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Officially the Theosophical Society is 'unconcerned about
politics,' a fact made clear in the first issue of The
Theosophist. 2) The apolitical nature of theosophy was
symbolised dramatically at the Society's annual convention
in 1884. Several Indian theosophists wanted to meet to discuss
the formation of a national political movement, and they
planned to do so at that convention, which was to be held
at the Society's headquarters in Adyar, just outside of
Madras. Yet the Society emphatically refused to become embroiled
in politics. Madame Blavatsky, its inspirational prophet,
and Henry Olcott, its President, earlier had assured the
colonial authorities they would restrict themselves to philosophical
and scientific studies and avoid all political matters.
3) The would-be nationalists had to meet, therefore, not
in the Society's headquarters under the auspices of its
annual convention, but rather across the road as a clearly
distinct group. A road in Adyar divided the Theosophical
Society from the political action taken independently by
some of its members. It is significant, however, that an
important attempt to form a national political movement
had such close ties to the Society. It is also significant
that the colonial authorities kept Blavatsky and Olcott
under police surveillance because they feared their embroilment
with native religions and cultures would have a destabilising
effect on British rule. Whatever the official position of
the Theosophical Society, and whatever Blavatsky and Olcott
might have said or intended, it quite clearly played a political
role within India.
The paradox of a movement both officially divorced from
politics and yet clearly entangled with the nationalist
struggle becomes even more apparent if we jump forward to
the early years of the twentieth century. Annie Besant,
who succeeded Olcott as President of the Theosophical Society,
clearly identified its role as a religious and cultural
one to the exclusion of politics. 4) At first she even said
that the genius of India 'is for religion and not for politics,
and her most gifted children are needed as spiritual teachers,
not as competing candidates in the political arena.' 5)
By 1915, however, she had founded the All-India Home Rule
League in a clear attempt to foist a more radical political
programme onto the Indian National Congress. Her success
in doing so climaxed, moreover, with her being elected President
of the Congress in 1917. Although the All-India Home Rule
League remained independent of the Society, and although
Besant generally continued to deny that the Theosophical
Society was in any way political, the League relied heavily
on people and networks brought together by the Society.
Once again, therefore, whatever the official position of
the Society, and whatever Besant might have said or intended,
it quite clearly played a political role within India.
The explanation of the political role played by the Theosophical
Society lies primarily in the significance of the religious
ideas for which it stood within the context of colonial
India. In India, theosophy became an integral part of a
wider movement of neo-Hinduism, and this neo-Hinduism helped
to provide Indian nationalists with a legitimating ideology,
a new-found confidence, and experience of organisation.
In thus unpacking the general pressures that pushed a political
role onto theosophy, we will have to abstract somewhat from
the particular role of individuals with their peculiar gifts
and quirks, and of theosophical lodges with their intricate
personal and social networks, but at least we will do so
for a good cause; we will do so in order to say something
more general about the relationship between religious reform
movements and political nationalism in late colonial India.
Theosophy and neo-Hinduism
The Theosophical Society was formed in America in 1875.
6) It has three explicit aims: to explore the psychic powers
latent within man, to promote the study of comparative religion,
and to defend human brotherhood. Beyond these explicit aims,
it stands for Blavatsky's modern occultism, according to
which the ancient wisdom, or the universal religion, derives
from the east. Theosophy arose as part of an upsurge of
occult movements throughout the west in the late nineteenth-century.
Indeed, its specific roots were in the spiritualist movement,
with Blavatsky and Olcott meeting when both of them went
to investigate spirit-raps in Vermont. 7)
Blavatsky transformed the occult tradition in two highly
significant ways. 8) The first of these appears in the way
she rewrote the ancient wisdom in response to the scientific
and moral doctrines that were then producing such a widespread
crisis of faith. Here she incorporated a modern geological
time-scale, a theory of evolution, and a concern with duty
and service within her theosophical teachings. The whole
universe, she argued, emanates from an infinite being that
infuses all things, and thereafter it evolves through a
plethora of cycles, moving out from the infinite and becoming
increasingly physical, until, at last, it reaches a turning
point, after which it retraces its route, finally being
reabsorbed into the divine from whence it first arose. The
driving force behind the evolutionary process, therefore,
is not a blind mechanical law but the purposive movement
of divine spirit. All people, all things, all matter contain
a divine spirit, a divine spirit which is the 'source of
all forces, alone and indestructible.' 9)
Moreover, Blavatsky continued, we can come into contact
with the divine spark within us by adopting an appropriate
set of ascetic practices: mystics purify themselves in order
to have an unmediated experience of their true unity with
God. Although the most advanced portion of humanity already
have become highly spiritual beings, some of them have chosen
to watch over our progress, and, when necessary, to aid
us by suitable interventions in the physical and spiritual
realms. Blavatsky claimed these Masters constituted a Great
White Brotherhood of Mahatmas who lived in the Himalayas
and who gave her her orders. 10) It was they who instructed
her to establish the Theosophical Society, and it was they
who told her what to write in her works.
The second significant way in which Blavatsky transformed
the occult tradition was to identify India as the source
of the ancient wisdom. Whereas earlier occultists typically
traced their doctrines back to ancient Egypt, she argued
that the 'very same ideas expressed in almost identical
language, may be read in Buddhistic and Brahmanical literature.'
11) Impressed by the work of orientalists, such as Jacolliot
and Jones, on the antiquity of Indian religions and their
influence on western culture, she claimed that Judaism,
Christianity, indeed all faiths, had their roots in a universal
religion she equated with the teachings of the Vedas. No
doubt Indian religions really did embrace some doctrines
resembling those Blavatsky arrived at whilst reworking the
occult tradition to meet a widespread crisis of faith in
the west. Nonetheless, certain features of contemporary
Hinduism, such as child marriage and suti, clearly
did not fit at all well with her idea that India embodied
the ancient wisdom. Blavatsky resolved this difficulty by
distinguishing the corrupted, exoteric teachings and practices
found in modern Hinduism from the true, esoteric ones of
ancient Brahmanism. Modern India needed reform; its people
needed to return to the pure ways of the Vedas.
Eventually Blavatsky and Olcott decided to travel to India,
where they landed at Bombay in January 1879. Not surprisingly
they soon attracted interest, and even some support, from
within the British community. Westerners living in India
were not immune from the crisis of faith that had led various
people in Europe and America - including powerful and respected
families such as the Balfours, Gladstones, and Sidgwicks
- to dabble in spiritualism, and in India too an interest
in spiritualism easily could develop into one in theosophy.
Blavatsky and Olcott obtained their entry into Imperial
society, for example, largely through the good offices of
A. P. Sinnett, whose theosophical convictions developed
out of his earlier fascination with spiritualism. 12) Similarly,
Allan Octavian Hume met Blavatsky at Allahabad, and after
spending some time with her, he concluded that many of the
spiritualist phenomena associated with her - phenomena about
which Sinnett wrote a book - were genuine. 13) Hume joined
the Theosophical Society in 1880, became President of its
Simla Lodge in 1881, and he seems also to have provided
much of the financial support for the launch of The Theosophist.
Although he broke with Blavatsky and resigned his post in
the Simla Lodge in 1883, he still continued to believe in
her teachings - in the existence of the Mahatmas and in
their special mission to aid the spiritual evolution of
humanity.
If the appeal of theosophy to some westerners in India
should not surprise us, the same might not appear to be
true of its appeal to Indians. After all, men such as Subramanian
Aiyar, B. M. Malabari, Raganath Rao, Nurendranath Sen, and
Kashinath Telang can scarcely be said to have responded
to a crisis in Christianity by turning to spiritualism.
Actually, however, the appeal of theosophy to these Indians
is not hard to explain. Not only did Blavatsky assure them
of the worth of their cultural heritage, she also unpacked
this cultural heritage in a way that soothed fears and concerns
raised in them by their contact with contemporary western
ideas and practices. Western-educated Hindus were almost
bound to experience some sort of cultural dislocation -
a tension between the religious tradition in which they
had been raised and the apparent scientific and ethical
rationalism of the west - and theosophy constituted one
way in which they could deal with this dislocation. 14)
The suitability of theosophy as a belief-system for Hindus
struggling to come to terms with the impact of the west
on their cultural heritage appears in the extent to which
it incorporates doctrines characteristic of Hindu reform
movements of that time. Blavatsky, like Swami Vivekannanda
and Sri Aurobindo, and, perhaps slightly more awkwardly,
like Dayananda Sarasvati, eulogised the Hindu tradition
whilst also calling for reform of corruptions found in its
modern expressions. She, like them, evoked a true Hinduism
that incorporated a monotheistic and evolutionary cosmology
according to which the divine could be found at work within
all things. She, like them, evoked an idealised past in
which Indian society had been a pure and harmonious expression
of this true, spiritual Hinduism. And she, like them, wanted
modern Indians to return to this true Hinduism by purging
their society of corruptions such as child-marriage. Hinduism,
they all concluded, incorporates the central insights of
modern science, such as a geological time-scale and a theory
of evolution, and also a rational, even liberal, ethic emphasising
things such as social service.
The powerful resemblances between the teachings of the
Theosophical Society, the Ramakrishna movement, Aurobindo,
and, perhaps slightly more awkwardly, the Arya Samaj, enables
us to refer to them collectively as a distinct neo-Hinduism.
15) In thus bringing these reform movements together, we
imply that they can be treated collectively as responses
to the stress of phenomena such as modernisation and foreign
belief-systems. They constitute a coherent and related set
of religious ideas and movements constructed in a particular
social and cultural context. They constitute a set of attempts
to fashion a new spirituality to resolve the dilemmas posed
by colonial rule and contemporary scientific discoveries.
Locating them in their specific historical context in this
way seems to be more or less indispensable if we are to
explain theosophy's place among them. How else, after all,
can we bring a product of western occultism that exhibited
a fascination with spiritualism and natural magic into line
with Hinduism as it developed in the late colonial era?
To emphasise the historical specificity of such movements,
however, need not be to deny that many of them had points
of contact with traditional forms of Hinduism. It would
be a mistake here to suppose that we must see these movements
as either conforming to the Hindu tradition or as breaking
completely with this tradition. It would be a mistake because
all religious thinkers, all thinkers, necessarily innovate
against an inherited background, retaining aspects of their
inheritance at the same time as they modify it. The question
we should ask, therefore, is: does neo-Hinduism exhibit
sufficient novelty for us to regard it as a fairly decisive
break within the Hindu tradition even though it obviously
has some sort of continuity with this tradition? The answer
surely must be yes. Yes, if only because Blavatsky, Vivekananda,
Aurobindo, and others, all used concepts taken from modern
western thought - notably evolution - and, crucially, to
accommodate all of these alien concepts they undoubtedly
had to modify Hinduism to a considerable extent.
One other issue of historical context had perhaps best
be dealt with before we proceed. To emphasise that neo-Hindu
thinkers and movements exhibit common features explicable
in terms of their shared historical setting is not to deny
that they also differ from one another, with their differences
often reflecting more specific features of their respective
historical settings. A more detailed study might look at
Vivekananda's Bengali heritage, the Punjabi setting of so
much of the Arya Samaj's activities, or at the castes from
which Indian theosophists came, and it might then trace
these regional or social influences through to the political
impact these various movements had. But even such detailed
studies would occur within the context of the sort of general
study we are undertaking here.
Theosophy and Nationalist
Ideology
To some extent the place of theosophy within a broader
neo-Hinduism means that in examining its political role
we are looking at a particular instance of the more general
relationship of neo-Hinduism to political nationalism. Certainly
there are many interesting parallels between the way in
which the theosophy of people such as Besant supported their
nationalist thought and the way in which neo-Hinduism did
so both for people vaguely influenced by theosophy, such
as Gandhi, and also others, such as Aurobindo. Despite these
interesting parallels, however, we will focus here on the
particular case of theosophy.
To appreciate how theosophy fed into nationalist ideology,
we have to contrast it with the official discourse of the
Raj. Although Christianity clearly played very different
roles in the lives of different individuals within British
India, the colonial authorities equally clearly relied on
a particular Christian discourse to define and to legitimise
their role. The key idea was that only in a Christian society
can individuals develop as properly rational beings in accord
with the will of God. The Raj, in other words, was needed
to secure the conditions under which Indians could realise
their God-given capacities. 16) Hindu society, in contrast,
was denounced, first, for obscuring the worth of the individual
behind a fatalistic pantheism, and, second, for preventing
a rational concern with the facts by representing the world
as maya, that is, an evil illusion to be overcome by ascetic
withdrawal. 17)
Theosophy turned upside-down the official denunciation
of Hinduism. Whereas the ruling discourse of the Raj complained
of Hinduism reducing the individual to a mere part of a
greater whole, many theosophists complained of Christianity
fostering an unhealthy individualism. Blavatsky taught,
allegedly following traditional Hinduism, that all beings
are manifestations of the one divine form and so interlinked
with one another. Moreover, as Besant explained, this has
as its 'inevitable corollary' acceptance of a 'Solidarity'
based on 'universal Brotherhood.' 18) Hinduism, she argued,
puts the individual in a proper relationship to the social
whole; it recognises that the good of the individual is
bound inextricably to that of society; it teaches us that
'the primary truth of Morality, as of Religion and of Science,
is the Unity of Life.' 19) The unity of life does not imply
a lack of respect for individual differences, nor does it
imply a flat, western-style equality, defined in terms of
the rights of man. Rather, it implies that individuals should
use their diverse talents and abilities for the good of
the whole. Hinduism, therefore, incorporates an admirable
social morality. It teaches us that 'we live not to assert
our rights but to do our duties, and so to make one mighty
unit where each shall discharge his functions for the common
good of all.' 20) It teaches us the importance of performing
our dharma. The introduction of Christianity into
India, however, undermined this traditional, Hindu focus
on brotherhood, service, and duty. Christianity emphasises
the salvation of the individual in a way that prevents people
seeing themselves correctly as part of a social whole: it
encourages the illusory idea, so popular in the west, that
the individual is an independent entity with private ends;
it leads people to think in terms of individual rights rather
than social duties.
Moreover, whereas the ruling discourse of the Raj complained
of Hinduism encouraging an ascetic withdrawal from the world
conceived as an evil illusion, many theosophists complained
of western thought failing to provide an adequate basis
for moral action. They argued that Hinduism offers us a
purely natural account of ethics based on the doctrine of
reincarnation and the law of Karma. Because the current
evils afflicting people are the necessary consequences of
their past actions, therefore, people have a reason to behave
morally - they know they later will reap the harvest of
what they now sow. In theosophical writings, the concept
of karma generally acts as a call to action; it requires
us to strive to make life better for others and so for ourselves.
Although Hinduism teaches us we can escape from a cycle
of rebirths only by ridding ourselves of desire, we should
take this teaching as an injunction to renounce only selfish
desires, not the desire to do good unto others. Besant,
for instance, told her fellow theosophists, 'the word of
freedom' is 'Sacrifice - that which is done for the sake
of carrying out the Divine Will in the world'; she told
them, 'that which you do as living in God and doing God's
work - that action alone does not bind the man, for it is
an action that is sacrifice, and has no binding power.'
21)
The law of karma does not mean that we have a fate to be
endured. It means that we are called upon to act selflessly
for the good of others. Hinduism, and its concept of karma,
therefore, provide an impetus to rational, moral behaviour
in a way neither western science nor Christianity does.
On the one hand, the materialist premises of western science
seem to rule out belief in a divine or ethical order, so
science has undermined supernaturalism - faith in the Bible
as revealed truth - without providing an alternative, naturalist
account of ethics. On the other hand, Christianity, with
its doctrine of vicarious atonement, suggests that one can
commit sins with impunity provided only that one later repents
in faith. As Blavatsky explained to her aunt:
"A Buddhist, Brahmanist, Lamaist, and Mahomedan does
not take alcohol, does not steal, does not lie while he
holds fast to the principles of his own heathen religion.
But as soon as the Christian missionaries appear, as soon
as they enlighten the heathen with Christ's faith, he becomes
a drunkard, a thief, a liar, a hypocrite. While they are
heathen, every one of them knows that each sin of his will
return to him according to the law of justice and readjustment.
A Christian ceases to rely on himself, he loses self-respect.
'I shall meet a priest, he will forgive me,' as answered
a newly initiated to Father Kiriak." 22)
Western thought undermines the traditional Hindu basis for
moral behaviour.
The theosophists' defence of Hinduism fed readily into an
idealisation of a golden age in Indian history. Whereas
the official discourse of the Raj portrayed India as an
unchanging land in which individual liberty lay crushed
beneath religious superstition and traditional custom, theosophy
implied that traditional Indian society embodied an ideal
religion and ethic. The Indian nation, in essence, was an
organic community of individuals bound together to pursue
spiritual enlightenment through a recognition of personal
duty. The Aryan polity, with its caste system, was designed
to serve the religious purpose of advancing the universal
process of spiritual evolution. For a start, Aryan society
aided the growth of the soul by subordinating man's lower
nature to his higher one. The hierarchy of castes showed
that the Aryans prized spiritual life over material luxury,
for, as Besant explained, 'the highest caste in the older
days, the Brahmans, were a poor class, and the wealth of
the Brahman lay in his wisdom, not in his money-bags.' 23)
The Aryans lived pure, simple lives dedicated to the conquest
of their lower selves as a means to contact with the divine.
In addition, Aryan society promoted spiritual advancement
by defining, and so encouraging performance of, one's dharma.
The location of individuals within a caste indicates that
they are part of a greater whole. Each individual occupies
a specific place within a social whole, and has a duty to
act in accord with that place. Caste indicates the nature
of people's dharma. It encourages them to do their
duty and thereby facilitates their spiritual development.
Finally, the emphasis the Aryans placed on simple living
and social duty produced an organic community in which religion
ruled social conduct and each individual cared for his neighbours.
Aryan society was an association of individuals bound together
in pursuit of shared spiritual goals, not a neutral arena
in which atomistic individuals fought for competing, private
goods.
According to Besant, the self-governing village stood
as the institutional embodiment of the organic nature of
Aryan society. The village had been the fundamental, enduring
feature of Indian society through the ages: emperors came
and went, but the village remained as a self-sufficient
community providing stability and continuity in the lives
of ordinary people. Each village was composed of a core
area of buildings for living, working, and resting, surrounded
by arable land, then pasture land, and finally a natural
or planted forest. The village owned the land on which it
was situated, and the villagers treated each piece of land
as a common possession on loan to the family cultivating
it. Everyone had a common right to both the pasture land,
where they grazed animals under the watchful eye of a shepherd,
and the forest, where they gathered wood for fuel and building.
Each village supported craftsmen, such as carpenters and
potters, and professionals, such as astrologists and priests,
by granting them a share in village lands, or, more usually,
village crops, and by making gifts to them during religious
festivals. The life of the community always revolved around
the temple which fostered religion and moral culture. Everybody
willingly devoted time and effort to work on communal projects
such as digging wells.
A view of Indian society as organic and spiritual left
theosophists needing a very different historiography from
that incorporated in the official discourse of the Raj.
They could not accept that India was a land of unchanging
superstitions being liberated and made rational by the British.
Instead, they needed to explain how Indian society had fallen
away from the Aryan ideal. Typically they did so by pointing
to the disruptive effects of foreign, and especially British,
rule. Earlier invaders rarely touched the soul of India.
Indeed, India typically captured the invaders by turning
them into Aryans whilst also being enriched by their culture.
The British, in contrast, had destroyed the great religious
basis of India by pushing western ideas and habits on to
her people. The crucial difference, at least according to
Besant, was that the British had been the first foreigners
to come to India exclusively for profit with no intention
of learning from her culture. They had invaded India not
to spread Christianity, nor to free a subject people, nor
to find adventure, but rather to trade, and, in particular,
to find new markets for the products that they produced
in such vast quantities after the industrial revolution.
They had even conquered India by the dishonest means of
the merchant class. The East India Company paid scant heed
to treaties and also initiated quarrels among Indians. It
played rulers off against one another by, say, hiring troops
to one until he became too powerful when they would help
his rival. Indeed, almost every quarrel in eighteenth-century
India was encouraged, or actively started, by Europeans
fighting over trade. 'England,' Besant concluded, 'did not
"conquer her [India] by the sword" but by the
help of her own swords, by bribery, intrigue, and most quiet
diplomacy, fomenting of divisions, and playing of one party
against another.' 24)
Once the British had conquered India, they systematically
discredited Hinduism by teaching not the indigenous literature
and religion, but rather subjects designed to produce the
clerks needed first by the East India Company and then by
Imperial rule. Worse still, the British had instilled in
India a European concern with rights. Thus, Indians now
regarded caste as a mark of privilege and status indicating
how much respect an individual should be shown. Caste now
stood for social distinction, not social duty, so that the
lower castes had naturally become angry and jealous of the
higher ones. The resulting conflicts ruined Indian society,
for 'out of the base marriage of Caste to Separateness,
instead of the true wedlock of Caste with Service, there
sprang a huge and monstrous progeny of social evils, which
preyed, and are still preying, on the life of India.' 25)
As well as corrupting the great religious culture of India,
British rule had destroyed her economy and denied her people
the right to self-government. Besant complained of the drain
on Indian wealth that was needed to pay for the India Office,
pensions to retired civil servants, and an army only allegedly
needed to defend India's frontiers. British rule had led
to increased taxation of the Indian peasant, and so, in
turn, to recurring famines and a neglect of the public works,
such as irrigation, that were needed to promote economic
development. In addition, the British had ruined the self-governing
village of the Aryans by introducing peasant proprietors
instead of common ownership of the land, and also by replacing
elected officers responsible to the village itself with
appointed officials responsible to the higher echelons of
government. The British had failed to recognise, let alone
to use, the genius of the Indian people for democratically
managing their own affairs. They ruled India though an administrative
bureaucracy that paid no attention to the voices of Indians,
but relied instead on executive fiat reinforced by large
doses of repressive legislation.
Theosophists denied, therefore, that the British were
creating the basis for a liberal and rational form of government
in India. On the contrary, the British had brought to India
a corrupt individualism and decadent materialism which had
done much to destroy the glories of the Aryan polity. The
key political question was not how long it would take the
Indians to adopt the Christian values needed for self-rule.
It was, rather, how best to return India to its true self.
The whole tenor of theosophy led, therefore, to a view
of India's nature, its past and its current situation, very
different from the one that informed the Raj. But theosophy
did not just question the self-justification of British
rule, it also promoted, with respect to India, those doctrines
we regard as characteristic of nationalist movements wherever
they arise - the glories of the native culture, a golden
age sometime in the past, and, of course, a bewailing of
the disruptive effects of foreign rule. In promoting nationalist
doctrines, theosophy encouraged Indians to ask themselves
not 'how can we adopt for ourselves the British system of
governance?' but rather 'how can we recapture our former
glories?' There were, of course, all sorts of answers they
might give to the latter question, not all of which entailed
independence, but then not all nationalists demanded independence.
What theosophy certainly did do, particularly when placed
alongside other forms of neo-Hinduism, was to provide a
clear basis for a nationalist ideology. The British often
argued that India could not be united and independent because
the Indian people did not constitute a nation - the Indian
people belonged to diverse regions, faiths, and castes,
each of which had its own special identity. Neo-Hinduism,
including theosophy, gave nationalists a clear response
to this argument. Nationalists could say not only that India
had been a nation in a past golden age, but also that she
was becoming one again. Nationalists could point to objective
factors promoting a sense of national identity - British
rule over the whole of the sub-continent and a growth of
economic links between the regions - to the emergence of
a subjective awareness of a national identity - a growing
sense of a common past and a shared predicament - and to
the growth of all-India organisations for religious reform.
The Indian nation, they could say, was at last waking up
from its long slumber.
Theosophy and neo-Hinduism helped to provide Indian nationalists
with an ideology. They encouraged nationalists to describe
India as a unified entity that had a common heritage and
that faced a common set of problems requiring an all-India
solution. They popularised a belief in a golden age when
India had been a paradise free from the spiritual and social
problems of modernity. Even today, they suggested, India
has a valuable understanding of matters of the spirit that
is absent from the west, and without which the west can
not for long avert disaster. 26) Unfortunately, however,
a number of corruptions had crept into Indian spirituality
and thereby undermined this golden age, corruptions that
Blavatsky characteristically equated with passages she thought
the Brahmins had added to the sacred texts so as to justify
a distasteful version of the caste system. It was these
corruptions that had left India vulnerable to British rule,
arguably even in need of British rule to provide the necessary
impetus to reform. A suitable scheme of reform, however,
would enable India to attain independence and to recover
her lost greatness.
Theosophy and Nationalist
Politics
When Olcott disembarked at Bombay in 1879, the first thing
he did was 'stoop down and kiss the granite step' in an
'instinctive act of 'pooja'. 27) Olcott and Blavatsky then
went to live in the Indian quarters of the city, not among
the Europeans. From then on, they constantly lauded Indian
religions and cultures, arguing that the true source of
all religion lies in the Vedas. The theosophists thought
of India as a sacred land, so they showed it, its people,
and their practices, a respect verging at times on worship.
Theosophy helped to provide Indians not only with a nationalist
ideology but also with a new confidence in the worth of
their culture. It suggested that their past, their customs,
their religion, and their way of life, were as good as,
even better than, those of their Imperial rulers. If such
confidence was in some ways an inevitable corollary of Indians
adopting theosophical beliefs, the same can not be said
of the other great contribution theosophy made to the nationalist
movement. The Theosophical Society, and neo-Hindu groups
in general, provided nationalists with experience of organisation
- of coming together and acting in consort - and with contacts
and networks which they then could draw upon for political
purposes.
Nineteenth-century Indians had little experience of modern
politics with its emphasis on popular participation and
agitation. Indeed, India as a whole remained, in many ways,
a divided society with few co-operative lines of communication
running between its different regions, castes and classes.
28) Neo-Hinduism did much to change this. Even Dayananda,
although he initially set out to reform Hinduism by converting
his fellow Brahmins alone - he conveyed his message through
Sanskrit and retained the dress and traditions of the sannyasi
- later used the Arya Samaj to appeal to the Hindu faithful
as a whole - he adopted Hindi and dropped most of the practices
of the sannyasi. 29) Theosophy was especially important
here, however, because of the very diversity of those it
brought together. Whereas the Arya Samaj had little impact
except on Punjabi Hindus, and the Brahmo Sabha except on
Bengali Hindus, the Theosophical Society was more of an
all-India organisation. Its members came from all over the
sub-continent. Besides Hindus, it attracted Parsees, Christians,
Sikhs, and even a few Muslims. 30) At least as importantly,
it brought members of the western-educated elite of Indian
society, such as Aiyar, Rao, and Sen into close contact
with liberal members of the British community, such as Sinnett
and Hume. The Society held annual conventions from 1881
onwards, and these gatherings provided a diverse group of
sympathetic people with the opportunity to discuss the past,
present, and future of India. Networks were formed, an understanding
of how to deal with others was gained, and a growing sense
of a common identity and common purpose was promoted. The
importance of these networks can be seen at work in the
formation of the Indian National Congress and again in the
activities of the All-India Home Rule League.
I: The Formation
of Congress
From 1875 through to 1885 a number of young nationalists
became increasingly disaffected with their older leaders.
Their alienation first became apparent in 1876 when a group
of young Bengalis, led by Surendranath Banerjea, formed
the Indian Association of Calcutta. 31) They broke with
the established British Indian Association of Bengal because
they thought it was tied to the zamindars, who showed
little, if any, desire to end British rule. Sen, the editor
of the Indian Daily Mirror, was a prominent member
of both the Theosophical Society and the Indian Association
of Calcutta. Early in 1885, he first put forward a proposal
for an all-India nationalist association, and then, together
with Banerjea and others, began to organise a conference
for that December to form just such an all-India body. The
inspiration for Sen's proposal might well have come from
Madras, which had been the venue for the 1884 annual convention
of the Theosophical Society, during which Raganath Rao argued
that the Society should formally discuss political issues
as well as religious ones. Although Rao did not get his
way, he managed to arrange a political discussion at a separate
meeting across the road form the official convention. Theosophists,
including Aiyar, Ananda Charlu, M. Viraraghavachariar, and,
of course, Rao himself, met as private individuals to promote
a nationalist agenda. Soon afterwards they formed the Madras
Mahajana Sabha, arguing that the established Madras Native
Association had ceased to be of any value to the nationalist
cause. Sen had attended some of the meetings leading up
to the formation of the Madras Mahajana Sabha, and he surely
must have had some knowledge of its plan to establish an
all-India organisation at a meeting scheduled to coincide
with the next annual convention of the Theosophical Society.
Later in 1885, Malabari, Telang and other nationalists,
such as Pherozeshah Mehta and Dadabhai Naoroji, formed the
Bombay Presidency Association as a more radical alternative
to the older Bombay Association. Throughout India, theosophists
were joining with other young nationalists to advance a
more radical agenda, at the very heart of which lay the
idea of an all-India organisation.
The single most important individual behind the formation
of the Indian National Congress was arguably Hume. In 1878
Hume read various documents that convinced him that large
sections of the Indian population violently opposed British
rule and even plotted rebellion. 32) These documents were
communications he had received, supposedly from the Mahatmas
of which Blavatsky spoke, but presumably from Blavatsky
herself. In one of the letters the Mahatmas sent Sinnett,
they described how the Great White Brotherhood had controlled
the Indian masses during the Rebellion of 1857 so as to
preserve an Imperial rule necessary apparently to bring
India to her true place in the world. 33) Now the Mahatmas
seemed to be directing Hume to maintain the correct balance
between east and west. 34) Even after Hume turned against
Blavatsky, he continued to believe in the Mahatmas. He thought
they had chosen to pass some of their understanding on to
him, and, in particular, to warn him of an impending catastrophe
so that he could ward-off disaster. Hume set about averting
disaster in two ways. First, he tried to convince Ripon
to reform the administration of India so as to make it more
responsive to the Indian people. 35) Second, he tried to
promote an all-India organisation so as to give voice to
nationalist concerns and aspirations. 36)
Although Hume helped to form the Bombay Presidency Association,
really he wanted to create an all-India body, and throughout
1885 he used the Bombay group as a springboard from which
to promote the idea of an Indian National Union. He soon
acquired the backing of the Poona Sarvajanik Sabha as well
as the Bombay group for an all-India political conference
to be held in Poona during December 1885. His quarrel with
Blavatsky meant, however, that he had to work harder to
win over the theosophists of the Madras Mahajana Sabha and
the Indian Association of Calcutta. By May, he had visited
Madras to discuss his proposals for the Poona conference
with the members of the Mahajana Sabha, and also to put
forward his views on the way the Theosophical Society should
develop. He convinced the local leaders to fall in with
his plans for an Indian National Union. Next he travelled
to Calcutta where he seems to have contacted several prominent
members of the Indian Association. Although Sen decided
to give his backing to Hume, many of the others, under Banerjea's
leadership, did not, preferring instead to go ahead with
their alternative conference. An outbreak of cholera in
Poona forced Hume to change the venue of his proposed conference,
but, finally, in December 1885, the Indian National Union
convened in Bombay. 37) Those present immediately renamed
themselves the Indian National Congress, and when the Congress
next met in December 1886, it did so in Calcutta, thus ensuring
the adherence of Banerjea's alternative National Conference.
38)
The Indian National Congress was formed by nationalists
from all over India under the leadership of a retired British
official. Hume worked alongside people he had met at the
annual conventions of the Theosophical Society - Malabari,
Rao, and Sen - to arrange the founding conference of the
Congress. The Theosophical Society helped to make it possible
for Hume to meet and co-operate with these Indian nationalists,
and had it not done so, the formation of an all-India political
body would have been, at the very least, harder. 'No Indian
could have started the Indian National Congress,' wrote
G. K. Gokhale; indeed, 'if the founder of the Congress had
not been a great Englishman and a distinguished ex-official,
such was the distrust of political agitation in those days
that the authorities would have at once found some way or
other to suppress the movement'. 39)
II. The All-India
Home Rule League
By 1914 the Indian National Congress had become an established
organisation. The triumph of the moderates over the extremists
had left it, moreover, with a significantly restricted and
rather non-confrontational political vision. When Besant
entered the political arena, after years of devoting herself
to religious, educational, and social work, she tried to
foist a more radical position onto the Congress. She demanded
self-government for India in the immediate future, and she
wanted the Congress to advance this demand by heading a
campaign of educative propaganda, a campaign using many
of the techniques with which she had become familiar as
a radical agitator in Britain. 'Congress,' she said, raises
little 'enthusiasm' among Indians since it continues in
'the same groove, passing year after year similar resolutions
and making little substantial progress.' 40) What the Congress
should do, she continued, is to formulate, proclaim, and
promote the views of educated India on all matters of public
importance. More particularly, each year it should select
various topics for discussion and then conduct an educative
campaign around them. Politics, she concluded, should become
a permanent feature of the life of the Indian people, not
a three day event circumscribed by the annual Congress.
All through 1914, Besant published, in her new daily paper,
New India, a series of articles debating the role
that Congress should play. Many of the more vociferous articles
in support of her views came from fellow theosophists such
as Krishna Rao and Aiyar, although she also attracted support
from other nationalists. 41) At the Madras Congress of 1914,
Besant put forward a constitutional amendment in line with
her views, but suffered defeat in the Subjects Committee.
42) Despite this defeat, her proposals continued to gain
momentum, with, for example, young theosophists in Bombay,
led by Jamnadas Dwarkadas, publishing a paper, Young India,
to promote her programme. 43) When Besant failed once more
to introduce changes at the Bombay Congress of 1915, she
founded a new organisation, the All-India Home Rule League.
44)
The League was formed on 3 September 1916 at a meeting
in Gokhale Hall, Madras. George Arundale, a British theosophist
who became Organising Secretary of the League, gave a speech
in which he said that Besant already had sent him on a tour
of north India 'to draw recruits around the Home Rule flag,
to help to organise educative propaganda, and above all
else to send to the coming Congress, delegates pledged to
make the policy of Home Rule the dominant policy of the
National Congress.' 45) What he did not say was that when
Besant sent out home rule missionaries, they generally stayed
with local theosophists who made the practical arrangements
for the meetings they addressed. 46) Besant and Arundale
were not the only western theosophists to play prominent
roles in the League: Miss S. H. Burdett, a former suffragette,
became his secretary, Miss Gmeiner, the headmistress of
a girl's school, helped to establish the Delhi branch, and
Miss Francesca Arundale was a leading figure in the Benares
branch. The League also drew heavily on the support of Indian
theosophists. The Council of the League consisted of Besant,
Arundale, Aiyar, who served as Recording Secretary of the
Society, B. P. Wadia, a Parsi and theosophist from Bombay
who then lived in the Society's headquarters at Adyar, and
A. Rasul and Pandharinath Telang, both of whom were members
of the Society; only Ramaswami Aiyar was not a theosophist,
and even he was a sympathiser. Moreover, although the membership
of the League rose to about five times that of the Indian
Section of the Theosophical Society, Indian theosophists
often provided the impetus behind, and core members of,
the branches of the League: in Tanjore, Srinivasa Aiyar
headed the local branches of the Society and the League;
in Calicut, Manjeri Ramier held an office in both organisations;
and so one could go on - sixty-eight of the seventy people
who founded the Bombay City branch of the League were members
of the Society. 47) Clearly the two organisations became
deeply entwined with one another: when Wadia visited Guntur
in October 1916, he spent one day engaged in home rule work
and another in theosophical work. 48) Many of the leading
home rulers were inspired by Besant's religious teachings
as President of the Society. They saw participation in the
League as an expression of their spiritual or theosophical
commitments. Jamnadas Dwarkadas saw Besant as his 'adorable
Guru', describing his meeting her as a greater landmark
in his life than his marriage; and his brother, Kanchi Dwarkadas,
saw himself as Besant's 'chela', describing becoming a theosophist
as 'the happiest and most important decision I ever made.'
49)
The League pursued its programme of educative propaganda
vigorously through late 1916 and early 1917. When the Governments
of Bombay, the Central Provinces, and Madras, banned students
from meetings, and the Governments of Bombay, Madras, and
Punjab seemed to be close to banning home-rule agitation
as such, Besant denounced the Government, and even spoke
of meeting any ban with passive resistance. 50) In response,
the Government of Madras interned her, along with Arundale
and Wadia in June 1917. The internments only stirred-up
even more of an outcry, until, in September, in an attempt
to calm things down, she was released. By then, however,
Besant had become a nationalist heroine who was elected
President at the Calcutta Congress in 1917. Although her
popularity diminished rapidly, the home rule agitation had
set the scene for Gandhi's entry onto the national stage.
Conclusion
Despite the Theosophical Society's avowedly apolitical
nature, it clearly played an important role in the growth
of Indian nationalism. Not only were individual theosophists,
such as Hume, Besant, and the Dwarkadas brothers, key figures
in the development of nationalist thought and organisation;
nor is it just a matter of many of the leading activists
of the freedom struggle, including Gandhi and Nehru, having
been influenced by theosophy; the key point is rather the
general picture within which these details about individuals
gain their significance, a general picture of theosophy
as an integral part of the cultural and social context out
of which the nationalist movement arose.
At first sight there might seem to be something odd about
a Society emerging from the western occult tradition becoming
so enmeshed within Indian culture and politics. Once we
look further, however, this oddity gives way to an understanding
based on a recognition of how ideas forged in one context
can take on a radically different political colouring when
transposed to another one. Blavatsky might have developed
theosophy largely as a reworking of the occult tradition
in the light of a post-Darwinian crisis of faith, and her
western followers, including Hume and Besant, might have
turned to theosophy precisely because it seemed to resolve
questions raised in them by this crisis of faith, but within
India the most important theosophical doctrine was undoubtedly
Blavatsky's identification of the universal religion with
the Brahmanism of the Vedas. Because theosophy both eulogised
the ancient faith of India and also interpreted this faith
as incorporating modern scientific doctrines such as evolution,
therefore it had an obvious appeal to western-educated Indians
looking for a way to reconcile their indigenous culture
with the new learning. Moreover, despite Blavatsky's concern
to avoid politics, any set of doctrines that thus encouraged
Indians to equate their ancient culture with the ideal was
almost bound to have a radical political significance within
the context of the Raj.
Theosophy was, of course, only one of several movements
at the turn of the century that encouraged Indians to equate
their ancient culture with the ideal. Other religious thinkers
and movements, such as the Arya Samaj, the Ramakrishna Math
and Mission, and Aurobindo eulogised Vedic Hinduism as a
universal religion of unmatched purity that both incorporated
the truths of modern science and that sustained an idyllic
society. Despite important differences between them, therefore,
theosophy and these other movements did much to develop
and promote an analysis of India's past, present, and future,
that provided fertile soil for nationalism. India, they
suggested, had a highly valuable indigenous culture that
had flourished in an earlier golden age; but although this
culture continued to provide the basis of a real national
identity, the golden age had come to an end as a result
of the disruptive effects of foreign rule; so now Indians
needed to revive this culture - purging it of later abuses
and distortions - and thereby liberate themselves. In addition,
and again despite important differences between them, theosophy
and these other movements created networks of individuals,
patterns of organisation, and modes of behaviour that nationalists
could draw on to create a political movement. The Indian
National Congress and the All-India Home Rule League certainly
drew for their formation, and at least some of their activities,
on a social basis that had been established by the Theosophical
Society.
ENDNOTES
1) I thank the Leverhulme Trust for awarding me a Travel
Abroad Studentship with which to pursue my research.
2) The Theosophist, October 1879.
3) Olcott, H. Old Diary Leaves: The History of the Theosophical
Society. 6 Vols. Adyar, Madras: Theosophical Publishing
House, 1972/75. Vol. 1, pp. 254-57. Biographies of Blavatsky
include the eulogising Fuller, J. Blavatsky and Her Teachers.
London: East-West Publications, 1988; and the condemnatory
Williams, G. Madame Blavatsky: Priestess of the Occult.
New York: Lancer Books, 1946.
4) Besant wrote two autobiographies. See Besant, A. Autobiographical
Sketches. London: Freethought, 1885; and Besant, A.
An Autobiography. Adyar, Madras: Theosophical Publishing,
1983. The main biographies are Nethercot, A. The First
Five Lives of Annie Besant. London: R. Hart-Davis, 1961;
Nethercot, A. The Last Four Lives of Annie Besant.
London: R. Hart- Davis, 1963; and Taylor, A. Annie Besant.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992.
5) Besant, A. 'India's Mission Among Nations', in India:
Essays and Addresses. London: Theosophical Publishing,
1913. p. 3.
6) On the history of the Theosophical Society in the west,
see Campbell, B. Ancient Wisdom Revived: A History of
the Theosophical Movement. Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1980; Ellwood, R. ‘The American Theosophical
Synthesis’, in The Occult in America: New Historical
Perspectives. Edited by H. Kerr & C. Crow. Chicago:
University of Illinois Press, 1983. pp. 111-34; and Washington,
P. Madame Blavatsky's Baboon: Theosophy and the Emergence
of the Western Guru. London: Secker & Warburg, 1993.
7) Olcott, H. People From the Other World. Hartford,
Conn.: American Publishing Company, 1875. On the relation
of theosophy to spiritualism, see Oppenheim, J. The Other
World: Spiritualism and Psychological Research in England,
1850-1914. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985.
pp. 159-97.
8) Bevir, M. 'The West Turns Eastward: Madame Blavatsky
and the Transformation of the Occult Tradition', in Journal
of the American Academy of Religion LXII (1994), pp. 747-67.
9) Blavatsky, H. P. Isis Unveiled: A Master-Key to the
Mysteries of Ancient and Modern Science and Theology.
2 Vols. Wheaton, Ill.: Theosophical Publishing House, 1972.
Vol. 2, p. 588.
10) See Johnson, K. The Masters Revealed: Madam Blavatsky
and the Myth of the Great White Lodge. Albany, N.Y.:
State University of New York, 1994.
11) Blavatsky, Isis Unveiled. Vol. 1, p. 626.
12) Sinnett, A. P. The Autobiography of Alfred Percy
Sinnett. London: Theosophical History Centre, 1986.
13) Sinnett, A. P. The Occult World. London: Trubner
& Co., 1881.
14) Compare the role ascribed to theosophy in Gandhi, M.
An Autobiography, in Collected Works, Vol. 39. New
Delhi: Publications Division, 1958-95; Nehru, J. An Autobiography.
London: John Lane, 1936; and Pal, B. Memories of My Life
and Times, Vol. 1. Calcutta: Modern Book Agency, 1932.
15) Studies that emphasise the way these movements constitute
a hiatus within the Hindu tradition include Bharati, A.
'The Hindu Renaissance and Its Apologetic Patterns', in
Journal of Asian Studies 29 (1970), pp. 267-88; Hacker,
P. 'Aspects of Neo-Hinduism as Contrasted with Surviving
Traditional Hinduism', in Philology and Confrontation:
Paul Hacker on Traditional and Modern Vedanta. Edited
by W. Halbfass. Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York
Press, 1995. pp. 229-55; and Halbfass, W. India and Europe:
An Essay in Understanding. Albany, N.Y.: State University
of New York Press, 1988. pp. 219ff.
16) Compare, Studdart-Kennedy, G. British Christians,
Indian Nationalists, and the Raj. Delhi: Oxford University
Press, 1991.
17) Compare the general construction of Hinduism within
western Indology as described in Inden, R. Imagining
India. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1990.
18) Besant, A. What is Theosophy? Adyar, Madras:
Theosophist Office, 1912. p. 9. One of her earliest theosophical
articles considered the relationship between karma and social
action. See Lucifer, August 1889.
19) Besant, A. The Basis of Morality. Adyar, Madras:
Theosophical Publishing, 1915. p. 26.
20) Besant, A. 'The Place of Politics in the Life of a
Nation', in India: Essays and Addresses, op cit.,
p. 131.
21) Ibid. p. 25.
22) The Theosophist, September 1950. For the contemporary
disquiet over the morality of atonement, see Altholz, J.
‘The Warfare of Conscience with Theology’, in
The Mind and Art of Victorian England. Edited by
J. Altholz. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press,
1976. pp. 58-77.
23) Besant, A. The East and The West. Adyar, Madras:
Theosophical Office, 1908. pp. 22-23.
24) Besant, A. How India Wrought for Freedom. Adyar,
Madras: Theosophical Publishing, 1915. pp. LV-LVI.
25) Besant, A. 'East and West', in India: Essays and
Addresses, op cit., p. 78.
26) On the dichotomy between the west as materialistic
and India as spiritual, see King, U. Indian Spirituality,
Western Materialism: An Image and Its Function in the Reinterpretation
of Modern Hinduism. New Delhi: Indian Social Institute,
1985.
27) Olcott, Old Diary Leaves. Vol. 2, pp. 213-14.
28) That these divisions within Indian society persisted
during the nationalist era has since been emphasised by
both the Cambridge School (Seal, A. The Emergence of
Indian Nationalism: Competition and Collaboration in the
Late Nineteenth Century. London: Cambridge University
Press, 1968) and the Subaltern Studies movement (Guha, R.
[ed.] Subaltern Studies: Writings on South Asian History
and Society. Vol. 1. Delhi: Oxford University Press,
1982).
29) Jordens, J. Dayananda Sarasvati: His Life and Ideas.
Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1978.
30) See ‘Membership Lists’, Archives of the Theosophical
Society (A.T.S.), Adyar, Madras. It is significant that
various theosophists even complained that Besant’s
close identification with Hinduism transgressed the Society’s
principle of remaining equally open to all faiths. See,
for example, The Theosophist, March 1894.
31) Banerjea, S. A Nation in the Making: Being the Reminiscences
of Fifty Years of Public Life. London: H. Milford, 1925.
32) Wedderburn, W. Allan Octavian Hume: Father of the
Indian National Congress, 1829-1912. London: Fisher
Unwin, 1913. pp. 78-83. Wedderburn somewhat glossed over
the place of Theosophy - especially the Mahatmas - in his
account of Hume's political work. No doubt he did so because
he was a friend of Hume's, and he regarded Hume's attachment
to them as superstitious and so disreputable.
33) Morya. The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett.
Compiled by A. T. Barker. London: T. Fisher & Unwin,
1923. p. 324.
34) Ripon Papers, British Library, London.
35) Ibid.
36) Wedderburn, Allan Octavian Hume, op cit.
37) Reports of the Indian National Congress. 1885/86.
38) Ibid.
39) Wedderburn, Allan Octavian Hume, op cit., pp.
63-4.
40) New India, 17 October 1914.
41) New India, 22 & 24 October 1914.
42) ‘Proceedings of the All-India Congress Committee
Meeting held on the 30th December, 1914’, Political
Papers of Annie Besant (P.P.A.B.), A.T.S., Part 2, File
13.
43) Other theosophists involved in forming Young India
included: Shankarlal Banker, Kanji Dwarkadas, M. R. Jayakar,
K. M. Munshi, Umar Sobhani, and Pandharinath Telang who
became its editor.
44) See Bevir, M. ‘The Formation of the All-India
Home Rule League’, in Indian Journal of Political Science
LII:3 (1991), pp. 1-16; and Owen, H. 'Toward Nation-Wide
Agitation and Organisation: The Home Rule Leagues 1915-18',
in Soundings in Modern South Asian History. Edited
by D. Low. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1968. pp.
159-95.
45) New India, 4 September 1916.
46) See various letters preserved in P.P.A.B.
47) Dwarkadas, K. India's Fight for Freedom 1913-17:
An Eyewitness Story. Bombay: Popular Prakashan, 1966.
p. 35.
48) New India, 31 October 1916.
49) Dwarkadas, J. Political Memoirs. Bombay: United
Asia, 1969. p. 175; and Dwarkadas, India's Fight, op cit.,
p. 2.
50) See, for example, New India, 4 June 1917.
Biographical Note
Mark Bevir received his D.Phil. from the University of Oxford.
He is now a member of the Department of Political Science,
University of California, Berkeley. His recent publications
include The Logic of the History of Ideas (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1999).
Contact Information
Department of Political Science, University of California,
Berkeley, CA 94720-1950
Email: mbevir@socrates.berkeley.edu
Source
"Theosophy as a Political Movement" was originally
published in: A. Copley (Ed.), Gurus and their Followers:
New Religious Reform Movements in Colonial India (Delhi:
Oxford University
Press, 2000), and is reproduced here with the permission
of the publisher, editor and the author.
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