Beyond the Film Maharaj: Uncovering the Legacy of Karsandas Mulji and the Libel Case

I have lived with the story of Karsandas Mulji for the past thirty years or more, the first ten quite intimately. He was the object of my PhD research. My first reaction to the film Maharaj was one of delight — it was a pleasure to see Karsandas portrayed as a youthful and charismatic figure on screen. The story of his newspaper, and fight in the court brought those days to life more vividly than when I was reading it all in the library. I haven’t read Saurabh Shah’s 2013 novel Maharaj on which the film is based, so I cannot comment on that. The film reduces the complex encounter between Karsandas and the Maharaj to a simplistic, personalised “me too” storyline, driven by an individualistic agenda. The reality was a multiple, complex stirring emergence of the modern self with different ideas of rationality, community and religion. 

In the film, Karsandas stands out as a lone, righteous hero with some shadowy supporters. In the Mumbai of the 1850s and 60s, which was then called Bombay, he

was not alone. The city was churning with angry young middle-class men, Khojas, Bohras, Bhatias, Baniyas, Brahmins, Parsis, hotly debating and discussing their traditions and practices. Discussion groups, mandalis, sabhas heard lectures and held debates. These were published for further circulation as handbills, pamphlets and more than six or seven newspapers. Karsandas’s Satya Prakash (started in 1855) was one among many. They launched a comprehensive critique, targeting a wide range of practices, including superstition, opium addiction, excessive jewelry, explicit songs at weddings and religious ceremonies, and even traditional festivals like Holi. Additionally, they criticized certain religious customs, such as the Parsi Muktad, a sacred ritual where Parsi Zoroastrians honor their deceased ancestors, which they deemed to be in need of reform. The Paramhansa mandali met secretly to eat pau to break their caste barriers. The opening incident of the adult Karsandas sharing the chutney of a man outside a temple  was a ‘fun’ and light-hearted dramatisation of this movement.  

The film shows a single maharaj as powerful and predatory. In reality, different Mumbai maharajas had complaints against them for different issues.  In 1855, the whole Bhatia caste made a bandobast or arrangement to ensure that their wives and daughters lived circumspectly, avoiding privacy with the maharajas.  The rumour (voiced in the movie at a different moment) about an unnamed Bhatia wife’s liaison with the Maharaj might have prompted the caste to take action.  Later the same year, Jivanji Maharaj criticised Shaiva priests of Bhuleshvar for celebrating a chhapan bhog (feast of 56 varieties of food).  The Maharaj stopped his devotees from sharing this ‘prasad’. His rivalry with the Shaiva priests was criticised by the newspapers and Karsandas’s newly issued Satya Prakash.  

Also read: Interview: Dibakar Banerjee, Prateek Vats and Shubham Scream in a Crowded Lobby

The film shows maharajas shutting the temple doors to enforce their will on the devotees. This was a true event though not directly related to Karsandas’s case. It took place in 1858, when Jivanlalji (not Yadunath) Maharaj closed ‘darshan’. He wanted the Bhatia and Baniya caste members to collect funds and organise immunity for himself from appearing in court in a different case. He also wanted them to outcaste ‘anyone’ (targeting Karsandas, Lakhmidas Khimji and Goculdas Tejpal) who criticised the maharajas. Women devotees of the maharaj were so upset that they took to the streets, beat their chests, cried ‘hai hai’, clamouring for the death of Karsandas and the reformers (sudharak). This event was more dramatic than any women’s actions described in support of the Maharaj in the film.  

The caste sheths accepted the Maharaj’s will and signed an agreement. Karsandas criticised this abject submission in articles headlined  ‘gulami khat or slavery bond’.  He advocated building new temples without the maharajas. The film dramatises this advice by showing the worship of an image under the tree. Within a decade, revolutionary new temples without a presiding maharaj were indeed established. Some examples are Goculdas Tejpal at Gamdevi, Sheth Mulji Jetha’s Dwarkadhish temple at Babulnath, amongst others.  

To take the story forward, the much maligned ‘slavery’ agreement between the maharaj and the caste leaders did not work. The Kapol caste leaders refused to ostracise Karsandas. Meanwhile, Jivanlalji Maharaj had to flee Bombay to avoid the court summons.  

In desperation, the Bombay maharajas called on a young, modernist scion of their family from Surat — Maharaj Yadunathji (or Jadunathji) to lead their defense in Mumbai. This Maharaj Yadunath (unlike Ahlawat’s unidimensional sexual predator portrayal) was a complicated person. He had already worked in Surat to support women’s education. In 1859, Karsandas arranged a prize-giving ceremony at which the maharaj presented awards to girls from the Mangaldas Nathoobhoy school, with the aim of promoting and encouraging women’s education.

The prize giving was followed by a dramatic debate between the maharaj and Kavi Narmad on the question of widow remarriage, held in August 1860. Narmad organised this event by an exchange of urgent letters with the Maharaj, three letters in one day (as republished in his autobiography – Mari Hakikat).  Narmad went to the debate venue with two ‘pehlvan’  (wrestlers)  Baba Kisandas and Baba Raghunathdas, for fear of ‘hullad’ (riot) from the Maharaj’s supporters. Although there was no physical intimidation, the Maharaj successfully demonstrated the reformers’ lack of belief in God during the debate, effectively exposing their atheist views. Yadunathji also started his own newspaper that year and published a vigorous defence of Pushti sampradaya beliefs.

There is no arson or burning of the Satya Prakash press historically, unlike what is shown in the film.  However, Karsandas was attacked by roughs in 1861. Undeterred, he continued to write about the unholy authority of the Pushtimarg — followers of lord Krishna — gurus and their sexually promiscuous lifestyles and teaching. In October 1861, he named Yadunath Maharaj calling on him to reform his heterodox religion that required complete surrender to the maharaj. The maharaj charged him and publisher Rustomji Ranina, with libel.  

The libel trial lasted for three months from January to April 1862.  As the film shows, the hearings of the case were wildly popular with huge throngs outside the court room and detailed newspaper accounts on the next day. Salacious details of practice and preaching emerged in the court.  It was evident, as shown in the film, that there was a complete mismatch of the court’s paradigm and the devotees’ understanding of bhakti. The court, therefore, refused to rule whether the Pushti sampradaya was heterodox (as per Karsandas’s accusation).  The maharaj’s sexual promiscuity was proved finally, as the film shows, by the doctor’s evidence that he was being treated for Syphillis.  

In the film, Karsandas’ fiancé, and later his assistant make for a good story. Contrary to the film’s depiction, Karsandas was already married before the libel case and his wife was not involved in it. She did not commit adultery with the maharaj, nor did she commit suicide. Additionally, Karsandas did not have a female assistant.

During the libel trial, multiple male devotees testified about the maharaj’s sexual exploits, but notably, no female witnesses were called to testify. We do know, however, of three cases of complaints by women against different maharajas in Mumbai in that period.  These complaints were settled outside the court  by Bhatia caste authorities. 

In February 1861, a Bhatia widow named Manek complained in court using the same lawyer that Karsandas would employ later. Her plaint was that the Bombay Maharaj Gokuleshdhishaji had pressurised her to sign over her house to him.  She won a verdict from the Supreme Court that she had a right to sue the maharaj in court, however, her legal notice could not be served to the maharaj as the person serving the notice was thrown out of the haveli (palace).  Finally, the caste leaders got her house released from the maharaj by getting her to pay the maharaj a tenth of the value of the house. In another case, a young Bhatia girl complained that the maharaj’s servant had stolen her jewels. A few years later in 1865, a twelve-year-old girl complained of rape by an unnamed maharaj. Although the reformers publicly highlighted the case through newspaper articles, neither the family nor the caste community pursued legal action or prosecution.

Historically, women have complained about rape and tyrannical behaviour of the Maharajas, but they were not questioned during the case.  On the other hand, women had openly as well as surreptitiously supported the maharaj. Their idea of devotion to God through the maharaj is palatably explained by the film. In both the film and his writings, Karsandas perpetuates the notion that women are inherently ‘innocent’ and shifts the responsibility to the guru, implying that he should have been more discerning and aware of the power dynamics at play.

The judgement on the libel case in the film is shown as a triumph against the maharaj.  However, historically the two judges hearing the case gave slightly different judgements. Their differences dramatically identify what a seminal transitional moment this was for the role of the journalist. Sir Matthew Sausse, the senior judge, said the matters published by Karsandas were private community matters and should not have been published in a newspaper, so he was indeed guilty of libel. The maharaj therefore celebrated the judgement as a victory.  

Interestingly, the second judge, Justice Arnould ruled that Karsandas had performed the public duty of a journalist to correct misconduct. Therefore, the publication was not libellous. The judges unanimously acknowledged Karsandas’ veracity, condemning the religion as licentious. They also ruled that Karsandas was entitled to reimbursement for the legal fees he incurred. In a notable remark, Justice Arnould hailed Karsandas as the “Martin Luther of the East,” signifying a revolutionary development in public behaviour and the role of journalism. 

The contemporary impact of the case is missed entirely in the film. The maharajas themselves recouped their loss of face, by turning to a more Sanskrit and Vedantic interpretation of their practices.  Many new Pushti sampradaya temples were built without any presiding maharaj. Those like Dhawal Patel have accused the Maharaj libel case of being a Christian and colonial conspiracy against the Pushti sampradaya.

This was a concern that Karsandas and Narmad were aware of even in the 1850s. They, along with others, deliberately employed Shastric reasoning to justify and bolster the moral and ethical principles they advocated for. J. Barton Scott in his Spiritual Despots: Modern Hinduism and the Genealogies of Self-Rule (2016) suggests that actually, Indian demands for autonomy from religious authorities during the Maharaj libel case may have influenced the emergence of the modern self as peculiarly free of priestcraft.  It is because of Karsandas’ victory in the Maharaj libel case that today we are able to complain and legally prosecute licentious gurus. The film Maharaj hopefully will generate an interest in the major transition that India went through in the nineteenth century of which the Maharaj Libel case was a path-breaking moment. 

Amrita Shodhan is the author of  “A Question of Community: Religious Groups and Colonial Law”, Samya Press, 2001. And “Women in the Maharaj Libel Case: A Re-examination” in Journal of Gender Studies, 4:2, 1997 pp 123-139.