[Reader-list] Fwd: Paul Brass's Response to Ashutosh Varshney]

[ab2303 at columbia.edu]

Response to Ashutosh Varshney





By Paul R. Brass



Ashutosh Varshney has written a hostile and unprofessional review 
of my
new book on The Production of Hindu-Muslim Violence in Contemporary 
India,
originally published by University of Washington Press in February 
2003
and issued by Oxford University Press-India in September-October of 
this
year.  The review, published in the10 November issue of India 
Today, is so
inaccurate and dishonest that it is difficult for me to know where 
to
begin to rebut it. Varshney does not even take the trouble to 
summarize
the book, but merely picks out and misrepresents at random aspects 
of my
arguments.



Varshney begins by insinuating that I have spent 40 years of my life
studying one city, Aligarh, and suggests that I have produced 
nothing of
value from my labors.  While it would be unseemly of me to write 
about my
own professional accomplishments in my work on India, I believe it 
is well
enough known among scholars, journalists, and politically 
knowledgeable
people in India that I have written widely on many aspects of the 
politics of India over these years, and some may know that I have
published some 14 books on those subjects as well as rather numerous
articles.  My works have ranged from detailed studies at the local 
level
to works that cover politics in all India, including my text on The
Politics of India Since Independence, the second edition of which 
is still
available.  I have personally carried out field work, during 
approximately
25 visits to India, in the states of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Punjab, 
Tamil
Nadu, Gujarat, and Assam. I have also interviewed many politicians 
from
all other parts of India during my visits to Delhi.



It is true, however, that I have labored hard and long, including 
for a
good part of the six years between 1997 and 2003 in Seattle, poring 
over
my interviews, documents, and other data collected over four 
decades in
Aligarh, to ensure that I minimize the possibility of mistake on so
serious a matter as Hindu-Muslim violence.  Nor, indeed, despite
Varshney's sneering remarks, has he been able to point to a single 
error.



Having found no inaccuracies, Varshney seeks to undermine my 
arguments  in
a personally insulting way.  He claims that I have 
simply "recycled" my
"old arguments" from two books of mine that are well-known in India 
and
elsewhere, Theft of an Idol and Riots and Pogroms.  Varshney 
himself wrote
an extremely laudatory review of the latter book (for the Journal 
of Asian
Studies, published in February, 1999), in which he expressed his
"admiration for the superb contribution by Brass" and praised "the 
great
merit and compelling brilliance of his reasoning" (p. 133). In the 
same
review, he made laudatory comments on Theft of an Idol.  Evidently,
something has changed in Varshney's attitudes, on which I will 
comment
below, but it has nothing to do with the quality of my work or its
arguments. It cannot be so since Varshney has also made considerable
(mis)use in his own writings of my central argument that the best
explanation for the persistence of riots in sites where they appear 
to be
endemic-such as Aligarh, many other cities and towns in India, and 
many
other places around the world at different times, including the 
twentieth
century U.S. and nineteenth century Russia-is the existence of what 
I have
labelled Institutionalized Riot Systems.  Varshney has completely 
misread
my description of such systems in his own work, as well as in the 
India
Today review, imagining that all that is meant by the concept is 
that
politicians and criminals protected by them, "especially the Hindu
nationalists," are involved in riots and "keep the communal pot 
boiling." 
He again strikes a derisory note by calling his misunderstanding  
of my
construct "a boiling-pot theory."  This is quite a travesty of my
conception, which is that Institutionalized Riot Systems are 
composed of
networks of specialists who play varied and multifarious roles in 
the
instigation and perpetuation of communal animosities, in the 
enactment of
riots, and in the interpretation of riots after they occur.



The metaphor I have used is, as far as I know, quite different from
anything anyone else has used in the study of collective violence, 
namely,
the conceptualization of riot production as comparable to that of a 
grisly
theatrical drama, in which there are three phases: 
preparation/rehearsal,
performance/enactment, and interpretation/explanation.  This is not 
a
trivial one-off comment on riots, a "boiling-pot theory," but an 
elaborate
analogy of a type that should be familiar to anthropologists and 
others
who know the work of the great anthropologist, Victor Turner, 
particularly
his Dramas, Fields, and Metaphors.



In his own work on peaceful cities and towns in India, Varshney  
copies my
argument by inversion as it were, claiming that they have
"institutionalized peace systems." However,  his use of both terms, 
mine
and his inversion of it, lacks logic, precision, and a basis in 
worthwhile
empirical data.  But, not content to invert my argument, he has been
reported in the India International Center Diary (Janauary-February 
1999)
to have presented, at a talk at the Centre, my original argument
(incorrectly as usual) as if it were his own invention.  Perhaps the
Centre journal has misunderstood him, but no contradiction of his 
use of
my concept as his own has yet appeared.



At one point in the review, he makes a tortuous move from his 
misreading
of my argument to a statement that it is "historically inaccurate" 
because
"Hindu nationalists were not prominent in Aligarh before 1967."  
Here he
is trying to insinuate that I am misleadingly emphasizing the 
important
role played by what he calls "Hindu nationalists" in producing 
riots in
Aligarh.  He then cites various electoral statistics to say that 
this
cannot be accurate because "the Hindu nationalists were not 
prominent in
Aligarh before 1967."  These electoral statistics are quite beside 
the
point here.  The plain facts are that, though many communal riots in
Aligarh and elsewhere in India have involved persons and parties 
not part
of the Sangh parivar, militant Hindus have played a central role in 
every
single large-scale riot in Aligarh at least since 1961, however
electorally strong or weak they were, and my book demonstrates it 
very
clearly.



Varshney here is acting out his own role in the communal discourse 
in
India, namely, that of the BJP/RSS apologist who, though he is not 
himself
a member of the Sangh parivar, chooses to ignore their undeniably 
central
role in rehearsing, enacting, and interpreting communal riots after 
the
fact.  His statement that he agrees with me-in his words not mine-
"that
Hindu nationalism is a dangerous project and if it succeeds it will
destroy India" is nothing but a pious, throw-away line for a person 
whose
work virtually frees the BJP and the RSS from responsibility for the
production of riots.  For example, in his own book, Ethnic Conflict 
and
Civic Life, the index contains only three references to the RSS and 
the
VHP, of which only one includes a very brief description of these
organizations, from which one learns that their "activities . 
include
running ideological camps for the youth, schools and dispensaries 
for the
tribals and scheduled castes, and organizations for women."  We 
learn that
their activists also do "relief work"at times of heavy floods. The 
Bajrang
Dal, the principal organization for violence in the Sangh parivar, 
receives no mention at all.



Varshney's review also mixes together incomprehensibly some 
questions and
answers that are unrelated to each other, as if they undermined my
arguments when they have nothing to do with them.  He asks, "Why 
was the
Congress government, in its days of nearly uncontested hegemony, 
unable to
prevent riots?"  He then answers sarcastically: "Presumably, the 
DMs and
the SPs who, according to Brass, had been instrumental in Aligarh's
intermittent stretches of peace, were not so compromised at that 
time." 
This is all totally misleading.  Most governments in India, 
including
those of the Congress and the BJP, for that matter, have been able 
to
prevent, contain, and control riots when they chose to do so.  Nor 
have I
said that Aligarh has had "intermittent stretches of peace."  
Rather,
there have been intermittent periods when large-scale riots did not 
occur,
during which the riot network was only partially inactivated, but 
kept in
readiness.



But then, somehow, Varshney has a different answer to his questions,
totally irrelevant to them, but important to understanding the 
malicious
character of his review.  He says: "Commenting on the Aligarh of the
1950s, Nehru was forced to call attention to the rebirth of Muslim
communalism at the AMU.  .Brass neglects the role of Muslim 
communalism in
the city." This is dishonest, mendacious, and motivated.  In fact, 
I have
not neglected the role of Muslim communalism in the city.  I have 
also
drawn attention to the contribution of elements in the Muslim 
community,
including politicians, University personnel, and AMU students in
maintaining communal attitudes and in participation in riots as 
well.
However, there is simply no doubt in my mind, amply demonstrated in 
my
work, that the BJP/RSS has been far more deeply implicated-perhaps 
because
it is far better organized than the Muslim network-most especially 
during
the decade of the 1980s up to, and including especially, the great 
Aligarh
riots of 1990-91.  Varshney is here simply avoiding my main 
conceptual
arguments concerning the process of riot production, throwing up a 
false
statement against me and pitting me against Nehru himself in the 
process. 
Moreover, Varshney is here doing what the BJP/RSS people do: 
blaming the
AMU, which has rarely been at the physical center of Hindu-Muslim
violence, though it has often been targeted by militant Hindus and 
has
been generally used as a justification for violence against Muslims.



Varshney is here also showing his ignorance of the political 
geography of
Aligarh, though he has a chapter on Aligarh in his own book. I have
emphasized, in my book, the very sharp separation between Muslims 
and
Muslim politics at the AMU and Muslims and Muslim politics in the 
old
city.  There have been some forms of border-crossing, as it were, 
but,
historically, riots have been produced in the old city where there 
is a
juxtaposition of Hindu and Muslim mohallas, not at the AMU.  In 
contrast,
in 1990-91, the militant Hindu riot system extended its range 
dramatically
across the boundary of the Grand Trunk road and the railway line 
and all
around the outskirts of the city in a pattern that has been 
revealed by me
and others elsewhere, in Kanpur (by me), in Bombay by many other 
scholars,
in Gujarat by most commentators, and so forth.



The second argument Varshey criticizes, headlined in the India Today
review as "Aligarh is not India," concerns the generalizability of 
my
arguments.  He quotes me correctly as follows: "The findings herein 
can be
generalized to other parts of India and other times and places in 
the
world."  (This quotation comes from the Preface, however, not from 
the
heart of the book where the arguments are presented in full.)  He 
then
asserts falsely that I have ignored places in India where riots 
have not
occurred.  My book indeed centers on Aligarh, though my work on 
riots has
extended throughout north India and the Punjab in interviews, and
throughout the rest of the country in my reading of both primary and
secondary sources.  My argument here is not that Aligarh stands for 
or
represents all of India, which is nonsense, but that the pattern 
that I
have described for Aligarh applies to other cities and towns in 
India that
I know well from my own personal research.  Moreover, I have 
presented my
argument as a social science hypothesis for other scholars to test 
in
other places in other parts of the world.  Far from being an old 
argument
recycled, my argument needs testing elsewhere.  Such testing would 
not
prove or disprove what I have described and discovered in Aligarh.  
But,
insofar as its generalizability is concerned, this is an important
question that begs for further research.  For, if I am right, then 
most
research on, and explanations for, riots, pogroms, massacres, and 
some
genocides as well, have been not only wrong, not only false, but
misleading and contributory to the perpetuation of systems of 
violence.



 Now, let me answer specificallyVarshney's question.  Anyone, 
however, who
cares to read my book can find the argument laid out carefully 
there in
476 pages. "Given . variations [from place to place in India in riot
incidence], how can Aligarh's experience be generalised to Uttar 
Pradesh,
let alone the rest of India?"  The answer is simple: By testing my
hypotheses.  First, by the method of confirmation/disconfirmation, 
that
is, by examining sites of endemic rioting to see if 
institutionalized
riot systems can or cannot be discovered.  Second, by examining the
relationship between party/electoral competition and the incidence 
of
riots in those sites.  Third, by examining the consequences of 
different
state policies toward communal riots, my argument being that where 
the
policy of a state government is decisively opposed to communal 
riots and
makes its opposition clear, and where interparty and/or intraparty
divisions do not compromise its clarity, riots will be either 
prevented
or contained rapidly.  The recent work of my young colleague, Steven
Wilkinson, confirms several of my arguments.  Wilkinson has also
previously questioned parts of my argument, but in an honest, 
forthright
manner, concentrating on the issues at stake. Our discussions have, 
I
think, influenced each other's work.   Moreover, in discussions 
with him,
I believe our mutual work is coming close to a coherent explanation 
of
riot production, though we may still disagree on some aspects of the
process.  Such, however, is not the case with Varshney's work on 
civic
engagement, which is a derivative argument from the American social
science literature that has very little to do with India.  It is a 
false
and artificial transplant, which I have criticized in my book and 
need
not repeat here.



As for the alleged contradictions in my criticism of newspaper 
reporting
on riots in India while also making use of such reports, his 
disparagement
is also totally misleading.  My accounts of riots are based heavily 
upon
my own interviews and other primary sources.  Where that has been 
lacking
or inadequate, I have used newspaper reports in a careful and 
critical
manner, pointing out  where they appear reliable, where not, where 
biased.
 I have also criticized sharply Varshney's uncritical use of 
newspaper
accounts of the precipitants and alleged causes of riots.  
Moreover, I
have noted that his highly touted dataset, based solely on Times of 
India
reporting, is inherently flawed.  Furthermore, errors were 
introduced in
coding this flawed data.  An huge error was introduced, for 
example, into
the Aligarh data, to which I alerted him through Wilkinson, which 
Varshney
then corrected in his World Politics article with no acknowledgment 
to me.
 In short, his own data on Aligarh, on which he claims to have done
research, was false.



Then there is the charge concerning my so-called "intellectual
schizophrenia."  I suffer from no such ailment.  I laid bare my own
reasoning concerning riot production in India in this book and in 
my other
recent works on India, and expressed my profound doubts about the
enterprise of causal reasoning and analysis as it is conducted in
contemporary social science.  In his comments on my previous book, 
Theft
of an Idol, Varshney wrote as follows: "Whether or not one can 
agree with
Brass about causality, the great merit and compelling brilliance of 
his
reasoning lies in showing so effectively why the battle over 
meanings
matters, why such battles are as much about knowledge as about 
power and
resources.  In doing so, Brass, in this essay [in Riots and 
Pogroms] as
well as in his recent book Theft of an Idol, forces us to re-
evaluate the
easy certitudes of mainstream social science, if not abandon social
science altogether."  Evidently, Varshney has changed his mind 
about my
reasoning.



As for my use of "correlation coefficients," which he says 
implicates my
work in "mainstream social science," this is hardly an advanced 
social
science method of causal analysis.  It is one of the simplest 
numerical
methods available for establishing associations between variables, 
from
which causal analyses may or may not legitimately be inferred.  I 
have
always tended to use such elementary statistical techniques mainly 
to
demonstrate such relationships and suggest the direction of a 
causal chain
where it seems reasonable to say so, but I have mostly used such
techniques as supplements to my own type of processual analysis.  I 
have
been described by friendlier colleagues as a "closet positivist."  I
accept such a friendly statement.  But intellectual doubts about the
relative merits and utilities of positivist/empiricist vs. other 
types of
social science, historical, and anthropological research hardly 
constitute
"intellectual schizophrenia."



The most degrading half-sentence in Varshney's review is his 
reference to
my dedication of the book to Myron Weiner, implying that my work is 
not
consistent with Weiner's and that the dedication, therefore, is 
misplaced.
 I have noted there and elsewhere my debts to Myron, my respect and
affection for him, as well as my divergence from his approach.  I 
worked
with Varshney on a festschrift for Myron, held at Notre Dame in 
1999.  It
is from that failed collaboration with Varshney that a personal 
hostility
has embittered and has terminated our relationship.  I had 
ultimately to
withdraw from editorial collaboration with Varshney on the 
publication of
the conference papers because of his ugly misuse of the occasion to
aggrandize himself, advance his own career, prevent other worthy 
former
students of Myron from attending or presenting papers at the 
conference
while ingratiating himself with senior colleagues whom he had 
previously
antagonized, badgering Myron during the last days of his life into
allowing him to invite to the conference a person whom Myron 
strongly
disliked, and ultimately disregarding scholarly standards in his 
attempt
to publish the papers from that conference.  The volume has not yet 
been
produced.





November 30, 2003



Paul R. Brass

Professor Emeritus of Political Science

and South Asian Studies

University of Washington, Seattle

E-mail:   brass at u.washington.edu





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