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Bhalachandra Nemade, a leading Marathi novelist, poet
and literary critic, was born in the Maharashtra village
of Sangavi in 1938. With a Ph. D. and D. Litt. from the
North Maharashtra University, he taught in many places
retiring from Gurudev Tagore Chair of Comparative
Literature at the University of Mumbai. |
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If we may
assume that the bhakti movement is the
most significant creative upsurge of the
Indian mind during the present millennium ,
no student of literary culture can ignore
the unique techniques of expression
developed within the Warkari Movement in
Maharashtra .The creative influence of this
movement has been felt in a variety of forms
by several social and political revolts in the
Indian subcontinent from Shivaji's rebellion in
the seventeenth century to Gandhi's in the
twentieth .In Maharashtra , to which the
present study is confined , the movement has
an unbroken tradition which can be traced back
to the thirteenth century on the eve of the
Muslim invasion of the kingdom of Deogiri.
Throughout these centuries there has hardly been
a period of any considerable length when the
Marathi - speaking people of India can be said
to have enjoyed peace and prosperity .Until
the rise of the Maratha kingdom in the middle
of the seventeenth century , society passed
through '' trying times '' under often fanatical
Muslim governments . That the Warkari movement ,
mostly led and sustained by the underprivileged
classes should arise in this time of national
catastrophe and , despite hostile conditions ,
develop quietly into the most influential mass
movement of rural Maharashtra , is the
triumphant result of the broad - based ,
autonomous and unique style that it generated
within itself .
Perhaps a brief
comparison with another major movement , that of
the Mahanubhavas , which was influential
predominantly in thirteenth century Maharashtra ,
would make the unique stylistic contribution of
the Warkaris more clear . The Mahanubhava
movement(1) was a Hindu monastic cult founded
by Chakradhar (1194 - 1276 ) and it too was
supported by the underprivileged classes ,
although their leaders were mainly learned
Brahmans . The cult preached radical values laid
down by Chakradhar principally equality and
brotherhood . It disregarded the Vedas ,
attacked Brahmanism , worshipped only one God
Krishna and prohibited worship of any other god
, and offered equal status to women and shudras
.After Chakradhar was killed in 1276 as a
result of the hatred he had aroused in the
arrogant supporters of Brahman orthodoxy , the
Mahanubhavas , unlike the Warkaris , failed to
improve upon their techniques of expression in
order to cope with the changing political
situation .For example , their tendency to
favour written as against oral culture increase
their dependence on bookish philosophy and
textual criticism .Their wearing of conspicuous
black dress and their secretive monastic
activities alienated them from the common people
.Their leadership , unlike that of the Warkaris
, came from the top instead of from the grass
roots .Their monastic establishments , free
association with women and shudras ,their
anti - Brahman philosophy and adoption out of
fear of several esoteric scripts - all these
characteristics made them ineffective in the
successive waves of fanaticism and orthodoxy
.Soon , therefore , this cult which once was
so influential , so revolutionary and so creative
in its literature , turned into a pale
reflection of itself and by the end of the
sixteenth century it had become an object of
ridicule within Maharashtra at large .The
Mahanubhavas prose works which were created in
the thirteenth century have great stylistic merit
, but being written they soon became obsolete
until in the twentieth century the cult began
to show signs of revival . |
