Now this implies the following:

Indian nationalists were very conscious of their upper-caste mentality and they wanted to rationalise it.

Towards this end, Indian nationalists used the theory of Aryan race and sought through it, identification with the colonial administrators.

Keshab Chandra Sen was a typical representative of such nationalists.

Was Keshab Chandra Sen a representative Indian nationalist?

The career of Keshab Sen was that of a social reformer (a failed one at that), who according to Britannica Encyclopedia, ‘very nearly converted completely to Christianity’.

And even he did not make that comparison to rationalise his caste superiority through racial identity.



On the contrary, in that particular lecture he was giving, he was justifying the British rule in India as ‘not a chapter of profane history, but of ecclesiastical history’.

The quote was taken from a lecture Sen delivered in 1877, which in itself was urging Indians to be loyal to the British. He did talk of Europe now turning to ‘the priceless treasures which lie buried in the literature of Vedism and Buddhism’ but he did not in any way speak of any upper castes as being Aryans.

“The more loyal we are, the more we shall advance with the aid of our rulers in the path of moral, social, and political reformation”, Sen said among loud cheers from the audience, mostly derived from the ruling class.

After announcing 'the advent of the English nation in India’ as ‘a reunion of parted cousins’, he declared that ‘they had met together under an overruling Providence, to serve most important purposes in the Divine economy.’

Now, this in any way cannot be construed as the voice of Indian nationalists or rationalisation of any ‘upper caste’ position. But note how she juxtaposes the words ‘Indian nationalist side’, ‘upper caste Indian’ and ‘Aryan’ together and makes Keshab Sen quote to provide authenticity to the association.

So the gullible student is put under an academic hypnosis to think of Indian nationalism, which is usually associated with Swami Vivekananda and Sri Aurobindo, both of whom used the word ‘Arya’ frequently but in an entirely different context and meaning, as an upper caste phenomenon that sought identity with colonial rulers to justify the social position of nationalists.

Of course, she would not mention the other side. Like four years before 1857, Marx was writing of ‘a certain nobility’, ‘even in the most inferior classes’ and not to mention ‘the type of ancient German in the Jat and the type of ancient Greek in the Brahmin.’

It is interesting that the presentation of Keshab Chandra Sen in England of that period particularly emphasised that in him manifested ‘a pedigree as long as that of any Norman noble’ and that he exhibited ‘the marks of good blood and gentle breeding’ and ‘the easy inborn dignity of a well-bred man of high European birth'.

Note that despite his notion about ‘long parted Aryan cousins coming together’ justification of British rule, Sen never dwelt into any ‘inbreeding’ or bloodline claim to earn acceptability, but in the England of that time, the importance was on the physical features derived from ‘good blood and gentle breeding’.

Yet, Thapar would want her audience and students to believe that Indian nationalists sought racial identity with the colonialists through Aryan theory (with all the historical baggage of the term and its horrible racial history.)

Now, let us just see what the actual progenitors of Indian nationalism have to say about Aryan race theory and its implication to caste and also about caste itself — particularly Swami Vivekananda and Sri Aurobindo.

Of course, there were among the educated Indians who would rather identify themselves with their colonial masters and would imitate them — then in dresses and manners and as now in academic polemics. But they were the elite and not the Indian nationalists.



And towards them, this was what Swami Vivekananda had to say: