Thread by @bhAratenduH on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App
Was “Pandit Jackson” a Shady Indologist, eliminated by Abhinava Bharat for his subversive project? - 🧵
Wrong hypothesis
Our friend @Kal_Chiron ji is positing that Jackson was a “shady Indologist”, running a subversive anti-Brahmin narrative project in Maharashtra — like Macauliffe in Punjab or Caldwell in Tamil Nadu.
He further posits that Savarkar brothers saw through his subversive narrative project, and therefore “nipped it in the bud” by Abhinav Bharat / Anant Kanhere assassinating him.
Scholarship
Let’s use the occasion to look at a) Jackson’s own works and how the nationalistic Indian and Hinduphile British scholars saw him, and b) what the revolutionary sources and Savarkar say about the reasons for killing him, and test these claims 🙏🏽
@vikramsampath Image 2/
Despite being a full-time ICS officer, Jackson was a prolific scholar:
• 6 major papers in JBBRAS (1899-1905) such as Two Inscriptions from Thana District (1899), The Caves of Nasik and Their Inscriptions (1901), Two New Valabhi Copper-plates (1902), A Note on the Hemadpanti Temples of the Deccan (1905) etc.
• 20+ articles in Indian Antiquary, mostly on folklore & epigraphy
• Several Public lectures - last one only days before his assassination - on methods in Indian antiquities.
• Posthumously published 2 volumes on Folk-Lore Notes about customs, beliefs, local deities, village festivals of Gujarat and Konkan.
• some 17 of his unpublished manuscripts in BBRAS Library
Most of the above - except the last - is available in public domain on Internet and I scanned through his works.
I don’t see any trace of a subversive element in his writings. He as a scholar comes across as respectful for Hindu civilization. 3/
Did Jackson move in the circle that painted Shivaji as not a Hindu monarch and a secularist king?
Charles Kincaid, author of “The Grand Rebel” (1910) — and father of Dennis Kincaid who later wrote a novel of the same title — was Jackson’s ICS colleague and a personal friend. When Kincaid was posted in Poona, Jackson was in Nashik.
In writing this very moving and inspiring sketch of Shivaji, Kincaid relied on the help of his scholarly friend Jackson. Jackson not only supplied him the historical sources but also reviewed the entire draft of “The Grand Rebel”, edited and approved it before he was killed.
In the preface of the book, published after Jackson died, Kincaid profusely thanks Jackson and dedicates it partly to him.
This 1910 book was the second English book on Shivaji — first one came out a year back by Sir Jadunath Sarkar — and unlike Sarkar’s book this presents Shivaji as a Hindu hero, the founder of the renewed Hindu vigor.
It became very popular amid Indian Nationalist circles. To the extent that Sir Jadunath Sarkar himself acknowledged that Kincaid’s book was far more popular than his own.
Kesari (BG Tilak’s journal) reviewed the book and wrote: “Mr. Kincaid’s Grand Rebel is a strange book to have come from an English pen. He has tried to feel as an Indian might feel about the founder of Hindavi Swarajya.”
R G Bhandarkar wrote (a letter in Feb 1911):
“Mr. Kincaid has written with that same sympathy and insight which the late Mr. Jackson so abundantly possessed. The Grand Rebel may be taken as a monument to both.”
Are we going to label Kincaid too as subversive?
In fact this book alone should debunk the claim that Jackson moved in the circles that were presenting Shivaji as not a Hindu monarch! 4/
Speaking of RG Bhandarkar, he appreciated Jackson not only for his studies but also as a britisher sympathetic to India and Hindus. “He was by nature a kind-hearted and sympathetic man, and this was observable in everything he did both in his official and private capacity”
DR Bhandarkar (the son) wrote about Jackson as a scholar who supported him as a scholar of Sanskrit and Indian antiquities - they were coauthoring a book when Jackson was killed. Bhandarkar had received a letter from Jackson regarding the book just a day before he was assassinated.
Bhandarkar once asked him why he had not published about something they had discussed before - Jackson replied he was too busy as an ICS and planned to work on the project after retirement.
One obituary remembered him for financially supporting a Brahmin scholar of Nasik out of his personal money, and for taking extra-professional care in organizing Simhastha Kumbh that happened during his tenure as the collector. 5/
Hindu impressions
Tilak was imprisoned in Burma at the time of Jackson’s assassination. Kesari was edited by his associate NC Kelkar.
Kelkar, writing an editorial in Kesari on 28 Dec 1909, deplored Jachson’s murder, and described him as a friend of learning and sympathetic to Indians, a cultured Englishman who had won the affection of Indians.
VD Savarkar himself never vilified Jackson - despite referring to him on multiple occasions.
He called Jackson an erudite and friendly Sanskrit scholar, and did not assign any subversive motive to his scholarship. (More later in the thread) 6/
So, Was Jackson’s assassination anything to do with his scholarship or any alleged subversive project he was running?
Let us hear from the horse’s mouth.
All primary and serious secondary sources (court records, Abhinav Bharat documents, Savarkar’s writings, and nationalist commentary) — converge on one point — best summarized by Savarkar ji himself:
“History shall remember Pandit Jackson as a lover of India’s lore; yet history shall also remember that an empire that rules by chains drives even its best servants to die by the sword.” (In a private letter, 1940. हिन्दुत्व इतिहासाचे पन्ने 1995, Vikram Samvatkar - translation mine)
“Jackson was a scholar and a lover of Sanskrit, but he was still a servant of a tyrannical Government…, though he may have been good as a man, as an agent of tyranny he had to fall.” (Chitale Guruji & Gajanan Katre, Savarkar Smarak Samiti, Poona 1950s - in biography compiled under Savarkar’s supervision himself)
In माझी जेल यात्रा (1927), Savarkar clearly explains the motive of the Nashik assassination:
“Those young men of Nashik, burning with anguish at the unjust punishment of my brother, resolved to show that Indians would not forever suffer tyranny in silence. Their act was born of love for the motherland, of fury at injustice, and of the resolve to awaken a fallen nation.”
“We mourn the man, not the system he served. The blow fell not on Jackson the scholar, but on Jackson the Collector — the symbol of the Empire.” 7/
नाशिकचा विप्लव (1915) - “Babarao was sentenced to transportation for life. Among the youth of Nashik a flame of wrath was kindled. Collector Jackson was the functionary of that injustice. Before he departed, he must meet the bullet of a son of Mother India — that was our vow.”
“To Savarkar, Jackson was not an enemy in flesh and blood but the living emblem of a tyrannical system.” (GB Mehendale, Nasik Conspiracy Case, 1979)
“Savarkar regretted the loss of a man of learning, but held that under slavery even noble men become tools of oppression.” (BC Bhat, The Life of Veer Savarkar 1966)
In copious material on the assassination rationale (अभिनव भारत यांचे इतिहास 1938, अनंत कान्हेरे चरित्र by VB Kolte 1959 etc) - Jackson is seen as “विद्वान असला तरी… परकीय राज्याचा हात” - a virtuous scholar but an instrument of colonial tyranny. 8/8
Conclusion
In conclusion:
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No evidence that Jackson ran any subversive anti-Brahmin project or moved in such circles. Contrary to it.
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No proof he supported Shivaji as a “secular king” — if anything, The Grand Rebel reflected a very Hindu identity of Shivaji, and reverence to him.
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No Abhinav Bharat or Savarkar source links their motive being about Jackson as an individual — all saw him as a scholar — they targeted him simply because he was collector of Nashik and responsible for senior Savarkar’s arrest etc.
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The “social-reformer Jackson” trope is a 1990s myth.
I think we should not vilify an Indologist assigning him motives, just because he became a victim of revolutionary activity - he was just a man in the wrong place at a wrong time.