Relevance of Mahatma Gandhi in Canada

- By Dr. Neeta Khandpekar*

Abstract

Gandhi's legacy is significant for both of them owing to have faced problems of separatism and secession in specific areas. Canada's accord of 1992 (though failed) was an act of political courage, an experiment at once educative and conciliatory which is perhaps the only way of fusing a multicultural society into a nation. Even today we read news headlines like "IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF THE MAHATMA, GLOBAL MAHATMA". And in fact Martin Luther King Jr, Dalai Lama, Aung San Suu Kyi, Nelson Mandela, Adolfo Perez Esquivel were inspired by Gandhiji's philosophy and practice and have been awarded the Nobel Prize across the world. Gandhi is now a global icon and a mystical figure rolled into one. In the twentieth century Non-violence has achieved many successes. The American Civil Rights Movement of the 1960's led by Martin Luther King Jr. culminated in political rights for African-Americans. Communism collapsed in Eastern Europe when confronted with non-violent resistance, led by forces like Solidarity in Poland and Charter 77 in Czechoslovakia. In 1986, a massive show of people's power toppled Ferdinand Marcos's dictatorship in the Philippines. The armies refused to fire on the people after being convinced by them - Photographs of girls offering roses to men manning the tanks are still etched in memory to support the pro-democracy movement. Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu played a major role in South Africa's relatively peaceful transition from apartheid to a democracy that granted blacks political rights. Esquivel an Argentinean was the founder of Peace and Justice, a pan-Latin American civil rights movement in the 1970s that adopted non-violence as its credo at a time when the continent was gripped by violent conflict. This paper will focus on twenty first century issues especially in Canada and its solutions in Gandhian thought.

With Nations as with individuals the present is always dominated by the past. What Canada is today, what it will be tomorrow, are inevitably influenced by its special line of historical evolution. India and Canada as nations have identical issue of preserving political unity in cultural diversity. Both are multi-lingual, multi-cultural states and have been fashioned by European imperialism and Colonialism.¹ Having faced problems of separatism and secession in some areas, Gandhi's legacy is significant and important for both of them. India's evolutionary struggle for the independence² was given a big non-violent shape by Gandhi. Canada's multi-cultural personality lies in its strength. It lets everyone live on its soil as equals. It is an ethnic salad bowl. Canada is marked as a unique among the nations of the American hemisphere for her process of achieving nationhood.³ Canadians are proud of maintaining that they combine the best in the New and the Old worlds and they have received what is vigorous and progressive in American thought and material improvement. Canada's growing separate international identity was reflected in the practice- started in 1915 and continuing to the present day.⁴ Canada's history is a very interesting study. The two dominating factors that have produced the Canada of today are 1) Human Courage and Endurance and 2) Geography of this Vast and Marvellous land.

It's a saga of man's adventurous spirit in the face of every kind of hardship, and a salute to the two great races The British and The French who began the conquest of Canada.

Let us not forget the two C's Cartier⁵ and Champlain⁶ in the history of Canada.

Jacques Cartier claimed Canada for France in 1534. Champlain was an essentially good man whose goodness was appreciated by the Indians. He was an idealist who aimed to found Canada on justice and mercy and whose passion for discovery was never satisfied. Tough and determined he survived what would have destroyed or thwarted others, and thereby laid the enduring foundations of a nation.⁷

Canada remained a French colony for a century and a half and was zealously maintained as a catholic country. Jesuits, Sulpicians and other religious orders sent their representatives to Canada. During this period the soldier was in search of adventure and glory, the missionary in quest of souls, the fur trader eager to find new regions for hunting and trapping. All proved able to cope with the hardships and dangers of the wilderness.⁸

The devotion of the Jesuit⁹ Mission to the Hurons. In 1648-49 Iroquois destroyed the Huronian villages. The hideous death of eight Jesuit priests¹⁰ constitute one of the great epics of Christendom. The Canadian poet E.J. Pratt has commemorated them unforgettably in his epic poem Brebeuf and His Brethren (1940) by telling how the Iroquois multiplied living martyrdoms.

The missionaries literally went through fire and water in their martyrdom.¹¹ Those who survived helped in the work of colonization and those who died untimely have left an enduring mark on the history of Canada.¹²

By 1759-60 the French forces were defeated by British. With the Treaty of Paris in 1763 the French Sovereignty in Canada ended. There was little feeling in Paris over the loss of this distant and little known possession. Voltaire remarked that France was lucky to have got rid of some acres of snow. Hence though the French Canadians have a cultural link with France, the matter very much ends there. They have no sympathy with France, the political entity. They feel abandoned by her. They recall after more than 250 years that when the British routed the soldiers of France and deprived her of the Canadian colonies the mother country wrote Quebec¹³ off as something lost and gone forever. The French Canadian therefore wants no active connection with France and still less with the United States. He looks at his fellow countrymen Protestants though they be, and finds them by far the least of many evils.¹⁴ By force of circumstances, he has become part of a great country and a great ideal and however reluctant he might be to admit it, he is secretly proud of the fact. In national affairs he takes his proper place and produces sons whose voices are heard in the Parliament Building in Ottawa. Also it was the French Canadian George Etienne Cartier, a moving spirit behind the formation of Canadian Confederation in 1867. He was perhaps the first to use “new nationality" phrase in the Confederation debates and to stoutly defend it.

The French Canadian is of tremendous value to the Dominion as a binding cohesive force. In all this the Church plays a part. Roman Catholicism has many voices. Its dogma -the way it gets to grips with everyday problems- is extremely flexible. Organized religion has been an important factor in the cultural life of Canada from the earliest days. Today the protestant Churches, being organized on a Dominion, not a provincial, basis, have done much to unify Canada. Home missions are for the country at large; during the recent hard years on the Prairies the acute distresses of the people were alleviated by generous Church help from east and west. Most of the clergy in the west have been trained in eastern colleges. It may be said with confidence that the religious life flowing strongly from ocean to ocean invigorates a healthy national spirit.¹⁵ Gandhi was always for spiritual freedom. In the preface of his autobiography Gandhi declared that his devotion to truth had drawn him into politics, that his power in the political field was derived from his spiritual experiments with himself.¹⁶ In 1946 he wrote in his weekly Harijan¹⁷ ‘Mankind has to get out of violence only through non-violence. Hatred can be overcome only by love. Counter-hatred only increases the surface as well as the depth of hatred'.

The French speaking Canadian has resisted Anglicization and Americanization with equal vigour,. He has enjoyed the insulation of a separate language. But something new has been added to the French-Canadian outlook. The bon Canadien of the province of Quebec today envisages the United Nations as the fragile chalice which holds man's hope for a peaceful and orderly world society, and not all the demagogues in his midst can immure him behind the Great Wall of his language, his religion and his system of education.¹⁸

Kingsley Fairbridge, himself a South African, the founder of the Fairbridge Farm Schools Society (died in 1924) conceived in his youth and retained to the end of his life a noble vision, to him poverty and waste in any part of the empire were the concern of all. In her own interest the empire should grid her loins to her economic task in the world as a united whole. Twenty years ago he wrote “We should waste nothing of our flesh and blood, nor of the Imperial soil from which we spring..... we are to build up passionately the brain and heart and soul of the children of the Empire however laborious and unheroic the task".  Today the Fairbridge Farm School is situated in Cowishan Valley in Vancouver Island . It's a training school for citizenship.¹⁹ In India there are Gandhiji's Ashrams especially in Ahmedabad and Sevagram conducting youth awareness camps. At Sevagram spinning is part of daily prayers. All food is grown on the site and the people lead a simple life. Gandhi believed if we work with our hands and feet, our intellect gets sharpened.

Economic and cultural structure changed in first half of the twentieth century in Canada.The war of 1914-18 effected great changes in Canada which had put more than 600,000 men under arms (great number of Canadians served brilliantly in Imperial forces especially in Air forces.) Result was great increase in the autonomy of the Dominion.²⁰ Conservative Leader Sir Robert Borden emerged from the war period and insisted on Canada's separate signature on the Treaty of Versailles and on separate membership in the League of Nations for each self-governing Dominion. (for his speech on Sept 2 1919 for Canadian House of Commons see details on Page 13 to 22 of Gotlieb, Canadian Treaty Making). The Prime Minister from 1911 to 1920 Sir Robert a firm and foreseeing leader insisted on Canada's standing as a distinct nation. Also the First World War increased her exports of Forest products from $ 43,000,000 in 1914 to $148,000,000 in 1918. Manufacture exports from $67,600,000 to $ 519,600,000, minerals $ 59,200,000 to $ 145,000,000.

Canada has given a second home to many people of different nationalities. There are, according to the 1931 census more English people than Scots or Irish. Emigrants are from every European country Japan, China, Ukrainians, Finns, Poles, Russians, Germans, Greeks, and Scandinavians etc. It is wonderful how well they settle. The influence of so many different nationalities has brought a variety of religions into Canada. Freedom of religion has always been a prerogative of Canadian people from earliest days, Indians and Eskimos practiced their Ceremonial rites as in subsequent era's newcomers and many other races likewise observed their religious practices.²¹ Gandhi was a Karmayogi²², as a religious man of action in society and politics he advocated the application of moral values in personal life.²³ Gandhi had an innate love for scriptural wisdom and teachings.²⁴ In South Africa Gandhi's whole lifestyle changed. The non-violent methods he pioneered and the political triumphs he had already achieved were based on deep spiritual beliefs.

In Canada there are many followers of the Orthodox Greek Church, and some sects with strange customs, like the Dukhobars, Mennenites, Huttenrites and Mormons.

Also the Parliament of Canada with only 2 dissenting voices voted for the free participation of Canada in Second World War. During Second world war, war industry provided a new urban magnet, the movement of population from farms(from Prairie Province) to cities of Central Canada and British Columbia. The Second World War had much advanced Canada's own power, international standing and sense of responsibility. If the First World War made Canada a Nation, Second World War may be said to have made her a medium power.²⁵

By 1950 Canada was an adult nation; still young, still with vast empty regions and room for development.²⁶ The Canadians were no longer the settlers and pioneers seeking new homes in the wilderness but farm owners and wage-earners searching for security in a country that was already well built up. They still remembered their past of nation-building and did not expect that process to stop. Canada depends on world trade for the livelihood of its people, has trade links with US, UK Commonwealth and Western Europe and rest of the World²⁷- so world prosperity and peace is important for Canada.

True to its role as a Middle Power²⁸, Canada continued to play an active part in the field of international relations. The federal government displayed an increased awareness of its social responsibilities. New welfare legislation was passed and the government also adopted policies for the deliberate encouragement of a native Canadian culture.²⁹ Efforts are also on to bring the deprived First Canadian aboriginals into the main stream of Canadian life by fulfilling their legitimate aspirations. Gandhiji wanted to develop the self even in the poorest of the poor and with this aim, he himself lived a very simple life based on voluntary poverty and simplicity.³⁰

Its accord of 1992 (though failed) was an act of political courage, an experiment at once educative and conciliatory which is perhaps the only way of fusing a multicultural society into a nation. Even today we read news headlines like “IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF THE MAHATMA, GLOBAL MAHATMA". And in fact Martin Luther King Jr,³¹ Dalai Lama, Aung San Suu Kyi, Nelson Mandela, Adolfo Perez Esquivel were inspired by Gandhiji's philosophy and practice and have been awarded the Nobel Prize across the world. Gandhi is now a global icon and a mystical figure rolled into one. According to author, humanist and political commentator Khushwant Singh only Mahatma Gandhi would have been able to arouse mass consciousness to halt corruption spreading all around.³² In the twentieth century Non-violence has achieved many successes. The American Civil Rights Movement of the 1960's led by Martin Luther King Jr. culminated in political rights for African-Americans. Communism collapsed in Eastern Europe when confronted with non-violent resistance, led by forces like Solidarity in Poland and Charter 77 in Czechoslovakia. In 1986, a massive show of people's power toppled Ferdinand Marcos's dictatorship in the Philippines. The armies refused to fire on the people after being convinced by them-Photographs of girls offering roses to men manning the tanks are still etched in memory to support the pro-democracy movement. Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu played a major role in South Africa's relatively peaceful transition from apartheid to a democracy that granted blacks political rights. Canada had condemned in the strongest terms the practices of apartheid and racial discrimination in South Africa as being a denial of fundamental human rights. It repeatedly made known to the South African Government its desire to see a change in the policies practiced by the government and an end to repressive measures. Canada participated in an international boycott of S Africa in the area of sports, maintained an embargo on the export of military equipment or spare parts to South Africa in accordance with resolutions of the Security Council adopted in 1963-1970.³³ E. S. Reddy wrote “I believe that Gandhi had an impact not only on the oppressed people of South Africa but also on the Whites and the legacy of Gandhi was one of the factors which made possible the miracle of reconciliation which helped transform South Africa in 1990's to a non racial democratic state.³⁴

Esquivel an Argentinean was the founder of Peace and Justice, a pan-Latin American civil rights movement in the 1970s that adopted non-violence as its credo at a time when the continent was gripped by violent conflict.

Canadian Literature had become much more analytical and self-critical poetry largely turned from landscape to the people of Canada. Gandhi believed that human being as an individual has been ignored in history and he wanted future history to be the history of the people.³⁵ Some interesting and original writers whose special savior comes from the Canadian scene focusing people is as stated below.

Stephen Leacock important Canadian novelist of early twentieth century and an admirable humanist‘s classic work is “Nonsense Novels". His masterpiece, the delightful “Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town" is a mellow Dickensian evocation of life in an Ontario Community. Leacock gave shape to Canadian story by telling it from his own point of view.  Most popular novelists Mazo de la Roche has created an admirable saga of the white Oaks family in which she tells delightfully of the way of life in an old House in Ontario. Other Novelist is Martha Ostenso, Frederick Philip Grove and Robert Stead.  Settlers of the Marsh (1925) by Grove, Wild Geese (1925) by Martha and Grain (1926) by Robert Stead, all these three works signaled a trend toward greater realism in Canadian novels.³⁶ In “Our Daily Bread" and an autobiography “A Search for America" Mr. Grove gave serious consideration to the question of national responsibility facing the Canadian.  His writing observed the problems of ordinary life in the West. By 1940's Younger writers like Bruce Hutchison, Hugh Maclennan and William Mitchell were striving to express the essence of Canada and the Canadian scene. Their efforts were the sign of a more mature nationalism, no longer so self-confident, but filled with a deeper consciousness of Canada. Sinclair Ross's remarkable novel ‘As for me and my House' provides moving exploration of Human mind. Written in (1941)diary form, this work records the experience of one Philip Bentley and his wife in the desolate town of Horizon; it is a relentless record of frustration and desperate hope of the prairies during the depression years.³⁷  Women writer Mavis Gallent's Stories give expression to the menace of war and its repercussions on human beings. Ms Audrey Alexandra Brown's Narrative Poems and works of Marius Barbeau are well read. Canadian fiction37 deals with immigrant experience, Gandhi too was an immigrant to South Africa for 21 years and in 1908 he spoke of his vision of a South African nation in which all the different races commingle and produce a civilization that perhaps the world has not yet seen which has come true with the end of apartheid.

In a vast country like Canada where distances are hard to overcome, it is impossible to generalize the way people work or enjoy. Ontario is very like life on big farm in England.  Montreal and Toronto have, all diversions of big cities coupled with vigorous university and intellectual life. Quebec has a strong Roman Catholic majority French speaking, other areas have protestant majority. The difference of opinion as to the treatment of the French language is the chief source, and a very constant source, of political dispute between the French-speaking minority in Canada and the majority.³⁸ Although the special privileges of the Roman Catholic Church in respect of education are safeguarded in the province of Quebec. But the Protestant Minority in Quebec and Roman Catholic Minority in Ontario have denominational schools which they had at the time of the passing of the Act of 1867³⁹, which means in effect the right to a separate school system. Gandhi studied Christianity through the New Testament, read Carlyle and Leo Tolstoy's The Kingdom of God is within you and Ruskin's Unto This Last. Unto this Last touched the inner chord of Gandhiji's own social philosophy and helped him charter the course of action for the rest of his life. Canadians love sport and healthy outdoor activity which matches with active Shramdan in ashram life which Gandhi envisaged.

Drawing together of three contrasted elements:

Canada has great traditions of three peoples whose meeting and blending is Canada. In institutions- freedom of thought and speech, self-government, and the common law - Canada lives upon an English inheritance tough much has been added from the rich experience of old France. In blood and language the descendants of the French pioneers. Special allegiance and thinking many of the thought of their neighbours in the united states. Thus Canada is linked by history heredity and geography to the above three nations. This drawing together of three contrasted elements is comparatively new and it has also a bewildering influence on Canadian literature as discussed above. There have in the past been fierce disputes between English and between the US and Canada. But many of the controversies have subsided from quarrels into differences of opinion among friends.

A Series of Canadian Prime Ministers, from Sir John A Macdonald down to Mackenzie King, have been the architects of the new relationship of the British nations as it was finally stated in a simple document known as the Statute of Westminster. Such national leaders as Macdonald, Laurier⁴⁰, Borden and King wrought great deeds in the shaping of this nation. All of them were prime ministers of Canada and were lawyers like Gandhi and were his contemporaries. Macdonald a man of great personal charm with a quick wit faced many obstacles but created Canadian confederation, even Gandhi faced many obstacles while leading the freedom struggle in India. Sir Wilfrid Laurier an outstanding orator was well known for his policies of conciliation and compromise between French and English Canada. He argued for an English-French partnership in Canada. Gandhi always worked for strengthening Hindu-Muslim unity in India. His devotion and sacrifice melted hearts of many muslims, who realized that he was the only man who was always eager to serve the suffering people irrespective of religions and creeds.⁴¹ Obsession with power, money and self are the addictive forms of human bondage and hence they should be liberated from these obsessions, administering love and non violence in all social actions was Gandhi's important technique. Borden gave women the right to vote in national elections(1918) Gandhi used mass participation of women in all his movements. King William Lyon Mackenzie served as Prime Minister of Canada three times between 1921-1948. As a university student his research into labour problems brought him to the attention of Liberal Party leaders. He skillfully led Canada through second world war.⁴² As a boy Mackenzie's motto was Help those that cannot help themselves, Gandhi's views too were similar.

Gandhain thoughts are becoming more and more relevant in today's times particularly for the students as they are leading stressful lives owing to competition in every field; he has shown us the way to lead a life with humility and simplicity, which each of us must remember. He cultivated love and tolerance of other people and was usually loved and deeply respected by the people he opposed. Gandhi was able to disarm many of his opponents by the example of his ‘suffering without vengeance'. He is an inspiration to the struggle for peace in the East, West, North and South. This explanatory paper thus covers about Canada and how Gandhian thought is very relevant in this huge country.

I conclude with a poem by Subramania Bharati⁴³

To Mahatma Gandhi: A Pentad

Hail, Gandhi, my master, come
To put new life in a land
Degraded, poverty-striken,
Her freedom crumbled like sand;
Utterly ruined, unique
In the world for sheer distress-
Rejuvenate her, Mahatma,
India, our age-old mistress!
A simple scheme whereby
Slavery will cease,
And all our countrymen
Advance and get increase
Of riches and knowledge and wisdom,
And learn to be darers and doers-
This you invented, foremost of men,
Fame amaranthine is yours!
How shall I praise you? To whom compare?
Him who brought the Himalayan herb
To counter the cruel serpentine arrow?
Or him who the Thunderer's conceit to curb
Put up a hill as it were an umbrella?
The corrosive ulcer of utter dependence
Cureless and endless, you will cure now-
With how simple a simple, what magical sense!
To look on your enemy as your own self,
Even him who plans your perdition;
To look on every living thing
As of God's works a sacred edition;
To bring into politics that bloody arena
Of vengeance and contrived disaster,
A large-hearted wisdom, religion, philosophy-
How novel, how daring, my master!
The broad road, the war road, of all out destruction,
For that you have nothing but contempt;
The straight path and narrow of service unselfish,
O pilgrim, it is this you attempt.
To fight without rancor for freedom and nationhood,
Non co-operate with those that would thrall men-
This is your way of salvation for India,
Peace on earth, good will to all men!

References

1. J.V. Naik, 'Nationalism in India and Canada: An overview' in D N Jha,(ed)., Proceedings of 53rd Session of Indian History Congress (Warangal : Indian History Congress, 1993), p.33.
2. Few of us know that Canada has played its own major role in India's freedom struggle. It was from Canada that the first group of non-resident Indians came to India to take part in the Gadar Movement of 1914.
3. George W Brown, Canada (USA: CUP, 1954),  p.3.
4. A E Gotlieb, Canadian Treaty Making (Toronto: Butterworths, 1968), p.4.
5. He was sailor and explorer
6. Samuel de Champlain was a religious and widely travelled person, founded Quebec in 1608.
7. J Bartlet Brener, Canada: A Modern History (USA: The University of Michigan Press, 1960), p.28.
8. William Henry Chamberlin, Canada Today and Tommorrow (London: Robert Hale, 1942), p.5.
9. The “Relation” or reports of the Jesuits are an invaluable source of information about Indian life.
10. In 1930 these eight saints were only canonized saints in North America
11. See pages of Francis Parkman.
12. Lady Tweedsmuir, Canada (London:Penns in the Rock Press, 1942), p.10.
13. The Quebecqueis are devout. They go to mass in their hundreds of thousands and because the church has adapted herself to their particular needs . She continues to get their very loyal support.
14. Edward Westropp, Canada Land of Opportunity  (London: Oldbourne Book, 1951), p.34.
15. It had been a practice with Gandhi to read out to the people (especially in prayer meetings) selected writings from Koran, Bible and Hindu Scriptures and told the meanings of them.
16. Jai Narain Sharma, Power, Politics and Corruption: A Gandhian Solution (New Delhi: Deep and Deep Publication, 2004), p.101.
17. Harijan issue July 7 1946.(Harijan Weekly was started by Gandhi in 1933), p.5.
18. Leslie Roberts, Canada, the Golden Hinge (Great Britain: George G Harrap and Co Ltd, 1953), p.11.
19. Canada Reprinted from The Times London ( May 1939) , p.71
20. B.K. Sandwell, Canada  (Toronto: OUP, 1941), p.100.
21. Canada Year Book, Canada One Hundred 1867-1967, p.426.
22. According to Gandhi Karmayogi is an ideal man, leading a life of purity and perfection.
23. In his personal life Gandhi was a very “God-fearing” and religious man.
24. Anil Dutta Mishra, Gandhian Approach To Contemporary Problems (New Delhi: Mittal Publications, 1996), p.3.
25. Gerald S Graham, Canada A Short History, (London: Hutchinson's Online Library, 1930), p.168.
26. J.M.S. Careless, Canada: A Story of Challenge, (London: CUP, 1953), p.392.
27. Canada Nation on the March(Canada: George C Harrap and Company Ltd, 1954), p.4.
28. By 1950 Canada was generally regarded as a Middle Power like Argentina, Australia, Belguim, Brazil, India, Mexico, Netherland and Poland.
29. J Bartlet Brebner, Canada A Modern History, (USA: The University of Michigan Press, 1960), p. 529.
30. One of the most expensive pens in the world has recently been named after the man who voluntarily lived his life in near penury.
31. Martin Luther King agreed with Gandhi that no movement could gather momentum without morality. King inducted ethics of Christianity into democratic movement.
32. The Times of India Newspaper (2nd November 2011), p.5.
33. Canada and the United Nations 1945-1975, (Canada: Dept of External Affairs, 1977), p.103.
34. Anil Nauriya, The African Element in Gandhi, (New Delhi: Gyan Publishing, 2006), p.iii.
35. Ramjee Singh, S Sundaram, Gandhi and the World Order, (New Delhi: APH Publishing Corporation, 1996), pp. xiv.
36. World Book Millennium, Vol.3, p.159.
37. Sudhakar Pandey (ed) Perspectives on Canadian Fiction, (New Delhi: Prestige Books, 1994), p.10.
38. Sandwell, The Canadian People(London: OUP, 1947), p.8.
39. The Act of 1867 provided for the immediate Union of what were then 3 separate provinces Canada, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.
40. Sir Wilfrid Laurier was the first French Canadian to become Prime Minister from 1896 to 1911.
41. Ratan Das, The Global Vision of Mahatma Gandhi, (New Delhi: Swarup and Sons, 2005), p.258.
42. World Book Millennium, Vol 11, p.324.
43. P.S. Sundaram, Poems of Subramania Bharati (Delhi: Vikas Publishing House, 1983), p.4.

Acknowledgment

UGC, New Delhi for providing the Travel Grant.

This paper was presented at the Conference on Gandhi in Canadian Context: An interdisciplinary concept held under the auspices of the Canadian Society for the study of Religion, Ontario, Canada, May 26-29, 2012.

* Dr. Neeta Khandpekar, D.Litt, is Associate Professor, Department of History,University of Mumbai, Kalina, Mumbai - 400 098., India. | Email: neeta_khandpekar@yahoo.com