Tag: Shubha Khandekar

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Hum log

She cartoons around with history

Former journalist, now writer and archaeology student Shubha Khandekar talks about creating archaeological cartoons and studying history with a sense of humour.
by The Editors | editor@themetrognome.in

Let’s face it – we Indians are a ‘sensitive’ lot. Increasingly, everything hurts our feelings; unintended slights, a jokey reference to our history and culture, even a stray illustration about something Indian. But Shubha Khandekar loves taking a fond, humorous look at our history through cartoons – the former journalist and now writer and PR professional has been a dedicated archaeology student for the longest time, and wonders why we “can’t stick out our tongue at Kautilya, pull Anathapindika’s leg, make fun of the globe-trotting Aryans and the seafaring Harappans?”

In an interview, the 50-something Kalyan resident tells The Metrognome about being one of the few Indians drawing archaeological cartoons, how our apathy and callousness towards our archaeological wealth, why she wants a device that can see underground, and what those wishing to study archaeology should do.

When did you first develop an interest in archaeology?

I postgraduated in Ancient Indian History at Delhi University, after which archaeology was merely the next logical step forward. I did a one year PG diploma in archaeology from the School of Archaeology, Archaeological Survey of India, New Delhi, after which I went to the Deccan College Postgraduate and Research Institute in Pune for a Ph.D.

You’ve been a journalist for a major portion of your working life. How did you choose journalism when your natural inclination is towards archaeology?

I trained and worked as a journalist for over 25 years in Nagpur and Mumbai. Due to some domestic problems, I had to abandon my Ph.D. and take a short break from my studies. The break grew longer and longer and the opportunity to resume almost never came back until in 2012,  after a gap of 30 years – I came across Mugdha Karnik, director, Centre for Extra Mural Studies (CEMS), Mumbai University and Dr Kurush F Dalal, who teaches archaeology there.

And I simply got sucked into it, to join the one-year certificate course in archaeology with them!

Meanwhile, I’d taken up journalism for a living, and I am not too sorry about it as journalism gives one an exposure, vision and perspective that no other profession does. And come to think of it, journalism is reporting on the present and history/archaeology is reporting on the past: small difference!

How did you start making archaeology-related cartoons?

One tends to trivialise the art of cartooning till a cartoonist is thrown into jail! While at the Free Press Journal I had seen Pradeep Mhapsekar at work and had realised the enormous intellectual effort that goes into creating a single cartoon. I was fascinated by it and tried some amateur cartooning. In a contest for women cartoonists declared by the Marathi daily Loksatta I won a consolation prize.

Later, being in a PR company, I made some PR-related cartoons. What really triggered the archaeology-inspired cartoons was the robust, overabundant sense of humour with which Dr Kurush Dalal spiced up his lectures for us. Laughter began to burst through the cracks in academics and ArchaeoGiri (the Facebook page that Shubha uploads her archaeo-cartoons on) was born!

Are there many people who draw cartoons like you do?

No. At the international level, there are cartoons galore on Greek and Egyptian histories. Well-known characters – Noah, Moses, Cleopatra, Archimedes – all have meekly surrendered to the swish of the cartoonist’s pen. There is a whole Asterix series cocking a snook at the mighty Romans. Cartoons on the Stone Age and cave men too are plentiful, but none reflect the features that are specific to the Stone Age in India.

Why can’t we stick a tongue out at Kautilya, pull Anathapindika’s leg, make fun of the globe-trotting Aryans and the seafaring Harappans? Perhaps because we don’t know these people well enough, we need to. Familiarity will breed banter. Perhaps because we take ourselves and our past too seriously although nobody else does. Our ‘feelings’ get hurt at the drop of a hat. Through ArchaeoGiri I have tried to pull historical figures out of boring textbooks and seat them at a modern Indian’s chai-nashta table for a hearty gupshup session.

What are some of the excavation trips you have been a part of?

I’ve been to Sringaverpur in UP and Inamgaon in Maharashtra. Shringaverpur was identified as a ‘Ramayana’ site and excavation was undertaken there under BB Lal. Inamgaon is a pre-iron age site near Pune where extensive work was done by Deccan College for about a decade.

If one wants to study the subject, what are the research tools available as of today?

It is essentially a postgraduate course, being offered at several universities. For lay enthusiasts in Mumbai, I would strongly recommend the certificate courses being run by the CEMS.

What is your comment on the current state of archaeology studies and research? 

At a personal level, those who are teaching me archaeology today would have been my students, had I continued my studies, but I have no regrets there. With their knowledge and scholarship, I feel honoured to be in their company as their student.

At another level, however, no country could be richer than ours in terms of archaeological wealth, and no people could be more callous and apathetic towards it. So enormous is this wealth that it can become a perennial source of infotainment, jobs and revenues, but we treat it with the utmost contempt. The state of explorations, excavation, publication, conservation leaves much to be desired. There is a strong case for public archaeology, but that can’t happen without political will and financial support. Despite the excellent work being done at CEMS, it has still not been possible to set up a full-fledged archaeology department there.

What’s on your archeo-wish list?

I would like a James Prinsep for the Harappan script. An Alexander Cunningham for every bit of architecture-sculpture lying orphaned in the wilderness.

A small museum at every district headquarter. A job for every archaeologist. A tool that can date stone artefacts. And equipment that can see underground.

(Shubha’s picture courtesy Pradeep Mhapsekar. Cartoons courtesy Shubha Khandekar)

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Learn

Asses on stones

Markers of a distinctive, historical past, stones showing donkeys in sexual congress with a woman abound in Mumbai and Maharashtra. Sadly, they are victims of neglect.

Shubha Khandekar spoke to Dr Kurush Dalal (in pic below), who teaches archaeology at the Centre for Extra Mural Studies (CEMS), Mumbai University and who has done extensive archaeological fieldwork in Chandore (Maharashtra), Sanjan (Gujarat) and Balathal (Rajasthan), about gadhegals, which have a quaint and fascinating history.

Shubha: What is a gadhegal?

Dr Dalal: A gadhegal is essentially a three-part stone slab in which the top part shows the sun and the moon, with or without a kalasha. The middle part consists of an edict, the shilalekha, which is usually the grant of a plot of land and sometimes of a house to a benefactor. The lowest part of this stone justifies its name gadhegal: it explicitly shows a donkey in sexual congress with a woman.

S: Why such a strange depiction?

Dr Dalal: A gadhegal needs to be seen in its totality, as therein lies its importance as historical source material.

The sun and moon symbolise perpetuity, the kalasha indicates prosperity. The graphic has evoked different interpretations: some feel that anyone who dares to violate the royal decree is being threatened with the most disgusting of punishments: that his mother would be violated by an ass. Others feel that it symbolically represents Mother Earth, and the ass (the vehicle of the goddess of pestilence and plague – Sheetaladevi) represents drought, famine, desolation that would come visiting anyone who defies the royal edict. A gadhegal is thus an Ass-Curse-Stone.

S: What is its significance for the study of history of Maharashtra?

Dr Dalal: These gadhegals are the markers of the Shilahara period as, being essentially land grants, they indicate the extent of the empire of the dynasty and sub-dynasties. The Shilaharas who reigned from the mid 10th to 13th centuries, were the first purely Maharashtrian dynasty that ruled the coastal areas of Konkan. They were initially the feudatories of the Rashtrakutas, who were responsible for the creation of such monumental beauties as the Ellora and Elephanta caves.

The earliest inscriptions in Marathi (in Maharashtra) are seen on gadhegals. A large number of early medieval land records and place names are also found on these gadhegals. The locations indicate the distribution of the cadet branches of the Shilahara dynasty, namely the Northern, the Southern and the Kolhapur Shilaharas. The language is either heavily Sanskritised Marathi or Sanskrit.

The word ‘gal’ means a stone in Kannada and is a common term associated with hero-stones (Veergal) and Sati-stones (Satigal) which saw their probable origins in Karnataka but they abound in Maharashtra too, and have evolved in a distinctive form. The gadhegals though are unique to the west coast of Maharashtra and Goa with a single exception from Gujarat.

Related to gadhegals are the sati stones and the hero stones. These often bear inscriptions in Karnataka but sadly not in Maharashtra. That is how the gadhegals in Maharashtra have evolved from their earlier avatars.

S: Where and how many gadhegals are there in Maharashtra and how are they different from those in Karnataka?

Dr Dalal: In Mumbai itself there are/were at least 12. There are about six or seven gadhegals with the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrhalaya in Mumbai. There is one at the Ram Mandir, near Charni Road, there is one from Nalasopara, one from Powai and one from Vasai. There is one recorded from Jogeshwari which is now in Portugal, and there are probably others in the environs of Greater Mumbai which haven’t been identified.

There are many more on the Western coast. One has been reported from Porbander, Gujarat, perhaps relocated from Maharashtra. Gadhegals are strewn in the belt from Thana to Goa. A few are inland: there are two at Tuljapur, one at Satara and a couple in Kalyan.

However, this being a poorly-researched subject, who knows how many would be lurking in the fields, homes and shrines of the Konkan?

S: Which are the most famous gadhegals in Maharashtara?

Dr Dalal: Eminent Marathi scholar SG Tulpule has identified a gadhegal at Akshi (there are two here) close to Alibaug in the Raigad district as the first ever inscription in chaste, though archaic, Marathi. It is a land grant by King Keshideva. Fortunately, it has a date on it: Shaka 934, which works out to 1012 CE, which means, as of today, this gadhegal is exactly 1,000 years old! This should have been the occasion for great celebration. But instead, we see only neglect, apathy and ignorance from all quarters! Wind, rain and sun have almost completely erased the inscription today due to our apathy.

Another at Diveagar issued by King Anantadeva records the donation of land and a house. It is datable to 1137 CE. This gadhegal, whose original provenance is not known, was rediscovered and reinstated by the efforts of the Centre for Extra Mural Studies (CEMS), Mumbai and India Studies Centre (INSTUCEN) Trust.  Two more in a damaged state have also been found in the vicinity.

Interestingly, a gadhegal issued by King Aparaditya I, originally at the Jogeshwari caves, was taken to Cintra in Portugal and was published from there. It has 22 lines in Nagari script which record a donation of houses to important people in the royal court.

What are your suggestions for the conservation of gadhegals?

The inscriptions are in low relief and hence they get weathered and worn out fast. Intensive conservation efforts are needed to protect this heritage. A simple initial step could be the erection of a small shed over the stones and a careful photographic recording along with their impressions.

CEMS is currently working on three gadhegals at Diveagar and another one close by at Deokhol.

For conservation it is necessary to harness popular support by making the people aware of what these gadhegals are.

Possibly with the best of intentions, the villagers often wash and scrub them, and coat them with vermilion. This has to stop. They must be told not to move them and instead erect a shed around them for protection against the sun and rain. The historic gadhegal at Akshi has weathered so much that but for a faint trace of some letters, all of it is blank!

Private agencies and the local Government must come forward to create resources for the conservation and the government must provide generous support. They are today lying in isolated places, scattered all over the countryside. We must create local museums where these artefacts are displayed. We should create fibre glass replicas for sale to generate revenue.

The tradition of gadhegals continues right up to the Bahamani period. At Dabhol has been found a gadhegal that has inscription in Arabic and Marathi, but no graphic representation.

If the local people, local panchayats and the State Government join hands and also get private agencies involved, conservation can bring knowledge, pleasure as well as revenues.

(Featured image courtesy Dr Kurush Dalal. Image shows an Akshi Gadhegal dated 1012 AD by SG Tulpule and which according to him contain(ed)s the oldest Marathi inscription in Maharashtra.)

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Event

‘Drop gory details, start being constructive’

This was lawyer Flavia Agnes’ advice to the media at the 10th annual meet of women journalists that concluded recently.
by Shubha Khandekar

Over 80 women journalists from different media and languages across the country went into introspection mode for two hours of intensive debate, when a panel of six speakers from within and outside the media showed how improved coverage by media can help creating safer public spaces for women.

Offering her perspective on media’s constraints, Meenal Baghel, Editor, Mumbai Mirror, candidly admitted the lapses on the part of her publication in the past, while urging the Network of Women in Media (NWMI) to continue with its gender sensitisation training sessions for journalists in the newsroom. This was at the open session on ‘Women, Violence and the Public Space: How the media can tell that story better’ organised by NWMI in Mumbai on Saturday, February 2, as part of its three-day convention to celebrate a decade of its birth.

“Media’s voyeuristic appetite for gruesome details is insatiable,” pointed out Flavia Agnes, eminent lawyer at the forefront of the women’s movement. “This does nothing to help the victims, who do not wish to be labelled as victims all their lives. Media should end the hypocrisy of naming every single detail of the victim’s life except her name, and must help her in rebuilding her life after the trauma.”

The overall theme of the convention was ‘Women, Violence and the Media’, chosen for its topicality against the backdrop of the recent brutal rape-murder of a young woman in Delhi, which triggered unprecedented public outrage across the country.

The statement issued by the NWMI at the conclusion of the convention strongly calling for more sensitive reporting, urges the media to be a part of the solution and not of the problem of women already traumatised by violence. The statement makes a special note of the thousands of girls and women all over the country who have been physically, sexually, psychologically abused and injured or killed, and appeals for due media attention to sexual violence perpetrated on dalits and adivasis, as well as women in militarised zones, where security forces are granted impunity by law.

At the public event on Saturday, Harish Sadani, who heads the NGO Men Against Violence and Abuse (MAVA), Nandita Gandhi, Co-Director of Akshara, Lina Mathias, Senior Assistant Editor with EPW, and Anandita Sengupta, feminist blogger at Ultraviolet, offered guidelines and practical suggestions on how the media can help a survivor of violence cope with and overcome the trauma , rather than titillate and pry into private lives which intimidate and alienate the victim.

The convention also held discussions on ‘Struggles for survival and violence against women: the role of the media’. Lina Mathias drew attention to the steady erosion of Mumbai’s robust  tradition of collective action to demand accountability, and pointed out that women cannot possibly remain safe if the social and political culture has degenerated, making everybody unsafe. In a session on ‘Revisiting media coverage of the 1992-93 Mumbai riots’ explored Pratap Asbe, former Political Editor, Maharashtra Times, Meena Menon, Chief of Bureau, The Hindu, Mumbai, and author of Riots and After in Mumbai, Jyoti Punwani, who has done extensive reporting on the riots and their aftermath over  the past 20 years, Shahid Latif of Inquilab and Sukanya Shetty from the Indian Express explored nuances of coverage by the English, Urdu, and Marathi media and discussed learnings for the future.

The session on ‘Virtual Violence: Are Sections 66A and 67 of the IT Act the answer?’ discussed such forms of violence on the Internet as virtual stalking, harassment, abuse, impersonation, or unauthorised transmission of private photographs, and whether the legal remedies available are useful and adequate.

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Big story

Off with his hands! (And feet. And eyes)

Shivaji’s punishment for rape was to sever the man’s hands and feet, or gouge out his eyes, ancient manuscript reveals.
by Shubha Khandekar

That Maratha warrior king Shivaji was a ruler and a thinker way ahead of his times is well-documented, but a recent historical discovery has once again underlined this fact. At a time when might was right, and women were often commodified to the extent that they were included in the spoils of war, Shivaji’s orders for men who raped women were clear: cut off his hands and feet.

Historians in Pune have recently discovered a dated manuscript (see pic on left) in which Shivaji had ordered the hands and feet of the headman of a village in Maharashtra be cut off as punishment for raping a woman. In another incidence of rape, in which the accused was a military general who raped a woman who had defended Belwadi Fort before surrendering, Shivaji ordered that the man’s eyes be gouged out.

“This is the oldest and the most indisputably authentic manuscript of Shivaji,” said SM Bhave, secretary of the Bharat Itihas Samshodhan Mandal. The manuscript had mysteriously disappeared after it was originally reported by researcher SG Joshi  of the Mandal in 1929, 83 years ago. A Marathi translation of it was published in Vol II of the sources for the biography of Shivaji, compiled and published by the Mandal in 1930. The manuscript, wrapped safely in old handkerchiefs of a Mandal researcher, was rediscovered recently among old files in the Mandal office. The manuscript is written in the Modi script, which has been in use in Maharashtra for the past 700 years.

English translation of the manuscript of Shivaji (dated 20 Jilhez, according to the Mandal)

“From the office of Rajashri Shivaji Raje.

Scribes: Clerks Deshmukh and Deshkulkarni.

May it be known that while the headman Bavaji Bhikaji Gujar (Patil) was heading the said Ranje village, he committed an offence, which became known to Saheb  (Shivaji), following which he had him fetched here. On inquiry it was revealed that the news was true, whereupon his ancestral domain was merged with the royal kingdom and he was dismissed from the headman’s post after severing his hands and feet. At that time one of his relatives, namely Sonji Bajaji Gujar pleaded for getting the custody of Bavaji. In consideration of this request he was charged a fine of 300 Padshahi hons, after paying which Bavaji was handed over to him. Since Bavaji was childless and Sonji is his kin, Saheb compassionately passed on the headmanship to Sonji, for which he was asked to deposit  200 Padshahi hons into the royal treasury. May nobody hinder the carriage of this order. This original letter may be given to him for execution.”

The manuscript

“Our experts have thoroughly investigated, verified and confirmed the authenticity of the manuscript,” said historians Dr Anuradha Kulkarni  and Ajit Patwardhan in Pune. “It clearly mentions the name Bavaji Bhikaji Gujar (Patil), the headman of the Ranje village near Kondhanpur, and the punishment awarded to him by Shivaji, of cutting off his hands and feet for having misbehaved with a woman.”

Giving details of the above instance, Govind Pansare, whose booklet Who was Shivaji? sold 22,000 copies and has gone into four editions from 1988 to 1991, narrates that the Patil abducted the young daughter of a poor farmer and raped her, after which she committed suicide. The whole village, intimidated by the tyrannical Patil, sympathised but remained passive and helpless after the girl’s death. “But when Shivaji heard of it, he had the man arrested and brought to Pune, after which he pronounced the punishment to him,” the book says.

In another instance, described in the same book, Sakuji Gaikwad, a military general laid siege to the Belwadi fort, being defended by a courageous woman called Savitribai Desai in 1678. She held out for 27 days before surrendering. Euphoric over the victory, Sakuji captured the fort and raped the defeated Savitribai. As Shivaji got to know of it, he was infuriated and had Sakuji’s eyes gouged out. Sakuji was also thrown in jail for the rest of his life.

 

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