A review of the book 'Being Hindu, Being Indian: Lala Lajpat Rai’s Ideas of Nationhood' written by Vanya Vaidehi Bhargav.
Meticulously researched and eloquently written, Being Hindu, Being Indian offers the first comprehensive examination of Lajpat Rai’s nationalist thought. By revealing the complexities of Rai’s thinking, it provokes us to think more deeply about broader questions relevant to present-day politics: Are all expressions of ‘Hindu nationalism’ the same as Hindutva? What are the similarities and differences between ‘Hindu’ and ‘Indian’ nationalism? Can communalism and secularism be expressed together? How should we understand fluidity in politics?
This book invites readers to treat Lajpat Rai’s ideas as a gateway to think more deeply about history, politics, religious identity and nationhood.
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Coming up: A review of the book 'Being Hindu, Being Indian: Lala Lajpat Rai’s Ideas of Nationhood' written by Vanya Vaidehi Bhargav.
Namaste Friends. My name is 'Shinil Subramanian Payamal' and you are listening to the Historylogy podcast.
Before I proceed, a full disclosure: This book was bought with my own money and not been provided to me by the author or publisher.
Little bit about the author:
Vanya Vaidehi Bhargav is an intellectual historian of modern South Asia. She completed her DPhil in history at St Antony’s College, University of Oxford. Her research has been published in leading peer-reviewed academic journals, such as the Journal of Asian Studies, Global Intellectual History, Studies in Indian Politics and Religions. She has been a research fellow at the M.S. Merian - R. Tagore International Centre of Advanced Studies ‘Metamorphosis of the Political: Comparative Perspectives on the Long Twentieth Century’ (ICAS: M.P.), New Delhi, India, and a senior research fellow with Kolleg-Forschungsgruppe ‘Multiple Secularities - Beyond the West, Beyond Modernities’, Humanities Centre for Advanced Studies, University of Leipzig, Germany. Committed to engaging with the public, Bhargav has written for the Indian Express, The Hindu and The Wire.
Let me read a brief description of the book:
QUOTE
In popular imagination, Lala Lajpat Rai is frequently associated with Bhagat Singh, who, by assassinating J.P. Saunders, avenged Rai’s death, caused by a police lathi charge, and was hanged for it. Lajpat Rai is also remembered for his fervent opposition to British rule.
In recent decades, however, historians have converged with the Hindu Right in rediscovering Lajpat Rai as an ideological ancestor of Hindutva. But what then explains Rai’s wholehearted approval of Congress–Muslim League cooperation, and attempt to endow Hindus and Muslims with bonds of common belonging? Why did he reinterpret India’s medieval history to highlight peaceful coexistence between Hindus and Muslims? Have our hasty conclusions about Lajpat Rai’s nationalist thought concealed its complexities and distorted our understanding of nationalism in general?
Meticulously researched and eloquently written, Being Hindu, Being Indian offers the first comprehensive examination of Lajpat Rai’s nationalist thought. By revealing the complexities of Rai’s thinking, it provokes us to think more deeply about broader questions relevant to present-day politics: Are all expressions of ‘Hindu nationalism’ the same as Hindutva? What are the similarities and differences between ‘Hindu’ and ‘Indian’ nationalism? Can communalism and secularism be expressed together? How should we understand fluidity in politics?
This book invites readers to treat Lajpat Rai’s ideas as a gateway to think more deeply about history, politics, religious identity and nationhood.
UNQUOTE
This mammoth book, which is well over 700 pages including almost 250 pages of Endnotes, is very detailed and is divided into four parts.
Part 1 highlights the nationalist narratives articulated by Lalaji in the first two decades of his political life.
Part 2 unveils the nationalist narratives elaborated by Lalaji between 1900 and 1915.
Part 3 follows Lalaji’s discourse on the nation between 1915 and 1922.
Part 4 focuses on the post-Khilafat period that saw galloping mistrust between Hindu and Muslim leaders and the eruption of violent riots at the popular level.
One of the central aims of this book is to show how Lala Lajpat Rai’s “Hindu nationalism” diverged from Savarkar’s Hindutva in important ways.
Another aim seems to be to whitewash the Hindu genocide under various Islamic rulers through the centuries.
The Mappila rebellion of 1921 in Kerala is mentioned as a peasant rebellion by the predominantly Muslim Mappila peasants against their mostly Hindu landlords.
Lalaji addressed the occasionally aggressive pride with which Sir Syed Ahmed Khan spoke of Muslims as a conquering race.
QUOTE
Sir Syed Ahmed feels extremely proud of his ancestors, not because they were men who contributed to the well-being of humanity, not because they taught the lesson of equality to the world, not because they were followers of a book, said to teach the oneness of mankind, the equality of mankind, but because they were conquerors, which in the strict of the word, means dacoits. What were men like Timur and Nadir Shah if not heads of looting …
UNQUOTE
He chided Sir Syed for pouring scorn on Bengalis:
QUOTE
The Syed inveighs at Bengalees because their forefathers never injured any section of the human race by their sword, because they never turned out to be aggressors! … It is the standing glory of the ancient Indians that no foreign nation ever had an occasion of being deprived of their liberties by them. Nobody in the world can deny the undaunted courage and the war-like spirit of the ancient Rajputs, who, notwithstanding this, never thought it proper to disturb the peace of a neighbouring people. No race ever complained of its having been ruined by a Rajput invasion.
UNQUOTE
In December 1922, a few months after the riots in Multan, Lalaji wrote a private letter from Lahore Central Jail to C. R. Das in which he expressed serious doubts regarding the possibility of Hindu-Muslim unity:
QUOTE
I have devoted most of my time during the last six months to the study of Muslim history and Muslim law and I am inclined to think that it [Hindu-Muslim unity] may be neither possible nor practicable. Assuming and admitting the sincerity of the Mohammedan leaders in the non-cooperation movement, I think their religion provides an effective bar to anything of the kind. You remember the conversation (I reported to you at Calcutta) which I had with Hakim Ajmal Khan and Dr. Kitchlew. There is no finer Mussalman in India than Hakim Sahib, but can he or any other Muslim leader override the Quran? … I can only hope that my reading of Islamic law is incorrect and nothing will relieve me more than to be convinced that it is so. But if it is right, then it comes to this, that although we can unite against the British, we cannot do so to rule India on democratic lines. What then is the remedy? I am not afraid of seven crores of the Indian Mussalmans, but seven crores plus the armed hosts of Afghanistan and Central Asia, Arabia, Mesopotamia and Turkey will be irresistible. I do honestly and sincerely believe in the necessity and desirability of Hindu-Muslim unity; I am also fully prepared to trust the Muslim leaders, but what about the injunctions of the Quran and the Hadis? The leaders cannot override them. Are we then doomed? I hope not. I hope your learned minds and wise heads will find some way out of this difficulty. If so, do kindly communicate your views to me.
UNQUOTE
Lalaji believed that when it came to reforming religion in order to create a united nation, Islam needed more work than Hinduism. Hinduism was described as the most ‘tolerant’ of all religions, allowing the fullest freedom to its own followers and respecting the religious freedom of others. Islam, on the other hand, was characterized as a faith of ‘dogmas’, with a history of ‘religious intolerance’ and still having retained its ‘original violence’. Lalaji seemed to consider dogma, intolerance and violence as an important part of Islam.
Despite its academic heft, the book is very accessible—the prose is lucid, carefully contextualised and well documented, blending archival depth with vivid storytelling—Rai's exile in Mandalay, his debates with Gandhi, his prescient warnings on caste reform.
Since the book is lengthy and detailed, it can be overwhelming. If you are looking for a concise treatment you might find yourself bogged down.
Final Verdict:
If I were to give it a verdict: Being Hindu, Being Indian is a thoughtful, ambitious, and largely successful attempt to reframe how we think about Lala Lajpat Rai—not as a fixed ideological figure, but as someone whose thought evolved, whose allegiances and identities were multiple, and whose nationalism included real tensions.
This is one of the most important recent works on Lala Lajpat Rai and it adds significantly to understanding nationalism in colonial India.
As long as you can differentiate between the various attempts of balancing the narrative, this is a very readable book.
I give this book 3.5/5.
The book is currently available in Hardcover, Kindle and Audible format. I have given the respective buy link in the show notes. Please check it out for the latest price.
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