The Age of Kali

Title: The Age of Kali – Indian Travels and Encounters

Author: William Dalrymple

Publisher: Flamingo, 1999 (First published 1998)

ISBN: 978-0-00-654775-4

Pages: 371

This book, published in 1998 was Dalrymple’s fourth and third in his series on Indian themes. He is a renowned author, requiring no formal introduction to the subcontinental readers. He is staying in Delhi and has become a distinguished presence in Indian literary circles. This is his sixth book to be reviewed in this blog. The earlier ones are, The Last Mughal, White Mughals, Nine Lives, City of Djinns and From the Holy Mountain. With his easy prose verging on the graceful contours of finely crafted verse, each book is a cherishable experience for the reader. Now there are only two Dalrymple books which have not been presented here, In Xanadu and his latest, Return of a King, which are eagerly awaited.

The Age of Kali (not to be pronounced Kaali) is the story of the writer’s travels across the Indian subcontinent. The title implies Kali yug, which is the fourth and last era of Indian time reckoning, in which virtue and the good beats a retreat, paving the way for evil and vice. The traditional society blames every misfortune that has fallen on them to be because of Kali yug and resigns calmly to fate. In the book which is partitioned into six parts, namely The North, In Rajasthan, The New India, The South, On the Indian Ocean and Pakistan, the author travels extensively and records his experiences at each place. Comparisons are inevitable in such a setting and he notes the rising prosperity of the South and the West as compared to Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, which are slowly sinking into a morass of violence bordering on lawlessness and corruption. He also brings into focus the enormity in scale of the annexation of Hyderabad and Goa to India which are euphemistically called ‘police actions’ in official history books. Recording the experiences of eye-witnesses, we get to know that they were full fledged military operations involving the army and air force, and also the navy in Goa.

While being a pleasure to read, on many occasions the author falls in the trap of eulogizing over the lost grandeur of aristocrats fallen from grace as the country gained independence from colonial or local imperialist powers. Traces of this trait was discernible in the author’s earlier book, City of Djinns which based Delhi as its theme in which he blindly followed the riches-to-rags nobility of the old Mughal system. During his travels in Lucknow, narrated in the chapter Kingdom of Avadh, we see a little known feudalist Suleiman gloating over the things he lost in the feudalist period like poetic symposia, architecture (which naturally changed with the times) and even prostitutes who could recite Persian verses. Not a small portion of his grief is over the fact that those dear artifacts of his past no longer exist anywhere. This feeling of nostalgia over the loss of the past is seen to transcend religious barriers. When he visited the Rajmata Vijayaraje Scindia in Gwalior, her own attendants who were Hindus commiserated over the lost kingdom of the Maharajah with its extravagantly gilded processions, tiger hunts and the absence of corruption. We have only their word to attest to the last named item! But even they couldn’t deny the wastefulness of lavishly constructed Jai Vilas Palace nearby in a vain bid to impress the Prince of Wales who paid a visit to the place in the latter half of 19^th century. The palace was constructed at a huge expenditure on the impoverished exchequer.

What is quite unexpected and revealing is Dalrymple’s visit to Deorala, Rajasthan where in 1987 a young widow named Roop Kanwar chose to die by burning herself on her husband’s funeral pyre. With about 500 villagers as spectators, the flames consumed her, who was sitting on the pyre with her dead husband’s head on her lap. Makeshift temples were quickly erected for her as she had turned into a goddess, Sati mata, with her valorous deed. Protests soon broke out at many places. Journalists and women activists exposed the incident and claimed that she was forced to die by her relatives who were accused of having drugged her. Police arrested 66 of the villagers and used third-degree measures to elicit a confession from them. The case went on for 10 years until the trial court acquitted all of them for want of evidence with severe criticism reserved for the police for the way they investigated the case. Dalrymple visited the village, interviewed them and later corroborated the story with senior civil servants at the state capital. The facts which come out is indeed shocking. Roop had really chosen to die of her own free will, with no apparent coercion. The modern part of India, the anglicized urban elite couldn’t stomach the idea that connubial fidelity would drive a young woman to court death. Such secular incredulity marks the remove the elite is from the rural heartland.

Dalrymple has correctly identified the source of much rural strife in India as due to caste enmity. In Rajasthan, he describes how hordes of upper caste Rajputs descended on makeshift medical facilities intended to serve the lower castes and smashed them to smithereens, apparently to protest against the Central government’s decision to implement the Mandal Commission’s recommendations which suggested reservation of 27% of government jobs to backward communities. Rajasthan, however displays the diametrically opposite side of the situation in UP and Bihar, where the backward castes have gained much political power, but even there, the private armies of landlords ride roughshod over them. The author’s assertion that the decision to grant reservation has resulted in an awareness of caste at all levels is, however superfluous. Caste awareness for an Indian is like the proverbial sixth sense. This is something which comes by birth and had existed here for millennia.

Needless to say, the writer knows the rhythm of India and is well versed with the vitality that animates the national psyche in its forward thrust through the well-trodden path of spirituality. The mental subservience to spiritual objects like tombs and godmen flourish in the subcontinent. However, he seems to have a soft spot towards the Islamic side of the Indian cultural stream. Whenever he speaks about the other current, the Hindu stream, it is the backwardness and unsophistication that is unconsciously stressed. Dalrymple may be called the historian of the Indian Muslim aristocracy.

Though the author recognises the touchiness of many Indians towards criticism from abroad, it feels that the criticism is really harsher than warranted by the situation. He describes the clash between two student political unions in Lucknow and declares it to have been fought with assault rifles, which is stretching the imagination a lot. Has he confused Lucknow with Peshawar, which also he has visited? Anyway, he claims that the book is a work of love and “its subject is an area of the world I revere like no other, and in which I have chosen to spend most of my time since I was free to make that choice. I was completely overwhelmed: India thrilled, surprised, daunted and excited me” (p.xv). I think we can accept his arguments at face value.

A major source of disinterest seen in the work is the chapter on Reunion Island, which is distracting in a book centred on Indian themes and people. Stories on Pakistan and Sri Lanka illustrate the cultural continuity of the subcontinent across political and religious divides. No such affinity exists with Reunion which is a small French island colony in the Indian Ocean and it sticks out like a sore thumb. Also, clubbing Goa along with chapters on Sri Lanka and Reunion smacks of a feeling that it is not culturally homogeneous with the rest of India.

The book is highly recommended.

Rating: 4 Star