Maia Ramnath - Decolonizing Anarchism.pdf - Libcom

50 I Ramnalh
The curriculum included economics, history, geography,
and the philosophy of revolution. There was also
technical training in departments such as that "referred
to in Vpen's notebooks as 'Ex+Mech+An;" which historian
Peter Heehs interprets as "explosives, mechanics
and anarchism." Heehs reports that one fifteen-year-old
recruit recalled, "'In the garden Upen Babu used to teach
us Upanishads and politics and Barindra Babu [taught
Bhagavadl Gita and History of Russo-Japanese war and
Ullas Babu delivered lectures on explosives: Indu Bhusan
Roy spent his time 'studying Gita and preparing shells.""
What they took from this text, Krishna's prebattle
advice to the warrior Arjuna, was that one should act in
accordance with dharma without overly worrying about
the results. If the actions themselves were righteous, then
the results could not be otherwise. Karma yoga-the way
of action in the world of material causality-was one of
the recognized paths to liberation, as much as the ways of
meditation or devotion.
Among the other incendiary texts that the Criminal
Investigation Department found when it raic1"d
the Maniktola Garden library were Ananda Math,
Bankimchandra Chatterjee's famous novel of warrior
monks that later became part of the Hindu nationalist canon;
Aurobindo's Bhawani Mandir ("temple of the goddess;'
or Kali, manifest as pure shakti, force, or power), a blueprint
for a utopian community; Sikher Balidan, extolling
Sikh martyrdom; and Raja ke, questioning the institution
of monarchy.6 Many of these texts expressed the pursuit
of national liberation in the idiom of intense religiosity.