A L BashamAuthor(s): Romila ThaparReviewed work(s):Source: Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 21, No. 9 (Mar. 1, 1986), p. 381Published by: Economic and Political WeeklyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4375394 .Accessed: 03/10/2012 01:29

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the workers alternative employment in the Mahamaya Mines, 25 km away. This is an utterly lTghlak-like gesture. Being con- tractual workers, the RSP management, of course, has no obligation to provide even the barest of facilities, such as adequate water supply, housing, medical facilities or schools. Meanwhile if the workers go to Mahamaya, all the facilities that the Kokan Mines workers have themselves built up in Dalli Rajhara-hosues, each with an invest- ment of Rs 10,000 to 20,000, a primary school for 700 children, wells, as well as access to the CMSS-run Shaheed Hospital- will be lost to the workers. Losses in terms

of housing alone will amount to between Rs 1.5 and 2 crore.

This really brings us to the crux of the matter. The CMSS has heightened its com- paign against contractual status and for departmentalisation. The worker's patience is now at an end. the-BSP management, realising this, has lately undertaken a series of manoeuvres designed to harass the CMSS, and the Kokan Mines episode acquires its true significance when seen in this context. However, the CMSS is deter- mined to carry the fight on Kokan, as well as the battle for departmentalisation, to a victorious finish.

OBITUARY

A L Basham Romila Thapar

THE death of A. L Basham has been the passing away of a singular human being as well as of a scholar of considerable learning in the humanities. For many of us who worked with him as students and colleagues, the memory of these years encapsulates warm remembrances of friendship inter- meshed with scholarship.

In a sense Basham drifted into Indology. He began life as a poet and was recognised when he won an award for his poems and was 'discovered' among younger poets of great potential. The publication of his poems in 1935 was his first book and one about which he remained rather shy in later years. The poems were followed by a novel, "Golden Furrow", in 1939, after which he turned from literature to Indology. But he never lost his feel for language even when he was not publishing poetry. It is regretable that he did not have the time to do at least one of the things which was close to his heart, a translation of the Ramayana intc English. Those of us who read the excerpts on which he had worked feel the regret even more, for his translations were genuinely transcreations.

His interest in literature took him to lear- ning a large number of languages among which Sanskrit gained priority and this in turn led to extensive reading in the-reiigions of India. The history of religion, and of Hinduism in particular, remained his major focus. He turned repeatedly to the examina- tion of the transformations within Hindu belief and ritual, the leads linking it to earlier forms and the seeming departures from these. His doctoral dissertation on the Ajivika sect, "History and Doctrine of the Ajivikas", 1952, was an analysis of what 'might be termed a crucible time in the history of Indian religion. Incidentally, the book also established the importance of the Ajivika sect in the work of modern historians of this period, apart from adding a further dimension to the study of contem- porary religious movements such as those of Buddhism, Jainism and the Lokayata.

He was appointed to teach ancient Indian history at the University af London at the School of Oriental and African Studies.

Later he held the chair in Indian History at the same university with great distinction. It was during these years that he published in 1954 what has now become a classic on ancient Indian cultural history, "The Wonder that was India". His understanding of Indian culture drew on his extensive scholarship in the tradition of the best Indologists, and at the same time, he suf- fused it with a considered admiration for the civilisation which he viewed through a pers- pective of humanism. Many of his insights, placed quietly in the text, convert the book from a narrative into a thought-provoking essay. It is perhaps worth reminding our- selves that this book was to become seminal to many images which the world has about ancient Indian culture, and whether we fully end,orse these images or not, the importance of the book cannot be minimised.

His years in London were punctuated by visits to the sub-continent. He taught at Peredeniya in Sri Lanka and his lectures in various Indian universities drew large audiences. But his major impact, apart frpm his publications, was through his many students from the sub-continent who wrote their PhD theses under his guidance. For Basham, a student was a commitment, and irrespective of individual talent, he gave generously of his time and his considerable ability-a quality which is almost disappear- ing these days among well-established scholars. Some have even argued that Basham's concern for his students was at the cost of his being able to spend more time on his own research. For subsequent to "The Wonder that was India", his publications were largely collections of his own papers ("Studies in Indian History and Culture", 1964, and "Aspects of Ancient Indian Culture"' 1966) and the editing of collections of essays, some of his own and some of other scholars ("Papers on the Date of Kanishka ...", 1968, "The Civilisation of Monsoon Asia", 1974, "A Cultural History of India", 1975).

He left London University in the mid- sixties and moved to the Australian National University at Canberra hoping to build a centre for the study of Indian civilisation

along the lines on which he had frequently thought. This did not quite come off; never- theless during the period that he was there, it did become an important centre of Ipdian studies, largely because of his presence. It delighted him enormously to admit as his research students those who had worked under his earlier PhD students of London days-what he referred to as his "academic grandchildr=n".

He did not hesitate to recognise intellectual worth in others even when he was not in agreement with their ideas. He had a warm and enduring friendship for D D Kosambi in spite of his reservations about Marxist interpretations of Indian history. He appre- ciated the historical insight of many of Kosambi's theories and was instrumental in inviting him to deliver a course of lectures on Hinduism at the University of London in the mid-fifties, when few universities in India would have beeni willing to do so. Marxism was important to Indiah history in so far as it pointed towards new dimensions which required to be studied, but as a total explanation he found it inadequate in its em- phasis, as he saw it, on material causation.

Many of us who trained with him have moved ideologically in various directions, some quite far from his own. But this distance never prevented him from approv- ing, where he thought fit, the new directions and the emphasis on new aspects of the past; nor has it prevented some of us from recognising that even with ideological dif- ferences we still greatly respected-the scholar in him.

Basham was obviously the right person to have been brought to the Asi#tic Society in an attempt to put the institution on its feet igain. But unfortunately, he was not brought soon enough. In some ways it is touching that he should have spent his last days in India, a country to which he had given his best years, a society for which he had the greatest of affection tempered by occasional impatience.

THIRD WORLD CALLING

Feb. issue carries articles on:

* Pope vs. Liberation: Nicaragua. * Combating Cultural Imperia-

lism by Prof. Ngara, PVC, Zimbabwe Univ.

* Basics of Sri Lanka crisis. * Face to Face with Child POWs

of Iran. * Single copy: Rs 3/-

Six months: Rs 15/- Annual: Rs 30/- Students: Rs 10/- six months.

M.O. to Editor, 46/4754, H. S. Road,

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