For the Hauser household, June 26, 2025, will eternally be momentous. It’s the day their father, the late American historian Walter Hauser, will “be part of” his mentor — ascetic, peasant chief and social reformer Swami Sahajanand Saraswati.
Hauser devoted nearly 60 years of his life to researching Saraswati’s life and beliefs. Now, six years after his demise, the household has travelled over 13,000 kilometres from the USA to Patna to fulfil his one want — to scatter his ashes within the river Ganga.
“He (Hauser) would typically inform us that his final want was to have his ashes immersed within the Ganges — the river that had been very near the Swami’s socio-agrarian-cultural reason behind the ascetic,” his son Michael Hauser, a professor on the Duke College, instructed The Indian Categorical as two urns — one containing Hauser’s ashes and one containing his spouse Rosemary’s — stood on a desk.
Whereas Hauser died in 2019, Rosemary died in 2001. The date of the immersion is critical – June 26 this yr marks the seventy fifth demise anniversary of Saraswati, a Bihar chief credited with being instrumental in main a motion that led to the abolition of the zamindari system in India. Patna, in the meantime, holds a particular place within the coronary heart of the Hauser household – it’s the place they spent a good portion of their adolescence.
To mark the event, two generations of the household – Michael, his sister Sheela, spouse Elizabeth and niece Rosemary – have come right down to India. Accompanying this group are two of Hauser’s most distinguished college students, historians William R Pinch and Wendy Singer.
At Patna’s Gola Highway – the home of Indian scholar and Hauser’s shut affiliate Kailash Chandra Jha – the seven People mentioned Walter Hauser, the Swami and their nice Indian connection.
“There’s one thing divine concerning the month of June,” Michael mentioned. “My father was born and died in June. My mom was additionally born in June. Swami Sahajanand Saraswati too died in June.”
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Jha chimed in, “People normally favor to journey to India within the winters, however they (the Hausers) got here calling in sweltering June to be a part of a momentous event.”
“Yet another factor that might have introduced them right here in June is mangoes,” he added in jest.
It was in 1957 that Walter Hauser first got here to India. A scholar deeply serious about “peasant research”, Hauser selected undivided Bihar for his thesis.
What fascinated Hauser most was the peasant mobilisation in Bihar within the Twenties and 30s underneath Saraswati. Born as Naurang Rai in Uttar Pradesh’s Ghazipur, Saraswati, who arrange Shree Sitaram Ashram in Bihta close to Patna, based the Bihar Provincial Kisan Sabha (BPKS) in 1929 and spearheaded a peasant motion that culminated within the organising of the All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS) in 1936.
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After that first go to in 1957, Hauser’s travels to India turned extra frequent, together with visits to Barhiya Tal in Bihar’s Lakhisarai – the epicentre of the Barhiya Tal Bakasht Land Motion for tenancy rights within the Nineteen Thirties.
Regardless of having written his thesis on the peasant motion, Hauser was reluctant to transform it right into a e book, his household mentioned. It was Kailash Chandra Jha, now chairman of the Shree Sitaram Ashram that Hauser as soon as frequented and a historian in his personal proper, who lastly satisfied him to take action in 2018, thus resulting in the publication of The Bihar Provincial Kisan Sabha 1929–1942: A Examine of an Indian Peasant Motion.
The identical yr, Hauser and Jha translated Saraswati’s autobiography, Mera Jeevan Sangharsh, into English. Co-authored by Hauser and Jha, the e book, My Life Battle, has been cited as a seminal work that helped the American scholar perceive and analyse Saraswati’s contribution.
Hauser’s kids, Michael and Sheela, recalled their father’s tales of Saraswati’s “extraordinary battle for the atypical males”.
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“I keep in mind how we might have conferences with Southeast Asian students on many Fridays. My father was so immersed within the Swami’s rules that each dialogue at these conferences would veer round his (Saraswati’s) life and instances and the lasting influence he had on the lives of frequent people,” Michael, who went to major faculty in Patna, mentioned. Sheela added, “My father’s legacy has now been transferred to the third era with my daughter Rosemary Hauser Jose.”
On the point out of her identify, Rosemary, who’s in her early 20s, smiled and mentioned, “I’ve grown up listening to tales of Swami from my grandparents. Swami is part of our lives now.”
Hauser’s college students William R Pinch and Wendy Sinder, too, have been vastly influenced by Hauser’s ideological leanings, with each focusing their work on Indo-centric research. Pinch, a professor of historical past and International South Asian Research at Wesleyan College, has authored a number of books on Indian historical past, together with Warrior, Ascetics and Indian Empires and Peasants and Monks in British India. Likewise, Singer is an affiliate professor of South Asian historical past and director of worldwide research at Kenyon Faculty in Ohio’s Gambier, whose physique of works consists of books similar to Unbiased India and Creating Histories: Oral Narratives and Politics of Historical past Making.
Speaking about Saraswati’s legacy, Pinch mentioned, “Monks have been devices of social and political adjustments. Even Mahatma Gandhi visited Allahabad as soon as to attend the Kumbh Mela and perceive the social and non secular join of ascetics and sanyasis. Monks would go away behind their household however nonetheless speak of and work for society.”
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Saraswati’s influence will be seen in how the farmers’ protest in Punjab compelled the central authorities to withdraw the contentious farm legal guidelines, Singer, who returned to India after 40 years, mentioned. “Swami’s life and works present the vibrancy of democracy in India. Walter was drawn to Swami as a result of he led a social change in Bihar — the land of actions,” she added.
Jha, who has been instrumental in preserving the social reformer’s legacy alive, talked concerning the time Hauser sought an viewers within the Nineteen Fifties with the then President of India, Dr Rajendra Prasad.
“His first request was rejected outright. Then he wrote one other letter saying that as a Fulbright scholar, he wished to pay his respects to the President. This time, he bought quarter-hour. Dr Rajendra Prasad got here to satisfy him sporting his signature cap. However the second he began discussing peasants and the Swami, Prasad eliminated his cap, squatted on his couch and talked to Hauser for 75 minutes,” he mentioned.
Dr Satyajit Singh, a number one Patna physician and a trustee of the Bihta ashram, mentioned: “We’re so overwhelmed on the Hauser household coming to Patna to pay an uncommon tribute to Swami’s reminiscences on his seventy fifth demise anniversary. This has motivated us to make the ashram extra vibrant and hold Swami’s legacy alive”.