*The Name of Sant Sohirobanath*
Amita Kanekar
The recent renaming of the Government College of Pernem, as the Sant
Sohirobanath Ambiye College of Art and Commerce, throws up several issues.
Jason Keith Fernandes discussed some a few days ago ('Sant Sohirobanath and
the Secular Death'), including how this use of the name of a Hindu and
Saraswat religious figure for a government institution is both an attack on
secularism and a continuing of the hegemony of the Saraswat caste in public
spaces in Goa, thereby identifying the 'true' Goan as a Saraswat.
But that's not all. Who is this Sant Sohirobanath, in the first place? For
those like myself who had never heard of him, an exhaustive internet search
does not reveal much; a measly 600 'hits' when I first looked, which jumped
up to about 2000 a couple of days later. Most of these led to articles
talking about the renaming and the recent festival celebrating his 300th
anniversary. There were also two books of a non-scholarly and religious
type, one describing Sohirobanath as a Great Yogi and a 'leading luminary'
of the Nath Panth sect, while the other just mentions him in passing as a
Sant who on being harassed threatens the harasser that he will be burnt
alive; the threat is fulfilled. One online article speaks of two books
containing his poetry. Besides this are just few mentions in blogs on
Marathi poetry.
There is no link to any scholarly book or article on the man. As for
Wikipedia -- which is not a source of reliable information, but at least
reflective of popular understanding -- he is not mentioned anywhere on that
humongous site, not even on the pages about Hinduism, Goa, Sants, or the
Nath Panth.
Enquiries at the history department of Goa University and the Goa Central
Library reveal that there are no works of history which mention this
supposedly historical figure. All they have are some compilations of his
verses, some of which also briefly describe his life.
But what's wrong in being little known, one might ask; there must be
millions of deserving people unnamed on Wikipedia. True, but how many have
government institutions named after them? Governments name and rename
public institutions usually after people with some public standing, and for
a reason. Belatedly remembering Savitribai Phule, more than 60 years after
the Pune University was set up, reflects the need of the Maharashtra
government to display respect for this pioneering educationist from the
Bahujan Samaj, a woman who defied the gender and caste norms of her time as
well the idea - still current - that it is only the progressive elements
from the dominant castes and classes who found educational institutions.
That Maharashtra remains the land of Khairlanjis and other caste
atrocities, where Dalit and bahujan samaj women still have to fight for
education and dignity, shows that the gesture is only lip-service to the
cause.
What is the gesture being made by the Goa government in this renaming? Here
we have someone who, from all available sources, was a member of the
privileged Saraswat community who joined the religious sect called the Nath
Panth and wrote spiritual verses, in which he 'distilled the wisdom' of the
Vedas and the Upanishads.
Is this adequate qualification for a 21st-century educational institution
being named after one? Perhaps, when you look at some of ours. Not only do
most of our schools, colleges and universities fall far short of the touted
ideals of education, many already excel at pandering to Hindu religious
beliefs, with the organization of brahmanical Hindu festivals within the
campus, and upper caste Hindu religious icons permanently installed there.
And the less said about their predilection for quietly side-stepping
reservation quotas, therein further disadvantaging OBC and SC/ST
applicants, the better. This step is in fact an open admission of their
quasi-brahmanical tendencies.
And the problem is not only the lack of even-handedness. Would it be all
right if the Goa government were to name the next college after a Christian
or Muslim religious figure, or indeed a coast guard ship as the Ave
Maria-14, as they recently did? India is in fact the proof that overt
religiosity does not lead to anything very positive, for this home of 33
crore gods, along with unlimited godmen, shrines, pilgrimages, and rituals,
is also the site of the most wretched mass deprivation and casteist
violence. One reason for this is that brahmanical Hinduism is one with
casteism, as Dr. Ambedkar pointed out so many years ago. But even with the
other religions, public religious symbolism tends to caricature local
religio-ethnic beliefs in a reductive manner, and strengthen the
conservative and regressive sections of the community. True secularism does
not mean that the government panders to all, but that it stays away from
all public religiosity.
The government and its supporters are busy congratulating each other for
the discovery of their unknown sant. And well they might
