His contribution in building a modern society
Gopalrao was endowed with a keen perspective of history and its place in understanding society. His views on religion were based on this edifice and hence infallible. He realised, then that the Brahmins and the Hindu society had overlooked the difference between customs and religious precepts. This had led to exclusion of logic from the belief system. He wrote and was the first writer to realise that the people must be aware of their history. Its understanding must be at all times guide the society to understand its present predicament.
He wrote that this knowledge and perspective must be applied to present social behaviour. In a living society, fresh ideas born out of knowledge ever present themselves, new States take birth and new revolutions occur resulting in change of laws. He was the first to mention that Laws are not God given but made by humans for their own betterment. This thinking is still being challenged by societies guided and controlled by religion. In the nineteenth century it was causing cerebral indigestion among scholars.
He said that the society must undergo transformation and to believe that laws are given by God is madness. He also wrote that the Vedas must be studied in a historical perspective. The Vedas too are man made and the Rishis were thinkers and writers of those times. The various branches of knowledge sprang and grew from what ancient thinkers saw and expressed.
Pertinently, he said that these thinkers and rishis were Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaishya and Shudras. At different times these men poured their wisdom into Vedas and Upanishads. He himself was a sanskrit scholar and had studied the scriptures. By encouraging people to join public libraries and read a variety of books, he exhorted young men to become rishis of modern times. In 1870 -80 such thoughts did not go well with scholars and he was condemned for criticising the Brahmins. However, as he indicated, the change in society did inevitably bring in fresh ideas and the outlook of communities changed.
Gopalrao’s criticism that the Brahmins were no more a learned lot because they only relied on scriptures and were not aware of the world outside. They did not care to know whence the white men came, their culture and their history. As such they had ceased to be Brahmins . In the same vein he criticised the Kshatriyas because had they retained their dharma, they would have been victorious against a handful of men. He criticised the Vaishyas because the Vaishyas had forgotten their skills of trading and allowed the British East India Company to do trading in India.
The adults should themselves become literate and send their children to schools. He was firm that the religious beliefs of those times were entrenched with superstition and customs like child marriage and Sati. Women’s education was prohibited. All these practices which had nothing to do with the Hindu religion were emphasised as God given. He therefore castigated the upper classes for keeping the society in chains. His 108 letters , shatpatre deal with several issues of those times and which show a far sightedness that is unparralelled.
In one letter he writes that changes kingdoms and empires occur all the time. If the historical events are recorded promptly and accurately, it helps the future generations to learn from the mistakes of the past. For him history was fundamental to understanding the present society. He writes that every substance has life and every human a history. To analyse defeat in a battle, it is not sufficient to study warfare , its techniques and instruments of war alone.
It is also important to study administrative structure, financial institutions , the thinking pattern of the ruling classes , academic standards of the times and social life of ordinary classes. This would give a broad perspective to analyse the causes and reasons for the fall of any social structure. He further writes that Indians never cared to place importance on recording historical evens as they occured. Due to many languages , dialects and scripts, the natural communication between peoples was hampered. 600 years of Islamic rule destroyed libraries and valuable knowledge stored in books and manuscripts.
People tended to shun material benefits and internal dissentions, religious differences, riots and social disturbances had made academic pursuit difficult. Sanskrit language almost became extinct. He notes that after hundreds of years, finally history and noting historical events has got a new lease of life and this will lead to publication of books.
It appears that Lokhitavadi Deshmukh was conscious and deeply interested in History. He wrote and published books on history of Gujarat, Rajasthan, Saurashtra, Udaipur, Sri Lanka (Ceylon) and other places.He published History of Hindustan, Part I but Part II remained unpublished. History must always be written factually, he said. This was contrary to the belief that history must be written to glorify natives so that it will fill them with pride. He was of opinion that factually written history helps readers to understand their own faults and rectify them. He has written that history must be written by noting the location and time of events accurately.
Indians have paid little attention to these details. It is difficult to separate facts from fiction. Indians have a circular notion of time which follows “ritus” but although rains follow summer and winter follows rainy season, the time keeps moving forward. This change is necessary to be noted and categorised. His main thrust was on how could our people improve ? Learning from History was one method. The other method was studying cultures, and knowledge systems of other nations. As long as our people were insulated, they could imagine they were greatest. But as people started travelling between nations, these notions crumbled.
