Peasants and Monks in British India.

• Author: Korom, Frank J.
• Position: Review

By WILLIAM R. PINCH. Berkeley and Los Angeles: UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS, 1996. Pp. xi + 242, map, table, notes, bibliography, 3 appendixes. $55 (cloth); $22 (paper).

In this solid historical study, William Pinch provides an in-depth examination of the role that Hindu monks played in the mobilization of rural farmers in Gangetic India during the struggle for independence. He begins with the well-known premise that the bulk of India's population is rural and agrarian, and that there is a great variety of monastic trends within the Hindu fold. Both points have, of course, been commented upon extensively in the historiographical literature, but less has been said about how monks and peasants have interacted over time in the interests of social justice. The particular focus of Pinch's book is the Ramanandisampradaya, the largest and most influential Vaisnava ascetic movement in north India, who trace their lineage back to Ramananda, the fourteenth-century sage from Banaras. The proclaimed aim of Peasants and Monks in British India is to explore how the lives of monks and peasants are intertwined through the related processes of religious identity-formation and the manipulation of caste for access to higher social status during the colonial era. Pinch is thus interested in the intersection of religion with political and social change. This is an important topic for both historians and students of contemporary India because it can shed light on, as Pinch states, "the ongoing crisis of religion and state in north India" (p. 3).

Pinch's justification for the volume hinges on the fact that much of the history written about agrarian movements during the colonial period only notes, but does not explain, the important role that religion plays in peasant rebellions. His argument, then, is that peasant movements are as much ideological, cultural, and religious as they are material, economic, and social. True enough, but we might ask if it is possible to expose and interpret the personal beliefs underlying an individual's faith. This would undoubtedly be problematic from a methodological and theoretical point of view. The author thus attempts to redefine "religion" in terms of political, social, and economic consequences to move beyond the predictable issues of labor, behavior, and rebellion. To make this shift, Pinch explores a wealth of documents in English, Hindi, and Urdu to reconstruct the collective "mental worlds" that provided meaning to...