In memoriam

My journey with Walter Hauser

IN late 1974 the J. P. movement was passing through a sort of stagnant phase and turning into a political movement rather than a social one. The youth, like myself was wondering, what next? One afternoon Dr. Nirmal Sen Gupta, who was then associated with the A.N. Sinha Institute of Social Studies, came to my home in Adalatganj, Patna. Nirmal explained to me on a rickshaw ride that an American professor named Walter Hauser was staying at the guest house of the institute and was looking for research assistants. Meeting Walter on that day was a turning point in my life. A new journey began with Walter as well as Swami Sahajanand Saraswati.

My journey as a researcher began with visits to sites associated with Sahajanand and the Kisan Sabha, meeting and interviewing people, and learning about primary source materials. My journey also included walking with Walter for twenty kilometres in a single day in Barahiya Tal villages, sleeping on newspapers at the Barahiya rail station and on a dari (‘dhurrie’) on the rooftop of the Munger dak bungalow, bathing in the Ganga due to scarcity of water, and drinking several glasses of lemon tea outside Lakhisarai rail station. I had previously earned a B.Sc. in Chemistry, but it was my role as a social and political activist that led Walter to believe in me and in my suitability for research.

Thanks to Walter, in November 1975, I joined the U.S. Library of Congress in New Delhi as an ‘Acquisitions Specialist’. I have a vivid memory of that day, 15th of August. Walter had taken me to the American Embassy to meet Jerry R. James, the then Director of the Library of Congress Office. Jerry informed us during the visit that a nighttime coup had happened in Bangladesh. As soon as we came out of the embassy, Walter said, ‘Let’s go to the Red Fort and listen to Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.’ We went and heard her. She did not mention a single word about the coup. As it happened, that was Walter and his family’s final night in Delhi that year. (Walter’s wife Rosemary, daughter Sheila, and son Michael accompanied Walter on this as on previous visits to India.) We spent that night in the courtyard of Dr. V.C. Joshi, the then Deputy Director of Nehru Memorial Museum and Library.

My professional relationship with Walter would soon become personal. In 1978-79, during his visit to Patna and my village Ranti, where he used to buy Madhubani paintings from then unknown artists (who, of course, would later become world famous), Walter expressed the desire to invite my would-be wife Abha for lunch. Of course, Abha’s family did not agree as ours was an arranged marriage. My marriage to Abha suddenly opened my eyes to the politics of ‘left historians’ and I started hearing lurid tales about how Walter had stolen manuscript materials from Swami Sahajanand Saraswati’s Shri Sitaram Ashram, Bihta, and other accusations.

In 1985 I visited the U.S. for the first time. Walter had arranged kidney stone treatment for me at the University of Virginia School of Medicine. Extracorporeal shock wave lithotripsy was just at its beginning stages and the University of Virginia School of Medicine was one of four hospitals in the U.S. that had imported the machine from Germany. This visit brought us closer and enhanced my respect for Walter as a human being and a historian of India. It was eye-opening in other ways: I was astonished by Walter’s lifestyle in the U.S. This was the same guy who had trudged long miles through the dusty villages of Bihar, eaten at Punjab hotel in Lakhisarai, slept anywhere, worked tirelessly in dingy district record rooms – for me it was simply unbelievable.

During that visit Walter also showed me the Shri Sitaram Ashram materials that he had collected in the late 1950s and early 1960s, and how well preserved they were. I immediately felt that it was not wrong to bring the materials from the Ashram to Virginia. I insisted Walter should not be defensive about any of this. Our work on these materials eventually led to the publication of Sahajanand on Agriculture Labour and the Rural Poor (a scholarly translation of Sahajanand’s Khet Mazdur) and Swami Sahajanand and the Peasants of Jharkhand: A View from 1941 (a scholarly translation of Jharkhand ke Kisan) in 1994 and 1995, respectively.

In the meantime I shifted to the American Embassy to become Political Advisor. My retirement in 2012 afforded me greater flexibility and we were able to complete Culture, Vernacular Politics and the Peasants: India 1889-1950 (a scholarly translation of Sahajanand’s autobiography, Mera Jivan Sangharsh) in 2015. We had been working on this project for twenty years. While my family and I were in Charlottesville for Walter’s 90th birthday celebration, he and I decided the time had come to return the materials to Shri Sitaram Ashram.

There had been a change in the situation at Bihta in the intervening years. My close friend, Satyajit Kumar Singh, had become the Secretary of the Ashram Trust. Finally, all the Ashram materials were formally handed over to the Trust on 1 July 2018, in a grand event held, appropriately, at the A.N. Sinha Institute, Patna – where Walter and I met for the first time over four decades earlier. At around the same time, we took the decision to publish a popular edition of Culture and Vernacular Politics, which came out in 2018 as My Life Struggle. After this, I began to encourage Walter to publish his 1961 Ph.D. dissertation. He had always been of the view that the dissertation needed major revisions prior to publication, but various circumstances had always prevented their completion. However, it was clear to me that time was running out. I wanted to see the book published in his lifetime. I pushed him hard and finally he agreed. It gives me great pleasure to know that Walter was able to see and appreciate that his first major work, The Bihar Provincial Kisan Sabha, 1929-1942: A Study of an Indian Peasant Movement, was published.

Walter last visited India in 2004 to attend my daughter, Richa Jha’s wedding. He always took care of all the needs of both my daughters, Richa and Archita, while they were studying in the U.S. Similarly, Walter always took care of his students. He would always ask me to look after them in Delhi as well as in Bihar. This led to lasting friendships with Vijay (Prof. William R. Pinch) and Jennifer, Prof. Wendy Singer and Prof. David Lynn, Prof. Christopher Hill and Carol, and their families.

Walter loved Bihar and he loved India. Hats off to his commitment to his profession and for being a wonderful human being.

Thank you, Walter, for all that I am. Love you.

Kailash C. Jha

 

* Walter Hauser 1927-2019.