Rajnarayan Chandavarkar
Encyclopedia
Rajnarayan Chandavarkar (1953-April 23, 2006), was a Reader in the History and Politics of South Asia and Fellow at Trinity College, Cambridge
.
. He worked toward defining a new interdisciplinary approach for understanding processes of urbanization, the nexus between the city and the countryside, and the evolution of industrial capitalism. His insights prompted research on a wide range of topics in South Asian social history and politics. This was particularly evident in the work of the research students whom he supervised at Cambridge. A new generation of scholars, who now work in India, the United Kingdom, Israel, Japan, the United States and Canada owes much of its achievements to his mentorship. As a participant in seminars at Cambridge, in international conferences, and in other forms of academic gatherings, he provided inspiration for scholars in fields far removed from his own.
Chandavarkar grew up in Mumbai before going to England for his advanced education. He completed the final years of his schooling at Lancing College
in West Sussex. The rest of his academic career was closely connected to the University of Cambridge
in England and to the city of Mumbai. He did his undergraduate studies at Gonville and Caius College from 1973 to 1976, where he was deeply influenced by Gareth Stedman Jones
, his undergraduate supervisor. He went on to finish his Ph. D under the direction of Anil Seal at Trinity College, Cambridge
. He became a fellow at Trinity in 1979, and remained associated with the college until his death. He has also served as the director of the Centre for South Asian Studies at Cambridge since 2001. Despite his lifelong association with Cambridge, he maintained strong ties with India, retaining his Indian citizenship, returning frequently to visit and do research, and participating directly in circles related to his intellectual interests, his social commitments and cricket.
Beginning his research on Mumbai during the late 1970s, he quickly developed a strong command over the resources available in libraries such as the India Office Library, the Maharashtra State Archives and the Mumbai Police Archives. While he devoured historical materials, he never worshipped ‘facts’. He interrogated his records, deconstructed evidence critically, and sought to unravel the wider social and political processes his data revealed. He thus moved far beyond the narrow confinement of a straightforward “empiricism”. Nonetheless he was suspicious of any research not based upon the rigorous analysis of archival materials, and he exhorted his students to ground themselves solidly in their sources.
Rajnarayan Chandavarkar died of a sudden heart attack
on April 23, 2006 at the Dartmouth–Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon, New Hampshire
, USA. He had been attending a conference at nearby Dartmouth College
. At the time of his death, he was fifty-two years old.
at the time. Origins challenged many existing interpretations; indeed it questioned the assumptions of what working class history should be. The study reached beyond the industrial workplace and trade unions into the larger informal economy
of Mumbai, into the neighbourhoods where workers lived, and out to the rural areas, such as Ratnagiri and the Deccan, from which workers originated. The origins of capitalism, in Chandavarkar’s view, lay not just in the initiatives of a few captains of industry but in a host of social forces that all played an active part in shaping the new economic structures of late colonial Mumbai.
Origins was followed in 1998 by Imperial Power and Popular Politics. This was a diverse range of essays on industrial capitalism, workers’ politics, the police in Mumbai, the plague, colonial discourse and the nature of the colonial state. Some of these essays were as rich empirically as Origins, while others were thought-provoking interpretive pieces.
A second set of contributions in these studies lay in their analysis of the social organization of the working class
. He looked at social formations ranging from the workplace to urban neighbourhoods to the workers’ rural-urban connections. His research went beyond most previous studies of labour, which had often attempted to identify some kind of solid, enduring structure — whether caste
, class
, or place of origin — as the essence of working-class society. Chandavarkar viewed workers as involved in an extremely heterogeneous and constantly shifting set of relationships. For example, he thoroughly questioned the dominance of jobbers in working-class society, thus calling into question a major orthodoxy of labour history. He demonstrated that jobbers in Mumbai competed with other figures in workers’ neighbourhoods, and their power was limited by their need to satisfy the requirements of their clients. Chandavarkar also argued that there was no straightforward tendency for class-based social ties to develop in the context of industrial employment. Indeed, the characteristics of the workplace and the competition of various leaderships for followings could produce new divisions as well as new unities. In its case for the diffuse, fragile and continuously changing character of social organization, Chandavarkar's scholarship had profound implications for understanding urban society in South Asia more generally.
The third major area of contribution in these books concerned their understanding of working-class politics. Chandavarkar's work stretched beyond the usual studies of labour politics in that it explored not just workers’ participation in trade unions and the Communist Party
but also their involvement with the full range of groups and parties with which they became affiliated. This approach allowed him to question views that interpreted political developments as evidence of the continuous evolution of "class consciousness
" or that, conversely, sought to explain the failure of workers to develop such commitments. Chandavarkar argued persuasively that workers' political affiliations and identities, including those of class, were dynamic and shifting, and were constantly being constructed in changing political contexts. As circumstances changed, workers moved between support for communist, nationalist and communalist organizations, between expressions of extensive activism and relative passivity.
group. Writing perhaps his most polemical piece in 1997, he insisted:
“Caste and kinship ties were vital to the social organization of workers: but so were the affinities of region and religion, workplace and neighbourhood, trade unions and political parties, all of which cut across each other. To insist that the culture of migrant workers was characterized by ‘strong primordial ties of community, language, religion, caste and kinship’ is to obscure the extent to which their interaction produced something quite different and it is to remain blind to the extent to which their ‘culture’ was also informed by work and by politics, and indeed, by the daily struggles of workplace and neighbourhood” (Chandavarkar 1997, p. 187).
But as historical research continued to develop more dynamic portraits of working class culture and identity, and as his own scholarship sought to appreciate the growth in enthusiasm on the part of workers for movements of regional chauvinism and communalism, Chandavarkar increasingly acknowledged the role of cultural phenomena and processes in his work and he encouraged his students to deal seriously with cultural issues.
Chandavarkar’s most important recent work is his introduction (2004) to One Hundred Years, One Hundred Voices: The Millworkers of Girangaon, Neera Adarkar and Meena Menon’s wonderful oral history of the Girangaon
neighbourhood in Mumbai. This long essay proved to be far more than an ordinary introduction; it was an original work of research and a sweeping history of the working class in the city from the 1880s to the 1980s that may long remain the standard work on the subject. The essay focused primarily on the transformations of working class allegiances over time, from the height of trade union and Communist activity to the Samyukta Maharashtra and Shiv Sena movements to the Great Strike of 1982. Drawing upon the accounts provided by Adarkar and Menon, it offered a multifaceted explanation for these developments that addressed the rich popular culture of Girangaon, the role of capitalists, the appeals and strategies of different political parties and leaderships, and the workers’ own actions and interests. The essay also highlighted the increasing political impotence of workers after 1982. It is probably the work that best reflects the evolution of Chandavarkar’s scholarship in recent years. However, several other publications were still in process at the time of his death, including a Modern Asian Studies special issue on labour history he was editing (in which he will have an individual contribution on the decline of jobbers in Mumbai) and a long essay on colonialism and democracy. In recent years, he had become increasingly interested in the larger history of Mumbai. Less than twenty-four hours before his death, he gave a brilliant paper on the city from the seventeenth century to the present in the conference at Dartmouth. Other writing, unfortunately, was probably not so far along, and we fear that much of Chandavarkar’s voluminous research in many different areas may now go unpublished.
Chandavarkar’s influence is reflected in research by his students in such diverse fields as the politics of the urban poor in the towns of Uttar Pradesh; the interplay of gender, class and community among jute workers in Bengal
; and the shifting patterns of community formation and the development of Communism in Malabar. Many of his students explored labour history in the context of new perspectives such as the relationship between nationalism and labour radicalism in Sholapur, comparisons between Bengal’s jute workers and Dundee’s working classes in the context of British imperialism, and the meaning of class in the context of popular movements in the jute mill towns outside Calcutta. Others explored wider fields, including the language of politics and the ideological predilections of nationalists in Uttar Pradesh
, and the concerns of the urban middle class in Gujarat during the colonial period. A recent study of communalism in contemporary Ahmedabad
sought to unravel the wider theoretical underpinnings of the role of ethnicity in politics. Others of his students have examined the making of regional identity in Orissa
, the politics of Tamil Muslims, and childhood and child labour in India. Through his students Chandavarkar not only mentored a new cohort of historians but stimulated scholarship in wide-ranging and eclectic fields, embracing the most diverse aspects of South Asian history.
On a more amusing note Chandavarkar had a reputation as a draconian taskmaster. Academic life in Cambridge was rich with the folklore of Chandavarkar’s interesting and complex ways of handling his students. Indeed, according to rumor, one student of Chandavarkar hid under a bridge to evade him and another calibrated her movement in Trinity College by spotting his car. For his part Chandavarkar jokingly blamed his students for his proverbial ever-receding hairline. However, his students’ loyalty and deeply held affection for their supervisor created lasting bonds between them and their intellectual mentor. He warned them not to rush for the most fashionable product in the market, and he encouraged them to explore beyond what is apparent. This serious, critical spirit of enquiry and refusal to compromise his own firmly held convictions remains a lasting legacy of Chandavarkar.
Trinity College, Cambridge
Trinity College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Trinity has more members than any other college in Cambridge or Oxford, with around 700 undergraduates, 430 graduates, and over 170 Fellows...
.
Background
Chandavarkar's work engaged most directly with the processes involved in the formation of the industrial working classes in MumbaiMumbai
Mumbai , formerly known as Bombay in English, is the capital of the Indian state of Maharashtra. It is the most populous city in India, and the fourth most populous city in the world, with a total metropolitan area population of approximately 20.5 million...
. He worked toward defining a new interdisciplinary approach for understanding processes of urbanization, the nexus between the city and the countryside, and the evolution of industrial capitalism. His insights prompted research on a wide range of topics in South Asian social history and politics. This was particularly evident in the work of the research students whom he supervised at Cambridge. A new generation of scholars, who now work in India, the United Kingdom, Israel, Japan, the United States and Canada owes much of its achievements to his mentorship. As a participant in seminars at Cambridge, in international conferences, and in other forms of academic gatherings, he provided inspiration for scholars in fields far removed from his own.
Chandavarkar grew up in Mumbai before going to England for his advanced education. He completed the final years of his schooling at Lancing College
Lancing College
Lancing College is a co-educational English independent school in the British public school tradition, founded in 1848 by Nathaniel Woodard. Woodard's aim was to provide education "based on sound principle and sound knowledge, firmly grounded in the Christian faith." Lancing was the first of a...
in West Sussex. The rest of his academic career was closely connected to the University of Cambridge
University of Cambridge
The University of Cambridge is a public research university located in Cambridge, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest university in both the United Kingdom and the English-speaking world , and the seventh-oldest globally...
in England and to the city of Mumbai. He did his undergraduate studies at Gonville and Caius College from 1973 to 1976, where he was deeply influenced by Gareth Stedman Jones
Gareth Stedman Jones
Professor Gareth Stedman Jones is a British academic and historian.Educated at St Paul's School and Lincoln College, Oxford, where he read History, Stedman Jones went on to Nuffield College, Oxford to take a DPhil....
, his undergraduate supervisor. He went on to finish his Ph. D under the direction of Anil Seal at Trinity College, Cambridge
Trinity College, Cambridge
Trinity College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Trinity has more members than any other college in Cambridge or Oxford, with around 700 undergraduates, 430 graduates, and over 170 Fellows...
. He became a fellow at Trinity in 1979, and remained associated with the college until his death. He has also served as the director of the Centre for South Asian Studies at Cambridge since 2001. Despite his lifelong association with Cambridge, he maintained strong ties with India, retaining his Indian citizenship, returning frequently to visit and do research, and participating directly in circles related to his intellectual interests, his social commitments and cricket.
Beginning his research on Mumbai during the late 1970s, he quickly developed a strong command over the resources available in libraries such as the India Office Library, the Maharashtra State Archives and the Mumbai Police Archives. While he devoured historical materials, he never worshipped ‘facts’. He interrogated his records, deconstructed evidence critically, and sought to unravel the wider social and political processes his data revealed. He thus moved far beyond the narrow confinement of a straightforward “empiricism”. Nonetheless he was suspicious of any research not based upon the rigorous analysis of archival materials, and he exhorted his students to ground themselves solidly in their sources.
Rajnarayan Chandavarkar died of a sudden heart attack
Myocardial infarction
Myocardial infarction or acute myocardial infarction , commonly known as a heart attack, results from the interruption of blood supply to a part of the heart, causing heart cells to die...
on April 23, 2006 at the Dartmouth–Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon, New Hampshire
Lebanon, New Hampshire
As of the census of 2000, there were 12,568 people, 5,500 households, and 3,178 families residing in the city. The population density was 311.4 people per square mile . There were 5,707 housing units at an average density of 141.4 per square mile...
, USA. He had been attending a conference at nearby Dartmouth College
Dartmouth College
Dartmouth College is a private, Ivy League university in Hanover, New Hampshire, United States. The institution comprises a liberal arts college, Dartmouth Medical School, Thayer School of Engineering, and the Tuck School of Business, as well as 19 graduate programs in the arts and sciences...
. At the time of his death, he was fifty-two years old.
Publications
Publications based upon his dissertation research began to appear in the early 1980s, and scholars of Mumbai’s history awaited his study of the city and its working class with considerable anticipation. When The Origins of Industrial Capitalism (1994) first appeared in 1994, it was regarded with a sense of admiration, even awe, in some circles. The book was characterized by formidable research and represented a depth of local historical knowledge that went beyond anything that existed in the labour history of South AsiaSouth Asia
South Asia, also known as Southern Asia, is the southern region of the Asian continent, which comprises the sub-Himalayan countries and, for some authorities , also includes the adjoining countries to the west and the east...
at the time. Origins challenged many existing interpretations; indeed it questioned the assumptions of what working class history should be. The study reached beyond the industrial workplace and trade unions into the larger informal economy
Informal economy
The informal sector or informal economy as defined by governments, scholars, banks, etc. is the part of an economy that is not taxed, monitored by any form of government, or included in any gross national product , unlike the formal economy....
of Mumbai, into the neighbourhoods where workers lived, and out to the rural areas, such as Ratnagiri and the Deccan, from which workers originated. The origins of capitalism, in Chandavarkar’s view, lay not just in the initiatives of a few captains of industry but in a host of social forces that all played an active part in shaping the new economic structures of late colonial Mumbai.
Origins was followed in 1998 by Imperial Power and Popular Politics. This was a diverse range of essays on industrial capitalism, workers’ politics, the police in Mumbai, the plague, colonial discourse and the nature of the colonial state. Some of these essays were as rich empirically as Origins, while others were thought-provoking interpretive pieces.
Contributions
Together these two books and related articles set out coherent and fundamentally new ways of thinking about the history of western India and its economy. First, Chandavarkar’s work offered new understandings of the processes of industrialization and capitalist transformation. Rather than see the development of large-scale production as a simple matter of technological diffusion from Europe to India or as evidence of the triumph of entrepreneurial pioneers, Chandavarkar placed this process squarely within a historical context conditioned by imperialism, rural poverty, insecure markets, and the agency of workers. He argued that the formation of factories was often a risk-minimizing effort by almost marginal figures in the nineteenth century economy, men who were in positions of subordination to foreign businessmen in the export trades, who faced constant difficulties in mobilizing capital, and who rushed around from one form of investment to another in hopes of making quick profits in this uncertain business climate. Chandavarkar especially highlighted the role of the workforce in conditioning the form of industrial capitalism in Mumbai. He saw industrialists and workers as participating in a common theater of interaction; both sets of actors constrained the other’s behavior. Labour recruitment needs and workers' resistances consistently limited the power of capitalists to develop uniform policies that might have maximized profits; the strategies of industrialists served to promote divisions among their workers.A second set of contributions in these studies lay in their analysis of the social organization of the working class
Working class
Working class is a term used in the social sciences and in ordinary conversation to describe those employed in lower tier jobs , often extending to those in unemployment or otherwise possessing below-average incomes...
. He looked at social formations ranging from the workplace to urban neighbourhoods to the workers’ rural-urban connections. His research went beyond most previous studies of labour, which had often attempted to identify some kind of solid, enduring structure — whether caste
Caste
Caste is an elaborate and complex social system that combines elements of endogamy, occupation, culture, social class, tribal affiliation and political power. It should not be confused with race or social class, e.g. members of different castes in one society may belong to the same race, as in India...
, class
Social class
Social classes are economic or cultural arrangements of groups in society. Class is an essential object of analysis for sociologists, political scientists, economists, anthropologists and social historians. In the social sciences, social class is often discussed in terms of 'social stratification'...
, or place of origin — as the essence of working-class society. Chandavarkar viewed workers as involved in an extremely heterogeneous and constantly shifting set of relationships. For example, he thoroughly questioned the dominance of jobbers in working-class society, thus calling into question a major orthodoxy of labour history. He demonstrated that jobbers in Mumbai competed with other figures in workers’ neighbourhoods, and their power was limited by their need to satisfy the requirements of their clients. Chandavarkar also argued that there was no straightforward tendency for class-based social ties to develop in the context of industrial employment. Indeed, the characteristics of the workplace and the competition of various leaderships for followings could produce new divisions as well as new unities. In its case for the diffuse, fragile and continuously changing character of social organization, Chandavarkar's scholarship had profound implications for understanding urban society in South Asia more generally.
The third major area of contribution in these books concerned their understanding of working-class politics. Chandavarkar's work stretched beyond the usual studies of labour politics in that it explored not just workers’ participation in trade unions and the Communist Party
Communist party
A political party described as a Communist party includes those that advocate the application of the social principles of communism through a communist form of government...
but also their involvement with the full range of groups and parties with which they became affiliated. This approach allowed him to question views that interpreted political developments as evidence of the continuous evolution of "class consciousness
Class consciousness
Class consciousness is consciousness of one's social class or economic rank in society. From the perspective of Marxist theory, it refers to the self-awareness, or lack thereof, of a particular class; its capacity to act in its own rational interests; or its awareness of the historical tasks...
" or that, conversely, sought to explain the failure of workers to develop such commitments. Chandavarkar argued persuasively that workers' political affiliations and identities, including those of class, were dynamic and shifting, and were constantly being constructed in changing political contexts. As circumstances changed, workers moved between support for communist, nationalist and communalist organizations, between expressions of extensive activism and relative passivity.
“Class” and “Culture”
The most controversial aspect of Origins and Imperial Power was perhaps their treatment of “culture”. Chandavarkar reacted against approaches that attributed workers’ behaviors to “traditional” commitments rooted in rural India. He insisted, for instance, that the maintenance of rural connections should be seen as a strategy for subsistence by workers rather than as evidence of emotional attachments held over from an earlier period. His dissatisfaction with any static representation of workers’ culture led him to be a strong critic of some of the members of the Subaltern StudiesSubaltern Studies
The Subaltern Studies Group or Subaltern Studies Collective are a group of South Asian scholars interested in the postcolonial and post-imperial societies of South Asia in particular and the developing world in general. The term Subaltern Studies is sometimes also applied more broadly to others...
group. Writing perhaps his most polemical piece in 1997, he insisted:
“Caste and kinship ties were vital to the social organization of workers: but so were the affinities of region and religion, workplace and neighbourhood, trade unions and political parties, all of which cut across each other. To insist that the culture of migrant workers was characterized by ‘strong primordial ties of community, language, religion, caste and kinship’ is to obscure the extent to which their interaction produced something quite different and it is to remain blind to the extent to which their ‘culture’ was also informed by work and by politics, and indeed, by the daily struggles of workplace and neighbourhood” (Chandavarkar 1997, p. 187).
But as historical research continued to develop more dynamic portraits of working class culture and identity, and as his own scholarship sought to appreciate the growth in enthusiasm on the part of workers for movements of regional chauvinism and communalism, Chandavarkar increasingly acknowledged the role of cultural phenomena and processes in his work and he encouraged his students to deal seriously with cultural issues.
Chandavarkar’s most important recent work is his introduction (2004) to One Hundred Years, One Hundred Voices: The Millworkers of Girangaon, Neera Adarkar and Meena Menon’s wonderful oral history of the Girangaon
Girangaon
Girangaon was a name commonly used to refer to an area now part of central Mumbai, India, which at one time had almost 130 textile mills, with the majority being cotton mills. Girangaon covered an area of , not including the workers' housing...
neighbourhood in Mumbai. This long essay proved to be far more than an ordinary introduction; it was an original work of research and a sweeping history of the working class in the city from the 1880s to the 1980s that may long remain the standard work on the subject. The essay focused primarily on the transformations of working class allegiances over time, from the height of trade union and Communist activity to the Samyukta Maharashtra and Shiv Sena movements to the Great Strike of 1982. Drawing upon the accounts provided by Adarkar and Menon, it offered a multifaceted explanation for these developments that addressed the rich popular culture of Girangaon, the role of capitalists, the appeals and strategies of different political parties and leaderships, and the workers’ own actions and interests. The essay also highlighted the increasing political impotence of workers after 1982. It is probably the work that best reflects the evolution of Chandavarkar’s scholarship in recent years. However, several other publications were still in process at the time of his death, including a Modern Asian Studies special issue on labour history he was editing (in which he will have an individual contribution on the decline of jobbers in Mumbai) and a long essay on colonialism and democracy. In recent years, he had become increasingly interested in the larger history of Mumbai. Less than twenty-four hours before his death, he gave a brilliant paper on the city from the seventeenth century to the present in the conference at Dartmouth. Other writing, unfortunately, was probably not so far along, and we fear that much of Chandavarkar’s voluminous research in many different areas may now go unpublished.
Legacy
Chandavarkar also left a rich legacy in South Asian history writing through his students. He mentored about eighteen research students. His intense personality and critical no-nonsense engagement with students’ work could be initially overpowering for his tutees but also reflected rich and sincere intellectual mentoring. His relentless criticism often enabled students to develop their ideas more fruitfully and at the same time to form richer research insights. His iconoclasm also facilitated their abilities to question received wisdom about historical theories and his formidable engagement with archival material prepared them to treat evidence in original ways.Chandavarkar’s influence is reflected in research by his students in such diverse fields as the politics of the urban poor in the towns of Uttar Pradesh; the interplay of gender, class and community among jute workers in Bengal
Bengal
Bengal is a historical and geographical region in the northeast region of the Indian Subcontinent at the apex of the Bay of Bengal. Today, it is mainly divided between the sovereign land of People's Republic of Bangladesh and the Indian state of West Bengal, although some regions of the previous...
; and the shifting patterns of community formation and the development of Communism in Malabar. Many of his students explored labour history in the context of new perspectives such as the relationship between nationalism and labour radicalism in Sholapur, comparisons between Bengal’s jute workers and Dundee’s working classes in the context of British imperialism, and the meaning of class in the context of popular movements in the jute mill towns outside Calcutta. Others explored wider fields, including the language of politics and the ideological predilections of nationalists in Uttar Pradesh
Uttar Pradesh
Uttar Pradesh abbreviation U.P. , is a state located in the northern part of India. With a population of over 200 million people, it is India's most populous state, as well as the world's most populous sub-national entity...
, and the concerns of the urban middle class in Gujarat during the colonial period. A recent study of communalism in contemporary Ahmedabad
Ahmedabad
Ahmedabad also known as Karnavati is the largest city in Gujarat, India. It is the former capital of Gujarat and is also the judicial capital of Gujarat as the Gujarat High Court has its seat in Ahmedabad...
sought to unravel the wider theoretical underpinnings of the role of ethnicity in politics. Others of his students have examined the making of regional identity in Orissa
Orissa
Orissa , officially Odisha since Nov 2011, is a state of India, located on the east coast of India, by the Bay of Bengal. It is the modern name of the ancient nation of Kalinga, which was invaded by the Maurya Emperor Ashoka in 261 BC. The modern state of Orissa was established on 1 April...
, the politics of Tamil Muslims, and childhood and child labour in India. Through his students Chandavarkar not only mentored a new cohort of historians but stimulated scholarship in wide-ranging and eclectic fields, embracing the most diverse aspects of South Asian history.
On a more amusing note Chandavarkar had a reputation as a draconian taskmaster. Academic life in Cambridge was rich with the folklore of Chandavarkar’s interesting and complex ways of handling his students. Indeed, according to rumor, one student of Chandavarkar hid under a bridge to evade him and another calibrated her movement in Trinity College by spotting his car. For his part Chandavarkar jokingly blamed his students for his proverbial ever-receding hairline. However, his students’ loyalty and deeply held affection for their supervisor created lasting bonds between them and their intellectual mentor. He warned them not to rush for the most fashionable product in the market, and he encouraged them to explore beyond what is apparent. This serious, critical spirit of enquiry and refusal to compromise his own firmly held convictions remains a lasting legacy of Chandavarkar.