Mamta Kalia

he used to come to our house in Almora.
He visited us a number of times. I also
participated in the discussions with him
and in spite of not being familiar with
his views and works, the impression his
personality had left on me has been
revived. My inner voice, therefore,
prompted me to accept this invitation
from Pahad and also the topic given
for the talk. I remembered that Rahulji
was not only a scholar; he had also
written a lot on the Himalayas. The
Himalayas, in their many aspects, were
a source of inspiration for him and he
had great attachment for their people,
their society, culture and civilization.
Today, in this region of Uttarakhand as
in many other regions of India, serious
problems are arising; great turmoil and
turbulence is being witnessed and new
hopes and aspirations are emerging. In
what backdrop should we view them?
From what perspective should we
consider them? What direction should
we give to the mass awakening of which
we find explosion in the hill regions
in many other regions. Giving thought
to all these issues, I realised that we
need Rahulji’s comprehensive way of
looking at things and his capacity to
trace a problem to its roots. We should
not only accept his thinking but also
his method of analysis and habit of a
ruthless enquiry and research. His
analysis was not based only on statistics
and recorded facts or confined to a study
of dead history but was also permeated
with the desire to draw the local people
and communities as partners in bringing
the live manifestations and flow of
traditions to light.
What modern anthropology calls “field
work or participant observation” the
wondering researcher that Rahulji was
undertaking throughtout his life and on
its basis had given us a new insight
into social transformations and cultural
and civilisational processes beyond
anything that a research based merely
on books or records could give us. The
age-old conflict between the dead and
the living elements in our cultural legacy,
Rahulji could comprehend in all its
aspects only because his study of Indian
culture was not based merely on what
the eminent social scientist, M.N.
Srinivas, has called a “book view” but
also had a foundation in a “field view”.
This study was not circumscribed by
limitations of any dominant class or caste
outlook. By internalizing the perceptions
and experiences of the people, it provided
a new range and depth to his discovery
of India. I feel what we need today is
this view from below which alone can
show us the right direction.
If you will turn the pages of Rahulji’s
research works on Kumaon and Garhwal,
you will find that, on the basis of his
deep study, he has drawn some
conclusions. At the end, in four or five
pages only, referring to this region’s
cultural legacy he has called it the legacy
of “cultural accommodation”. In his view,
this history of the Himalayas is not a
‘regional history’ in a narrow sense, nor
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