanical patriarchy? A possible explanation can be that the demographic structure of the Brahmana community, traditionally, and even when it was based in agriculture as among the Chitpavan Brahmanas, did not require all women to function as reproducers; the demographic structure of the Brahmana community could, without damage, afford to withdraw some women from reproduction. By and large the Brahmana community needed to reproduce a body of specialists, a literati engaged in ritual and intellectual pursuits. Over the centuries natural demographic expansion had created more specialists than were strictly necessary.

Thus the practice of levirate among the relatively undifferentiated Vedic 'Aryans' living in a primarily pastoral society had become reprehensible as caste and class stratification intensified by the time

Manu was writing.!©? Thereafter it became concentrated among the Shudra, peasant labouring castes such as Jats who still continue to practise it.!©3 What the Brahmana household needed was a son to give the funeral oblations to his father. If the dead man did not have a son the widow was permitted to adopt a son from amongst their kin. The ideological structures of enforced widowhood, wherein the death of a husband could conveniently require the widow to cease sexual activity, were not unrelated to the material conditions obtaining among the highest castes. The ban on widow remarriage was thus transformed into a highly valued feature of high status, the hallmark of certain castes and a 'privilege' not to be shared with inferior castes.!°4 Sacred, indissoluble marriage was the sign of a superior culture and the Brahmanas as the highest caste were entitled to the most sacred ritual. The eight forms of marriage described in the Shastras conform to this basic distinction between the need for proper sacred rituals for the Brahmanas and permitting the less acceptable forms of marriage for the lower castes,

Thus we find that while enforcing a ban on widow remarriage among the Brahmanas there was at the same time an inferior form of marriage, locally known as pat, prevalent in Maharashtra among the agricultural castes such as the Kunbis.!° Kunbi women participated directly in production as they worked in the fields.

Additionally, they reproduced a class of producers.

The demographic compulsions of labouring castes were quite different from those of the high castes such as the Brahmanas. Apart from the small-holding agricultural castes such as the Kunbis, low-caste

Caste, Gender and the State in Eighteenth Century Maharashtra

women too were not debarred from remarrying or cohabiting as they too contributed to increasing the numbers of those who laboured. Both among the agricultural castes and among the landless 'low' castes, since women functioned as direct producers and as reproducers of producers, their continued sexual activi following widowhood was in consonance with the larger labour needs of the economy.

In this structure which was both open and closed at the same time, with different cultural and social norms for different castes

(but held together within a larger structure where caste and gender codes were so integrated that caste, as a system of production, also shaped the hierarchy of social practices), the Peshwai introduced certain modifications. Both Gune and Kadam have suggested that the Peshwai expanded state control over the traditional judicial arrangements. !°" We have seen evidence of the state's grip over the working of the caste system and of enforcing 'traditional' occupations upon castes, as also of maintaining distances between them. The appointment of nominated members on the local panchayats was one means of asserting effective control over decisions. Another was the system of fines and taxes upon practices such as pat. Apart from expanding the revenue base of the state it reinforced the view that such customary practices were inferior in the eyes of a 'Brahmanical' state. The Peshwai was presenting itself as a unique kind of state, more 'moral' than earlier state forms had been.

The Peshwai thus both 'permitted' remarriage for certain castes and debarred certain upwardly mobile castes from enforcing celibate widowhood upon their women. Those castes in which widows were permitted to remarry were however required to pay a tax upon the occurrence of a pat connection.!8 There were other arrangements relating to rights over children by the earlier marriage and to jewellery etc., given by her earlier husband which had to revert to the kinsfolk of her first marriage,!° as also any of the husband's property she may have controlled, among certain castes, as his widow.'!° Often, fathers sought permission from the government for pat connections as there was no one to provide for their widowed daughters. In one case a father argued that there washito fone to provide his daughter with food, clothes, and 'company'...

The government's position was however linked to the payment of

REWRITING HISTORY

gunehgari and nazar which meant that the women's remarriages were not in their own hands. Further, it was contingent upon their kinsmen's or the second husband's ability and, willingness to pay the due amounts to the government functioning as a superior authority whose sanction was required to formalise the connection.

The practice of pat marriages may thus have come to figure more as a theoretical possibility under the Peshwai rather than as a widespread custom. The significant factor however is that it was permitted for some and denied to others. The marital and sexual arrangements of all women were monitored and reorganised ultimately by the eighteenth century state in Maharashtra.

Given the established relation between gender, caste, labour, the patriarchal community and the state, adultery,'!? especially by the widow, represented the most dangerous subversion of the ideological structures of Brahmanical patriarchy: the whole edifice of Brahmanya was threatened by it. The Peshwai which was committed to the upholding of the Brahmanya acted decisively to suppress such subversion. We need to remember that without the support of the state, the community of Brahmanas, could only have used social coercion by enforcing excommunication (ghatasphot) upon the widow.!!° It was the state that used its superior coercive power by imprisoning Brahmana widows charged with badkarm.

There are examples of widows who were imprisoned in various forts and made to perform penal labour.!!4 In one case a Brahmana widow who had been tonsured later allowed her hair to grow and also wore bangles. She lived with a Golak (a 'low' caste) and bore him a son. When the Peshwa, Madhavrao I (often regarded as the most ideal ruler among the Peshwas), came to know of the case he ordered that the widow be sent to the Purandar fort to be imprisoned, along with her eight-year-old 'illegitimate' son. The Peshwa also ordered that both mother and son be employed in the work of mixing mortar every day.'!? Even the last Peshwa, regarded as something of a debauch, a man who married eleven times, the last occasion only a few weeks before his death,!!® had no qualms about doing his duty by upholding the Brahmanya for Brahmana widows. In January 1796, he ordered the imprisonment of a Brahmana widow who had committed adultery.!!7

Summing up the relationship between women, the social community and the state, we may say that adultery remained the most important offence in eighteenth century Maharashtra. It was

Caste, Gender and the State in Eighteenth Century Maharashtra

the non-observance or the defiance of the sexual codes that brought women into the public gaze and led to the most stringent action by the community and the state. It is significant that permanent excommunication, wherein the individual's connection with the family and community is irreversibly broken (as the offending individual is regarded as dead) in the ghatasphot was used most often in the cases of sexual misconduct of Brahmana women. In the case of Brahmana men it seems to have occurred only when a Brahmana man broke his connection with Brahmanya by conversion, as documented in a case of the conversion to Islam cited above. Men lost their Brahmanya by renouncing it, women lost their Brahmanya through sexual lapses; their Brahmanya lay in their chastity, in their pativrata dharma within marriage, and in a chaste and prayerful widowhood.

As we have seen, it was the sexuality of upper-caste women (in the case of Maharashtra, mainly Brahmana women) that was closely monitored and highly valued. It was also these women who were most carefully socialised in their specific stridharma — the pativrata dharma. The pativrata dharma schooled women in the ideology of their social group as embodied in the notion of wifely duties in general and of fidelity in particular, accepting the belief system of the community. And since the ideology was powerful and richly elaborate the iniquity inhering in the gender codes was invisibilised.

The sources provide at least some evidence in the case of women of the upper strata who came to be complicit in the structures of gender and caste and participated in the crucial venture of social reproduction: they engaged in reproducing the material structures which privileged their social group as well as the values and ideology of the group to which they belonged.

Such an example is provided by Anandibai, the wife of Raghunathrao, a prominent member of the ruling Bhat family from the Chitpavan Brahmana sub-caste who described the rule of the Peshwas as Brahmani daulat,''® meaning the rule for, by and of the Brahmanas, identifying with it even in its male values.!!? On the other hand Radhabai, the mother of Peshwa Bajirao I, both identified with and personally upheld stridharma, enforcing the moral order for women. When a woman from the Chambhar caste of leather-workers, regarded as low, was accused of adultery in 1740, she was permitted by Radhabai to perform an ordeal by fire to prove her innocence. She was honoured with a gift of a sari when

30 REWRITING HISTORY

she succeeded in going through the ordeal without getting burnt.'7° Radhabai was also deeply concerned about her son Bajirao I's infatuation for Mastani, his Muslim mistress. She exhorted her other son, in a letter written in 1740, to remonstrate with Bajirao

I and use his influence to wean him away from the relationship.'*!

Radhabai, it must be noted, was the mother of the actual founder of the Peshwai and her upholding of certain moral values would have been significant in shaping the Peshwai notion of Brahmanya.

Ramabai, the wife of Madhavrao I, who is described as immolating herself on the death of her husband in 1772, was another key figure in upholding the stridharma of Brahmana women. The proof of her satitva was accompanied by elaborate rituals and the distribution of massive dakshina to Brahmanas and servants: Rs 14,600 is listed as the expenditure incurred on the occasion; jewellery estimated at Rs 60,000 was also given away to various beneficiaries.!2? Brahmanya was upheld, both with regard to women and the larger community of Brahmanas.

But even as women from elite families reflected the successful internalisation of the pativrata dharma and were complicit in the material and ideological structures in which they were idealised and rewarded with great reverence for their satitva, there were great strains upon the gender codes and belief structures around them.

The incidence of widowhood, including child widowhood, would be high due to both the mortality patterns and the polygamy popular in the Peshwa's family. Ascetic widowhood, tonsuring and the marginalisation of the widow without sons with its attendant hardships would create a high level of insecurity. Polygamy would also aggravate succession disputes and intrigues, a regular feature of the family politics of the elite.!2? The stridharma or the pativrata dharma could easily break down in such situations and is likely to have required constant refurbishing to sustain the existing codes of gender and caste. In a similar situation in the court of the Maratha rulers of Tanjore in the eighteenth century, we know that texts to socialise women of the royal household were commissioned by senior women in the ruling family.!24 Ideological structures had evidently to be renewed with the complicity of at least some women. Unlike the 'low' castes who desired a different status and whose attempts at higher status were ultimately suppressed by the use of state power, gender structures were such that although the coercive power of the state was required to keep it going (as we

Caste, Gender and the State in Eighteenth Century Maharashtra

have seen with respect to adultery) many women were complicit in the structure that gave men power over them.

In concluding our analysis of eighteenth century Maharashtra in relation to caste, gender and the Peshwai, we may note that the Peshwai ensured that all castes maintained the status order with a pre-eminent position for the Brahmanas. It also reinforced the structures of Brahmanical patriarchy, because to a large extent the pre-eminent status of the Brahmanya itself depended on the undiluted purity of its women. The Brahmanya's superior ritual and moral status entitled it to rule and to consolidate itself economically through dakshina and other economic privileges cited earlier, apart from its hold over administrative positions based on the Brahmanas' reading and writing skills.

However, the Brahmanya's title to its privileged position was not always self-evident; in fact the moral and ritual superiority of the Brahmanas needed to be physically demonstrated and perceived by the other castes as marking the Brahmanas off from themselves. The Brahmanya of the Brahmanas had two major foci: one was the strict observance of the purity and pollution taboos and the other was the purity of its women. It is in this context that the proclamation of the Yadi Dharmasthapana assumes importance. Issued in 1735, within twenty years of the Peshwaship becoming hereditary, and almost as soon as the new government had stabilised, it represented the public image of the Peshwai. It was a statement that the Peshwai was serious in its intent to 're-establish' the dharma. Crucial to the dharma were rules and norms about Brahmana women — pre-pubertal marriages, the maintenance of distinctions between married women and widows, and the strict observance of ascetic widowhood, both visibly and actually. Only thus could the superior morality and purity of the Brahmanas be established. In the final reckoning, it was the Brahmana women who carried the major responsibility of upholding Brahmanya and provided legitimacy to their caste, enabling it to maintain its claim to the highest ritual position as well as to social and political power in a state that was represented as a dharmarajya.'"°

NOTES AND REFERENCES

1. Ravinder Kumar, Western India in the Nineteenth Century, London,

32 REWRITING HISTORY

Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1968, pp. 39ff Richard Cashman, The Myth of the Lokamanya, Berkeley, University of California Press,

1975, pp. 17-18.

2. According to Karve, Shivaji always appointed three chief officers in charge of each hill fort; the three were similar in status but of different caste, usually a Maratha, a Brahmana and a Prabhu

(Irawati Karve, Maharashtra: Land and its People, Maharashtra State Gazetteers, General Series, Bombay, 1968, p. 136, cited in Meera

Kosambi, 'Glory of Peshwa Pune', Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 24, No. 5, 1969, pp. 247-49, p. 249.

3. Kumar, Western India, pp. 12-14.

4. In their home district a saturation point had been reached with little scope for an expanding population. Fortunately for the Chitpavans, their opportunities increased dramatically in the arena of political power with the appointment of a Chitpavan Brahmana as Peshwa.

A favourable employment situation increased manifold their emigration from Ratnagiri (Maureen L.P. Patterson, 'Changing

Patterns of Occupation among Chitpavan Brahmanas', /ndian Economic and Social History Review, Vol.

7, No.

1, 1970, pp. 378-79).

5. André Wink, Land and Sovereignty in India: Agrarian Politics in Eighteenth Century Maratha Svarajya, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1986, p. 69.

6. V.K. Chiplunkar, Nibandhamala, cited in Cashman, The Myth, p. 8.

7. M.G. Ranade, 'Introduction to the Peshwa's Diaries', in M.G.

Ranade, Rise of Maratha Power and Other Essays, Bombay, P.C.

Manektala, 1961 (reprint), p. 181.

8. The Brahmanas of the Konkan were perceived as having a great passion for land, even if they had to get it by uprooting 'heirs of ancient lineage'. Azad Bilgrami, a Mughal chronicler, writes that they wanted to be the 'proprietors of the whole world' (cited in Irfan Habib, Agrarian System of Mughal India, p. 349, re-cited in P.V. Ranade, "The Feudal Content of Maharashtra Dharma', Jndian

Historical Review, Vol. 1, No. 1, 1974, p. 48).

9. Laurence W. Preston, 'Sub-regional Religious Centres in the History of Maharashtra: The Sites Sacred to Ganesh', in N.K. Wagle (ed.),

Images of Maharashtra: A Regional Profile of India, London, Curzon Press, 1980, p. 78. Among the most important Brahmana inamdars who had risen from obscurity when the Peshwas ennobled particular individuals in order to consolidate their own position, were the Patwardhans. By the time the Peshwai ended they held the most substantial landed estates in Maharashtra. Apart from others, the Chitpavan families of the Ranades and Kurlekars came to possess

Caste, Gender and the State in Eighteenth Century Maharashtra

substantial jagirs in the Peshwai in return for loyal military service (Kumar, Western India, pp. 14 and 39; Patterson, 'Changing

Patterns', p. 379).

Kumar, Western India, p. 44.

H. Fukazawa, The Medieval Deccan: Peasants, Social Systems and States; Sixteenth to Eighteenth Centuries, Delhi, Oxford University

Press, 1991, p. 87, n. 3; P.V. Ranade, 'The Feudal Content', p. 46.

10. bh #2.

B.G. Gokhale, Poona in the Eighteenth Century: An Urban History, Delhi, Oxford University Press, 1988, pp. 106-16.

Meera Kosambi, "Glory of Peshwa Pune', p. 248.

The institution of the dakshina was not new; it was instituted by a Maratha sardar but taken over by Bajirao I (Kosambi, 'Glory of Peshwa Pune', p. 249).

Kumar, Western India, p. 39.

Wink, Land and Sovereignty, p. 232.

13.

14.

PS; 16.

17.

Ibid., pp. 233-34. The controversy erupted on the occasion of the grant of an agrahara village, Malkhed, to an assembly of 54 Brahmanas of the four Vedic denominations of Deshastha, Chitpavan, Karhad and Saraswat (Shenvi). A special court, convened at Poona to decide the issue, went in favour of the Saraswats. The Saraswats later became embroiled in factional struggles at various

Maratha courts and backed the Sindhia against the Peshwas. Some of them were executed to clear the field of opposition. The Peshwa

Bajirao II exonerated himself of his offence by 'establishing' that the Shenvis were trikarmi Brahmanas, not full Brahmanas at all (Wink,

Land and Sovereignty, pp. 232-34).

Wink, Land and Soveriegnity, pp. 232-34.

N.K. Wagle, 'A Dispute between the Pancal Devajna Sonars and the Brahmanas of Pune Regarding Social Rank and Ritual Privileges:

A Case Study of the British Administration of Jati Laws in Maharashtra, 1822-1825', in N.K.

Wagle (ed.), Images of Maharashtra: A Regional Profile of India, London, Curzon Press,

18.

£9.

1980, pp. 129-59, p. 129.

These disputes and contests would crucially affect gender relations 20. since caste ranking was determined by gender codes and the extent of control over female sexuality in order to establish the purity of blood of the caste in question.

Thomas Duer Broughton, Letters Written in a Mahratta Camp During the Year 1809, London, John Murray, 1813, p. 76.

Kosambi, 'Glory of Peshwa Pune', p. 247.

Jayshree Gokhale-Turner, 'Region and Regionalism in the Study of wi.

20. yore Indian Politics: The Case of Maharashtra', in N.K. Wagle (ed.), Images of Maharashtra, pp. 88-101, p. 93.

34 REWRITING HISTORY

Romila Thapar, A History of India, Vol. 1, London, Penguin Books, 24.

1966, pp. 101-02, 122.

H. Ludders Berlin, A List of Brahmi Inscriptions, Varanasi, Indological Book House, 1973 (reprint).

D.D. Kosambi, Myth and Reality: Studies in the Formation of Indian Zo 26.

Culture, Bombay, Popular Prakashan, 1962, p. 32.

Gail Omvedt points out that the interpretations of Bhakti and Shivaji are among the most controversial subjects of the historiography of Maharashtra. The first writers on both subjects go back to the nineteenth century and scholars continue to hotly debate both issues even today. On Bhakti, see for example M.G. Ranade,

Rise of Maratha Power, J. Deleury, The Cult of Vithoba, Poona, Deccan College Post Graduate Research Institute, 1961; Kumar,

Western India; D.D. Kosambi, Myth and Reality, Gail Omvedt, Cultural Revolt in a Colonial Society: the Non-Brahman Movement in Western India 1873-1930, Bombay Scientific Socialist Education

Trust, 1976; Eleanor Zelliot, From Untouchable to Dalit: Essays on the Ambedkar Movement, Delhi, Manohar, 1992.

Omvedt, Non Brahman Movement, p. 53.

Kosambi, Myth, p. 33.

The hostility manifested towards the Manbhavs by the Brahmanas, who were the targets of the Manbhavs' critique of caste and 28. ote 30.

Brahmanic ritualism, was decisively expressed during the Peshwai in 1782. They were prohibited from preaching and were to lose their caste status since they 'destroyed' Hindu temples and idols and wore distinctive marks (cited in Fukazawa, The Medieval Deccan, pp.

110-11, n. 22) Kosambi, Myth, p. 33.

Omvedt, Non Brahman Movement, p. 53. Chakradhara's radical critique of caste and a demand for a fundamental alteration of the Hindu social order was never directly addressed by the Varkari sants

Jayshree Gokhale-Turner, 'Region and Regionalism', p. 95).

J. Deleury, Cult, p. 202. a1; Bes 33:

34.

B5:

Kosambi, Myth, p. 33.

Omvedt points out that while the political kingdoms in the region patronised Sanskrit, the composers of devotional literature based themselves on the language of the region, part of the popular dimension of the devotional cult (Non-Brahman Movement, ps 53).

How important the move was to the lowly is documented by Mahipati in the life and teachings of the sants of Maharashtra (J.E.

Abbot, Poet-Saints of Maharashtra, cited in Kumar, Western India, p. 8).

Kosambi, Myth, p. 35.

36.

Caste, Gender and the State in Eighteenth Century Maharashtra

Relations of power and dominance in the appropriation of cults are evident in the legends of Vitthala. One legend refers to the taking away, by force, of the image of Vitthala from Pandharpur to Hampi by a Vijayanagara king. But Vitthala, who was the god of the humble and the poor, was chastised by his Pandharpur devotees for deserting them out of lust for comfort, riches, and glory. Finally, eh after the appearance of a miracle, a sign of Vitthala's preference for the devotion of the poor, the Pandharpur devotees were allowed to take back the image to its original home. It is telling that this story is given no credence by scholars today and the absence of the image at Hampi is attributed to that all-devouring force: the Muslim invasion (Pierre Sylvain-Fillozat and Vasundhara Fillozat, Hampi-Vijayanagar: the Temple of Vitthala, New Delhi, Sitaram

Bhartia Institute of Scientific Research, 1988, pp. 20-23).

Kosambi, Myth, p. 34.

Kosambi, Myth, p. 33; Zelliot, Untouchable, p. 4.

Zelliot, Untouchable, pp. 4-7; N.K. Behere, The Background of Maratha Renaissance in the 17th Century, Bangalore, The Bangalore

38. a9.

40.

Printing Press, 1946, p. 165.

Zelliot, Untouchable, pp. 14-27.

Uma Chakravarti, "Women, Men and Beasts: The Jataka as Popular 41.

42.

Tradition', Studies in History, Vol. 9, No. 1, NS (1993), pp. 43-69, p. 66.

One of the legends about Eknath eating in a Mahar home, described in Mahipati's Bhaktalilamrta, resolves this potential conflict situation in a very convenient way. It is God in the form of Eknath who eats in the Mahar house, not Eknath himself. The Brahmanas who are checking out the activities of Eknath find him eating in his

43. own house at the same time as he was meant to eat in the house of the untouchable and therefore cannot outcaste him (Zelliot, Untouchable, p. 23).

Kosambi, Myth, p. 34.

Ruth Vanita, 'Three Women Sants of Maharashtra: Muktabai, Janabai, Bahinabai', in Women Bhakta Poets, special edition of Manushi, Nos. 50-52, January-June, 1989, pp. 45-61, and Susie

Tharu and K. Lalitha (eds.), Women Writing in India, 600 B.C. to 44, 45. the Present, Vol. 1, Delhi, Oxford University Press, 199i, pp.

107-15. More recently, Vidyut Bhagwat has pointed out the need to appreciate the radical potential of the Mahanubhav and the Varkari traditions, especially of the women sants, which provide a rich storehouse for any emancipatory project for women (Vidyut

Bhagwat, "Marathi Literature as a Source for Contemporary

36 REWRITING HISTORY

Feminism', Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 30, No. 17, April 29, 1995, pp. WS 24).

Kumar, Western India, pp. 6-10; M.G. Ranade, 'Saints and Prophets of Maharashtra', in Rise of the Maratha Power, pp. 5ff.

Omvyedt, Non Brahman Movement, pp. 53-66; Kosambi, Myth, pp.

32-36, Zelliot, Untouchable, pp. 3-32, Jayshree Gokhale-Turner, 'Region and Regionalism', pp. 94-96.

Omvedt, Non Brahman Movement, p. 55.

Ibid., Jayshree Gokhale-Turner, 'Region and Regionalism', .p. 95.

Irawati Karve, 'On the Road: A Maharashtrian Pilgrimage', Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 22, No. 1, November 1962, pp. 13-29.

Jayshree Gokhale-Turner, 'Region and Regionalism', p. 95.

Associated with the idea of Bhakti as a bridge is the notion of a 46.

47.

48.

49.

50.

> common Maharashtra dharma, something that united all classes of people in Maharashtra as part of a project of constructing a common

'regional' culture. But, as Gokhale-Turner argues in relation to the caste system, Maharashtra dharma was not a homogeneous ideology which commanded the allegiance of all social groups in the region; rather it had a specific meaning for each social group: Brahmana,

Maratha and Dalit. While for the Brahmanas it implied a situation where the 'dharma' was upheld and the textual laws observed, and the Brahmanas occupied a place of honour and therefore the Peshwai, for the Marathas it meant not the Peshwai but the displacement of Brahmanas from positions of political power and the establishment of Shivaji's descendants. For the Dalits, on the other hand, Maharashtra dharma would evoke the ideals of equality yet to be realised in some future society (Jayshree Gokhale-Turner,

'Region and Regionalism', p. 96).

Zelliot, Untouchable, pp. 24-26.

Kosambi sees Bhakti as traced back 'into the Gita as a philosophy which was based, in the final analysis, upon the inability to satisfy any bur the barest material needs of a large number of people'

(Myth, p. 41).

Gokhale, Poona, pp. 176-79.

Despite the individual distinctions between one Peshwa and another SF 53.

54.

EP a consistent policy of expanding Brahmana control and intensifying the reach of Brahmanic values over society is clearly discernible as the evidence cited below, covering the entire period of the Peshwai, shows. There is an underlying pattern to the ordinances and the punishments recorded in the Peshwa daftar in connection with reinforcing caste hierarchies and gender codes suggesting that although all Hindu rulers upheld Brahmanic ideologies, the Peshwai's investment in such ideologies was of a different and higher

Caste, Gender and the State in Eighteenth Century Maharashtra

order. This was particularly true in the region around Poona where the Peshwas were in direct control. The picture might vary in the areas under the control of non-Brahmana sardars but there is less documentation of these territories. In the territories under the Brahmana sardars such as the Patwardhans the normative and material structures of the Peshwai appear to have prevailed (Fukazawa, The Medieval Deccan, p. 85).

Hiroshi Fukazawa, 'State and Caste System (Jati) in the Eighteenth Century Maratha Kingdom', Hitotsubashi Journal of Economics, Vol.

9, No. 1, June 1968, p. 42.

Sudha V. Desai, Social Life in Maharashtra under the Peshwas, Bombay, Popular Prakashan, 1980, p. 39.

Fukazawa, 'State and Caste System', pp. 32-44.

Loi. ps 33.

G.C. Vad, Selections from the Satara Rajas' and the Peshwas' Diaries (abbreviated hereafter as SSRPD), nine vols., Poona, 1906-1911, cited in Fukazawa, 'State and Caste System', pp. 38-39. It is significant that the Peshwai recognised the relationship between the nature of the state and the power it could or did not wield in reversing or in continuing customary law, which was 'adharmic' from the point of view of textual law.

SSRPD, Vol. 7, No. 763, cited in Fukazawa, 'State and Caste System', p. 39.

Fukazawa, 'State and Caste System', p. 36.

Ibid., p. 42. lbid.

Ibid.

SSRPD, Vol. 8, No. 1142, cited in Fukazawa, 'State and Caste System', p. 43.

56.

Df 58.

59.

60.

61.

62.

63.

64.

65.

66.

67.

Ibid., Vol. 8, No. 1132, cited in Fukazawa, 'State and Caste System', p. 43.

See, for example, Arthur Steele, Summary of the Laws and Customs of the Hindoo Castes within the Dekhun Provinces Subject to the Presidency of Bombay, 1827, reprinted as The Hindu Castes: Their

Law, Religion and Customs, Delhi, Mittal Publications, 1986, and N.K. Wagle, 'British Administration of Jati Laws', in N.K. Wagle

68.

(ed.), Images of Maharashtra, pp. 130-31.

Uma _ Chakravarti, 'Conceptualising Brahmanical Patriarchy:

Gender, Caste, Class and State', Economic and Political Weekly, Vol.

27, No. 14, 1993, pp. 579-85. The argument on the relationship between caste and gender will be evident also in Chapter Two.

69.

See, for example, G.S. Sardesai (ed.), Selections from the Peshwa Dafiar (hereafter SPD), Poona, 1907, Vol. 43, No. 55 and No. 60,

70.

38 REWRITING HISTORY

cited in V.S. Kadam, 'The Institution of Marriage and the Position of Women in Eighteenth Century Maharashtra', Indian Economic and Social History Review, Vol. 25, No. 3, 1988, pp. 341-70,

. 347.

SPD, Vol. 45, No. 52, cited in Kadam, 'The Institution of Marriage', p. 347.

Zi; Ibid., p. 346.

Prominent examples of marriage alliances to consolidate political and social power among the Peshwa family are those of Bajirao I,

Balaji Bajirao, the grandson of Bajirao I, and Nana Phadnis, all of whom married daughters of prominent bankers. In turn, the daughters of the Peshwas' families were often married into the families of bankers. Seven of the most powerful families of the eighteenth century were related through matrimonial alliances and formed what has been termed the Chitpavan Brahmana caucus of Poona. These alliances were a means of more easy access to loans and the pattern was set early on by Bajirao I himself when he married Kashibai of the Joshi-Chasker family and thereby established a strong financial basis to the Peshwadom. The Peshwas required loans for military campaigns and administrative expenses.

In return the banking families received benefits of various kinds, as, for example, the Joshis, who were given rights to collect octroi duties

72:

Le at nine ghats — trade routes that passed through the hills — and watandaris of some townships (Gokhale, Poona, pp. 120-21 and 132-33. Also see Frank Perlin, 'Of White Whale and Countrymen in the Eighteenth Century Maratha Deccan: Extended

Class Relations, Rights and the Problem of Rural Autonomy under the Old Regime', Journal of Peasant Studies, Vol. 5, No. 2, 1977, pp.

172-232, p. 178 and p. 225, No. 22).

Manu, IX, 88, translated by George Buhler, Sacred Books of the East 74.

(hereafter SBE), Vol. XXV, Delhi, Motilal Banarsidass,

(reprint), p. 343.

Arthur Steele, The Hindu Castes, pp. 356-59.

(By.

706.

Nur Yalman, 'On the Purity of Women in the Castes of Ceylon and Malabar', Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great

Britain and Ireland, 93, 1962, pp. 25-28.

Syed Sirajul Hasan, The Castes and Tribes of the Nizam's Dominions, Delhi, Asian Educational Services, 1989 (reprint, first published

Vif 1920), p. 105.

Kadam, "The Institution of Marriage', pp. 346-48.

P.V. Kane, History of Dharmasastra, Poona, Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, 1941, Vol. II, Part I, pp. 444-45.

Kadam, "The Institution of Marriage', p. 350.

TS.

79.

80.

Caste, Gender and the State in Eighteenth Century Maharashtra

Ibid.

Evidence used in this section is somewhat circumscribed in the original. It is based mostly on the nivadapatras or the decisions taken in certain cases which embodied the award of punishment with the 81.

82. seal of royal authority. What is most significant is that more than half the cases cited as social, religious or moral cases by Gune for the period 1734-1790 are of adultery (V.T. Gune, The Judicial

System of the Marathas, Poona, Deccan College Post Graduate and Research Institute, 1953, pp. 85, 259).

SPD, Vol. 43, No. 63, cited in Kadam, 'Institution of Marriage', pp. 364-65.

Kadam, 'Institution of Marriage', p. 364.

Ibid., p. 363.

Gokhale, Poona, p. 166.

Kadam, 'Institution of Marriage', p. 361.

Gokhale, Poona, p. 167.

Ibid., p. 166.

In the Brahmanical dharmashastras, the normative text for most Brahmanas, a woman's sexuality was recognised as legitimate only insofar as it was the instrument for reproducing progeny for the husband.

Sharmila Rege, 'State and Sexuality: The Case of the Erotic Lavanee and Tamasha in Maharashtra', in Patricia Uberoi (ed.), Social

Reform, Sexuality and the State, Delhi, Sage Publications 1996, pp. 23-38.

Fukazawa, The Medteval Deccan, pp. 116, 123-24.

Arthur Steele, The Hindu Castes, p. 169.

83.

84.

85.

86.

87.

88.

89.

90.

91. ais Les 94.

2S, 96.

Kadam, 'Institution of Marriage', p. 356.

Ibid.

C.Y. Chintamani (ed.), Indian Social Reform, Madras, Minerva Pressai 901, p.. 291.

V.S. Bendre (ed.), Maharashtretihasachi Sadhane, Vol. 2, No. 402, cited in Kadam, 'Institution of Marriage', p. 355.

Ibid.

Kadam, 'Institution of Marriage', p. 356. a7.

98. a9; 100.

101.

102.

103.

Ibid., pp. 356-57.

Tbid De D:

Manu, V, 157-62, SBE, pp. 196-97.

Prem Chowdhry, 'Customs in a Peasant Economy: Women in Colonial Haryana', in Kumkum Sangari.and Sudesh Vaid (eds.),

Recasting Women: Essays in Colonial History, New Delhi, Kali for Women, 1989, pp. 302-36, pp. 312ff.

Nevertheless, since the model of womanhood developed by 104.

40 REWRITING HISTORY

Brahmanical patriarchy was linked to the caste system, it meant that castes with a high self-image attempting to move up in the hierarchy would seek to emulate*gender codes of the high castes to establish the case for their own high status.

Baudhayana Dharma Sutra \.11.13-16, trans. by George Buhler, Sacred Books of the East, Vol. XIV, Part

II, Delhi, Motilal Banarsidass, 1975 (reprint) p. 207; Manu III.20-—24, trans. by George Buhler, SBE, pp. 79-81.

Arthur Steele, Hindu Castes, pp. 26, 168.

V.T. Gune, The Judicial System, pp. 85, 133; Kadam, 'Institution of Marriage', pp. 341-43. According to Gune there was a triple process of punishment: Raj danda, Jati danda, and Brahma danda, punishment by royal authority, by the caste, and by the Brahmana assembly (Gune, p. 109).

Kadam, 'Institution of Marriage', p. 351.

105.

106.

107.

108.

Ibid., pp. 352-53.

109.

Steele, Hindu Castes, p. 176. A widow's performance of pat was considered superior to a woman marrying a second time after leaving her first husband. In such cases the remarriage expenses of the first husband would have to be borne by the woman's second husband. Kadam cites a series of cases where the judicial authorities were approached for permission to form pat connections. Permission was given following the levy of gunehgari (Kadam, 'Institution of Marriage', pp. 351-53). It is significant that a number of the cases

110. cited related to missing husbands, a consequence of the Maratha army's forays over long distances and for extensive periods of time, leaving many wives virtually in a state of widowhood. The second marriages or pat connections were complicated because sometimes the first husband would turn up. The 'second husband was required to give an undertaking to settle any complications arising from such situations (Kadam, 'Institution of Marriage', pp. 353-54).

R.V. Oturkar (ed.), Peshwekalin Samajik va Arthik Patravyavahar, he 1772-1854, Poona, 1950, No. 138, cited in Kadam, 'Institution of Marriage', p. 352.

It is something of a contradiction to speak of adultery in the case of a widow. However, in castes where the widow is not permitted remarriage she is regarded as still married to her dead husband (see

Chapter Three) and is therefore committing adultery. In the lower V2 castes, especially in north India, the widow may be regarded as the sexual property of her male affines and therefore committing adultery if she has relations with any other partner (Pauline

Kolenda, "Widowhood among "Untouchable Chuhras'", in Pauline

Caste, Gender and the State in Eighteenth Century Maharashtra 4\ Kolenda, Regional Differences in Family Structures in India, Jaipur,

Rawat Press, 1987, pp. 289-354).

Ghatasphot in the case of a widow committing adultery meant that she was turned out of the house and abandoned. It represented the permanent and irreversible excommunication of a woman. A semblance of her funeral obsequies was then performed by burning her effigy, composed of grass, along with other ceremonies iT. associated with the death of a wife (Steele, Hindu Castes, p. 32):

114.

E>.

Kadam, 'Institution of Marriage', p. 363.

Ibid., Gokhale, Poona, p. 167.

Gokhale, Poona, p. 58.

Kadam, 'Institution of Marriage', p. 364.

D.B. Parasnis (ed.), 'Itihas Sangrah', Aitshasik Tippane, Vol. 1, No.

116.

1 by 118.

19, 2 September 1778, cited in Kadam, 'Institution of Marriage', p. 342.

L19.

Anandibai, 'a woman of extraordinary force', came to be perceived as the most notorious woman in the Peshwa family for engineering the murder of her nephew (by marriage) who was then Peshwa.

Anandibai is reputed to have used her skills as a literate woman to substitute an alphabetic character in a letter, thereby changing its meaning to ultimately effectuate the murder of Narayanrao. Her notoriety was recalled throughout the nineteenth century by men resisting the education of women. The playwright Khadilkar used the memory of Anandibai to great effect in painting a picture of the debauched end of the glorious Peshwai (personal communication from Sudhanwa Deshpande). Her son finally became the last

Peshwa, Bajirao II, in 1796 but she herself had died in 1794 with her last years spent in frustration and humiliation (Gokhale, Poona, pp. 9, 48, 51, 55). Anandibai's notoriety points to a recognition by Brahmana men that the Peshwai was threatened from within while it was trying to enforce normative codes for its subjects and that a major agent of the contradiction was the Brahmana woman. It must be noted, however, that Brahmanya had been threatened by a woman who was nevertheless investing in the larger Brahmana

'daulat': the privileges of the group as a whole.

Gokhale, Poona, p. 186. The case is an interesting example of the general disapproval of adultery among the lower castes too. The accused woman's desire to prove her innocence in the presence of Radhabai, the embodiment of stridharma, is also notable.

Stridharma was something of a model to be emulated even by the lower castes. But there are other aspects of this case which are notable. First, trial by ordeal was a recognised form of evidence in the Peshwai (V.T. Gune, Judicial System, pp. 90ff). What is most

120.

42 REWRITING HISTORY

significant is the Chambhar woman's recourse to the ordeal in the presence of a female wielder of authority to clear herself of the charge of adultery. The stakes were high for her because it saved her from enslavement (see p. 22 of this work). Instead the woman was now honoured for her chastity and wifely virtue, characteristics associated with high-caste women.

Gokhale, Poona, p. 48.

Ibid., p. 74.

Kumkum Sangari, 'Consent, Agency and the Rhetorics of Incitement', Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 28, No. 18, May

PA 122.

123.

1, 1993, pp. 867-82, pp. 873-75.

Julia Leslie, The Perfect Wife: The Orthodox Hindu Woman According 124. to the Stridharmapaddhati of Tryambakayajvan, Delhi, Oxford

University Press, 1989, pp. 20-21.

Gune's evidence for the period 1752-91 demonstrating that it was mostly Brahmana women who committed suicide assumes importance in this context. Perhaps it was the extraordinary burden of upholding the Brahmanya, or of having it enforced upon them, that led Brahmana women to feel compelled to take their own lives and marked them out as the largest group among those who killed themselves in the "dharmarajya' (Gune, Judicial System, p. 259).

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