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

Einstein’s Mistakes

Title: Einstein’s Mistakes – The Human Failings of Genius

Author: Hans C Ohanian

Publisher: W W Norton & Co, 2009 (First)

ISBN: 978-0-393-33768-6

Pages: 338

Albert Einstein is a towering personality in the intellectual landscape of the world of all time. Being a genius won’t ensure a person his place on this coveted setting. Einstein was more than that – he was a physicist of stellar caliber, a philosopher, a humanist, and altogether a great man. At least that was what we had conceived – until we get hold of this book. Ohanian, who is himself a physicist and has written many books on the subject handles the personality and professional career of the great scientist in an incisive fashion. He proceeds by first stripping Einstein of all the sheen generously endowed by an over-eager media constantly on the lookout for a marketable icon and delves into the fallacies and mistakes committed by him – in his theoretical papers and conceptual formulations. Some of his earlier mistakes were mathematical in nature – Einstein was uncomfortable with mathematics. But in an era when physics was reputed to be difficult even for physicists, he couldn’t go on much with his unsure grasp of mathematics. We come across such inadvertent errors in early derivations of relativity theories. Later, he employed mathematical assistants to do the tedious calculations for him. Though the author claims to describe only those errors committed by the genius in his professional capacity, any discussion about Einstein is bound to get tied up in a bit of sensationalism and charisma pervading his person. So we read about his adulterous liaisons and partisan leanings towards the fair sex.

Einstein completed his schooling and graduation in Zurich, Switzerland. After 2 years spent in a futile search for a job, he was accommodated as a third-class clerk in Federal Patent Office in Berne which left him with ample time for his pet theories and research. Though he managed to publish several insignificant papers earlier, the year 1905 turned out to be the year of miracles. He published five original papers in the journal Annalen der Physik, all of which proved to be milestones in the growth saga of physics of all time. His papers included a postulation that light is emitted in discrete packets called quanta (singular, quantum), description of Brownian motion – a random movement of liquid particles due to collisions at the atomic level, special relativity and the energy-mass equivalence – the most famous equation, E = mc².

Einstein’s relativity principle was first proposed not in so many words by Galileo (1578 – 1642). Elements of references to a relativistic structure can also be seen in Isaac Newton’s magnum opus Principia Mathematica. The real momentum came only in the latter half of 19^th century,  when Maxwell discovered the laws of electromagnetism. He observed that his equations yielded a result for the velocity of light which is the same irrespective of the speed of light sources, which was contrary to natural expectation. We observe that if we move in any direction, the object which comes to us with a particular speed will appear to be moving faster than an object receding from us with the same speed. Not so, in the case of light. Lorentz and Poincare developed the idea further, publishing papers on relativity in 1895 and 1904 whereas Einstein published only in 1905. Till the end of World War I, before Einstein’s everlasting fame was not assured with his discovery of general relativity, the principle was known in academic circles as the Lorentz-Einstein Principle. Einstein’s proof of his paper on special relativity (1905) contained several mistakes, some of them related to physical ideas and many of them to mathematical concepts.

Among the stunning revelations made by the author in this book, nothing shocks us more than the assertion that E = mc² is not an original Einstein contribution! In fact the equation has acquired legendary status owing to associations with him and its contribution to the making of the atomic bomb which devastated Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The author affirms that the equation was known in physics circles several years before Einstein’s attempted proof of it in 1905. J J Thomson, the discoverer of electron had tinkered with it. Einstein’s contribution was the proof of it and in fact it was riddled with mistakes. Max von Laue published the correct proof, followed by Felix Klein. Einstein himself came up with alternate proof over the years, but all contained errors of some kind or the other. That von Laue and Klein didn’t get the credit due to them is one of the injustices of scientific literature. It may also be seen that Einstein had no significant impact on the making of the A-bomb. His letter to Roosevelt urging him to make one citing recent developments in Nazi Germany on the same lines is claimed to have not made much headway in the U.S. Administration. In any case, for nuclear fission, it is possible to calculate the energy released from electric repulsive forces whereas for nuclear fusion, mass-energy relation is the only way. It is curious to note that in Einstein’s autobiography in which he waxes eloquent on his contributions to physics, he is silent on the famous equation. May be he had identified that his grounds for priority is shaky, or else he might have got bored with the long-held association with the equation.

Einstein’s undying fame came with the experimental verification (1919) of the predictions of General Relativity published in 1915. The theory itself was opaque to most people, including prominent physicists and from what is described in the book, it appears that Einstein himself was also unaware of some of the finer nuances. He tinkered freely with the proof of the theorem, and modifying the final statement of it by adding another term called cosmological constant to account for the idea believed to be true at that time that the universe is static. His theory predicted an expanding universe, but to make it static, Einstein added the constant. When Edwin Hubble proved 10 years later that the universe was indeed expanding, a shamefaced Einstein deleted the factor and declared it to be his greatest blunder in life. This fiasco is evident of the fact that the great physicist hadn’t had any clear intuition about what he was driving at. The story didn’t end there. The cosmological constant actually provided for a repellant force at great distances, contrary to gravity which is always attractive. In 2000, observations found that its universe’s acceleration was increasing. This could be accounted for only by adding the factor back into the equation. Physicists term this phenomenon as ‘dark energy’ which is thought to comprise of 71% of all that is in the universe in terms of matter and energy. Fortunately, Einstein was not alive to swallow his words again.

After 1915, when he was 36 years of age, his productivity sagged and no major discovery could be attributed to him. Apart from some occasional sparks of creativity like the Bose-Einstein condensation and Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen Paradox, nothing worthwhile came out. During the last two decades of life, in which he had to flee Germany owing to Hitler’s rise to power, he was absorbed in developing a unified theory of everything, which attempted to integrate electromagnetism and gravity which were the only two fundamental forces known at that time. His papers containing highly abstract mathematical constructs didn’t take him anywhere and as time progressed and Einstein grew old, he was treated as an anachronistic old-timer by his colleagues. He passed away in sleep in 1955 at the age of 76 due to a burst aneurism.

Several glimpses of Einstein’s personal life is also glanced at, in the book. We need not go into the details, except for a brief remark that it was not at all a model for any one. He is portrayed as greedy, having laborious disputes and arguments about his salary. He evaded tax from German authorities by secretly opening an account in Holland and transferring royalties from his publishers to this account. He was a womanizer and having no paternal affection to his own offsprings.

Ohanian’s uncompromising position against superstition and organised religion is commendable. He really loses his temper when narrating the brief biography of Galileo and his ordeals with the Pope and Dominican friars on the issue of whether the sun or the earth moves around on which religion had no locus standi. In confirmity to the iconoclastic treatment of holy or divine authority throughout the text, Ohanian maintains an irreverent attitude to great physicists, like Newton or Einstein. Of course, their contributions are respected and their caliber appreciated, but their weaknesses as human beings is clearly brought out in detail like Newton’s spiteful tricks against competitors and Einstein’s heartless treatment of his first child who was born out of wedlock.

On the down side, the book takes long detours not much relevant to the main topic of discussion like Galileo’s and Newton’s somewhat detailed biographies. Such unnecessary digressions don’t add any specific interest to the argument. On a more serious note, Ohanian’s aversion to use metric units in describing physical phenomena is surprising and abhorrent at the same time. Units of measurement like the mile is expected in an American publication, but unwillingness for using the kilometer is begging contempt from modern readers. Instead of straightaway using kilometer, he employs klicks, which is a term used by U.S. military to denote the same concept. Such American chauvinism is highly deplorable.

Altogether, the book is recommended.

Rating: 3 Star

Taj Mahal

Title: Taj Mahal – Passion and Genius at the Heart of the Moghul Empire

Author: Diana and Michael Preston

Publisher: Walker & Company, 2008 (First published 2007)

ISBN: 978-0-8027-1673-6

Pages: 284

Taj Mahal is undoubtedly India’s greatest engineering achievement. Built out of an emperor’s sorrow over his dead wife, the white marble mausoleum has been identified as a symbol of India worldwide. The familiar image of the imposing structure on the banks of river Jamuna evokes feelings of awe, wonder, compassion and fulfillment. Influencing the mind of the onlooker is the romantic history of the Moghuls, the only Indian dynasty which could live on in the minds of people of later times through their magnificent buildings and equally magnificent court customs which coloured the imaginations of thousands of poets and story tellers. Most of them were egotistic, megalomaniac and blood-thirsty, resorting to the cruelest methods imaginable to man and which were lavishly employed against their rivals, be them their own brothers, cousins, father or sons. Since the principle of primogeniture was not practiced, the issue of succession in the event of the death of a king always resulted in fratricidal warfare. Unsuccessful princes usually found their eyes gouged out, or if the victor was merciful, they were summarily executed, without adding years of suffering to their lot. Rare exceptions notwithstanding, all of them were pleasure-seekers and ruled roughshod over their hapless subjects. Religious bigotry was practiced during the beginning and end of its flowering period in heartless detail. Thousands of temples were destroyed, thousands and thousands of men and women were taken as slaves or concubines of the rulers and two Sikh gurus were executed. It is clear that the nation does not owe them any moral or social debt for any lasting contribution they had imparted to its society. However, the dynasty still commands attention from us with their tales of intrigue, love and plain cheating.

Diana Preston and her husband, Michael Preston has produced many works under their joint pen name of Alex Rutherford whose book Empire of the Moghul - Raiders from the North has been reviewed earlierin this blog. That was fiction and this one is heavily tinged with details of suspiciously fictional origin. The book begins with Babur’s campaign to India starting from 1526 and nominally covers the end of the dynasty with Bahadur Shah II’s exile to Burma after his fiasco in the first War of Independence in 1857. The heart of the narrative covers Shah Jahan and his rule. Architectural and structural details of the Taj are given in sufficient detail which can be expected from a book targeting general audience. It also describes the changes in appearance affected on the ageless mausoleum after Moghul power waned and authority changed hands, first to British and then to indigenous. The authors have traveled widely in India, Uzbekistan and Iran to visit other construction of similar nature and to compare them to the Taj.

Babur established Mughal rule in India after defeating Ibrahim Lodi at the first battle of Panipat in 1526. That empire was not secure as Babur’s Turkish court couldn’t obtain cooperation from the Afghan nobles who made up the Delhi Sultanates. His son, Humayun was defeated by Sher Shah and thrown into exile. However, he regained his kingdom which grew to gigantic proportions under his son Akbar’s reign which nearly lasted a half-century. Akbar’s eclectic ideals on religion and government helped the various parts of the country to come together in a cohesive way. The sun of Moghul paramountcy rose in Akbar’s reign and probably set at around the completion of Taj Mahal when the empire began reeling under financial stress, caused in no small measure by the great building projects of Shah Jahan. Akbar was followed by his son Jahangir, to whom Shah Jahan was born.

Though Shah Jahan was the favourite son of his father, their relations soured towards the end of Jahangir’s father. In the power struggle which ensued the invalidation of Jahangir, who was addicted to opium and liquor, Shah Jahan killed his brothers Khusrau, Shahriyar and Dawar Baksh, and his two nephews (the sons of Prince Daniyal, his long dead brother). Unlike other Mughals, Shah Jahan was really attached to his wife Arjumand Bano Begum, who was later known as Mumtaz Mahal (the chosen one of the palace) who accompanied her husband in his times of travails – during battles and when he was hounded by an angry Jahangir’s troops for insubordination. In their marital life which lasted 19 years, Mumtaz bore him 14 children, of which 7 died and she herself died in labour during the 14^th. The relentless pregnancies must have cost severe stress on the queen’s health which was accentuated by travel through hostile terrain. Mumtaz breathed her last in Burhanpur in Central India in 1630 where they were camped while proceeding for battle with Deccan Sultans in the far south of the country. She was interred in a nearby garden. After Shah Jahan returned to Agra, his capital, he started construction of a mausoleum in deference to the dying queen’s wish. It took 16 years to complete the grand structure which has remained an object symbolizing conjugal love and dedication.

The marble for the structure was brought from Makrana in nearby Rajastan, and the design shows a seamless mix of Hindu and Islamic architectural styles. Built by Indian craftsmen, who skill was appreciated even by Babur, who had found India a dull place in every respect, the monument soon rose to the sky as a mark of human achievement in the unblemished grandeur of the building. Time went on, along with Shah Jahan’s troubles with his own sons, finally resulting in his reaping what he has sowed. His own sons fought among themselves at the first sign of weakness of their father. Aurangzeb ascended the throne after a bloody battle of succession in which he killed three of his brothers, Dara Shukoh, Shah Shuja and Murad Baksh in an inhuman way and eliminating his nephews. Aurangzeb’s intolerant practice of following hard-line Sunni Islam alienated fellow kings who were still ruling over a population predominantly Hindu. Local rulers like the Marathas gained prominence during Aurangzeb’s reign and when he died in 1707, the end of Mughal dynasty was a foregone conclusion.

The book is excellently written with handsome helpings from fiction and hearsay. Though it can’t be relied upon for accurate historical details, the book provides a convenient palette of semi-fictional facts over which historical fact may be superimposed. The authors had done a commendable job in making it a real blend of those two. Handsomely helped with illustrations and photographs of various architectural styles and characters, the work offers a complete panoply of tools for the serious as well leisurely-minded readers. More important of all, it arises an urge to visit the Taj among the readers with its neat description of the events which led to its construction, succinct narrative of the architectural niceties and the comprehensive coverage of his latter history. A good index helps to locate interesting details in a flash. It also provides some lesser known details of the Moghul monarchs such as,

a)      Akbar had more than 300 wives, many from Rajput dynasties, though he gave none of his daughters in marriage to other rulers

b)      Akbar ended the bizarre right of Muslim magistrates to spit in the mouth of Hindus who were late in paying Jizya, the religious poll tax which non-Muslims had to pay. (p.32)

c)      Jahangir possessed 125 kilos of diamonds, pearls, rubies and emeralds alone – amounting to 625,000 karats of gems

d)      Agra in 17^th century had a population of 750,000 which was more than double that of London at that time (300,000).

Though not exactly very relevant to the subject matter of the book, it also describes a lesser known fact about Babur, the founder of the dynasty. He was a bi-sexual with his homosexual tendencies evident from his diary (Baburnama) in which he writes about a servant boy who was later came to called Baburi (meaning Babur’s). Babur writes, “I developed a strange inclination for him – rather I made myself miserable over him. Before this experience I had never felt a desire for anyone. Occasionally Baburi came to me but I was so bashful that I could not look him in the face, much less converse freely with him. There was no possibility of speaking coherently” (p.13).

The book is highly recommended.

Rating: 3 Star

The Real Thing

Title: The Real Thing – Truth and Power at the Coca-Cola Company

Author: Constance L Hays

Publisher: Random House, 2005 (First)

ISBN: 978-0-8129-7364-8

Pages: 358

Nothing is more familiar to the world’s younger generation than the fizzy, brown liquid touted as the ubiquitous symbol of energy and vitality – Coca-Cola. Founded in 1886, the company has served many generations of people and has become a legend in business administration. Constance L Hays describes the growth of the company over the years, with special reference to the period after 1980 when changes of a heretofore unseen nature happened and it witnessed its biggest growth dynamics. The book narrates in detail how Roberto Goizueta transformed the company when its sales had plateaued, how Donald Keough and Douglas Ivester steered it through uncharted waters and provided astronomical value for the shareholders. The work ends on a sober note after the grave setbacks faced by the company after 1999 and the silverlining has still not appeared when the book closes at the end of 2004.

Asa Candler purchased the secret formula of Coke from its inventor John Pemberton in 1888. At first, the syrup was mixed with soda water at the point of sale and drank by customers on the spot. Benjamin Franklin Thomas and Joseph Brown Whitehead hit upon the idea of bottling the carbonated syrup so that the product could reach the doorsteps of a larger clientele. At first the company was restricted in its operation to the sale of concentrate to independent bottlers who had the sole responsibility to package and market it. Subcontracting to numerous associates, the bottling industry’s growth was exponential. In 1919, the bottle’s dimensions and look were standardized. The clout of the bottlers was felt too heavy by Coke management soon after. Stuck with a system in which the parent company couldn’t rise the price of syrup, confrontations and legal battles were imperative. However, by the 1980s, more and more bottlers wound up their facilities which were bought or taken over by Coke and its associate, the Coca-Cola Enterprises which was formed to handle bottling business. Though it was technically another company, entrusted with bottling and sales, Coke exerted critical influence in its day-to-day operations as the major stake holder.

The recipe of Coca-Cola is a jealously guarded secret even now. Only a few people even inside the company know the ingredients, a list of which is kept in a bank locker. Analysts have however identified the components from its chemical signatures. When it began in 1886, Pemberton used trace amounts of Coca leaves (from which cocaine is extracted), the flavour of cola nut from Africa, lime juice, vanilla and several other substances in the make up. Cocaine was not regarded as a harmful narcotic at that time, with physicians freely prescribing it for aches and relief. Coke was quick to withdraw the coca content when it was legally untenable to go along with the existing practice. The formula was again changed drastically in 1985 to address the rising market share of Pepsi, Coke’s biggest rival. The initiative was a very bold one to face Pepsi’s challenge which offered a better taste. However, the move backfired when it was rejected outright by the customers. New Coke, as it was known as a replacement of the old one flopped in the market and the company was forced to bring back the old recipe after just 78 days.

Coke always strived to be one step ahead of its rivals, often resorting to dubious marketing strategies. It sought to obtain monopoly rights to get its products displayed in supermarkets and convenience stores. Coke’s tactics of strangling the competitors often went afoul of anti-trust legislations and judgments were issued against the company. In 1996, in a major coup, it stole Pepsi’s bottler in Venezuela to solely do the bottling for them. The latter half of 1990s was however destined to witness the sagging growth of Coke. First the company was sued against by some of its own black employees alleging racial discrimination. It became apparent that the number of blacks in senior management positions was abysmally low when they constituted 15% of the overall workforce. Compounded with it was the recall of product from Belgium, France and some other European countries when it was detected that the carbon dioxide gas used in the bottles was contaminated. It eroded a huge chunk of credibility from the company. In 2000, Coke was forced to fire about 20% of the labour in a vain attempt to cut costs. When the narrative ends in 2004, we get the impression that not all is well at Coke.

The book is a disappointing one. It recounts the history of Coca-Cola mainly from 1980 onwards. Lacking an effective organising structure, the narrative which lacks any interesting feature shuttles back and forth between decades and centuries landing the readers in sheer confusion. Except for occasional flashes of witty comments, the description is drab. The layout is very bad, printed in very small letters and an unappealing font. Altogether, the book is a very unremarkable one.

The book is not recommended for the general reader.

Rating: 2 Star

No Easy Day

Title: No Easy Day – The Only First-hand Account of the Navy SEAL Mission that Killed Osama Bin Laden

Author: Mark Owen with Kevin Maurer

Publisher: Michael Joseph, 2012 (First)

ISBN: 978-0-718-17752-2

Pages: 299

The twin attacks on World Trade Center in New York was one of the moments people anywhere in the world is not going to forget for a long time to come. Whether you were a resident of Japan, India, Egypt or Brazil, you’d still be remembering the exact place and setting you were in, when the news broke on TV. It too days for the world to finally sink in the truth that Osama Bin Laden, as Islamic terrorist holed up in Afghanistan could carry out an attack on such a humongous scale against the most powerful nation on earth. A massive manhunt ensued the likes of which were not witnessed before. Years passed and most of the world mocked at the Americans for their failure to apprehend their greatest fugitive and came to the conclusion that he’ll never be caught. But the people who made it their mission to track Osama continued their silent work until they stood vindicated on the early morning of May 2, 2011 when Laden was killed in a Navy SEAL operation at his compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. His dead body was carried off by the assaulters and given a silent, but religious burial at sea.

This is the story of that operation. The author, Mark Owen is a nom de guerre of the commando who participated in the mission and a team leader of one of the groups which went inside Laden’s compound, overpowering the inhabitants. He saw Bin Laden’s body, took photographs of it and cleared the rooms. For security reasons, his as well as his team mates’ names are changed. The real author, Kevin Maurer, is a writer who has covered special operations forces for many years. He was often embedded with troops in many parts of the world.

Navy SEAL is the U.S. Navy’s Sea, Air, Land team, which is a special operations force. Equipped with the most modern and lethal weapons and surveillance technology, a SEAL is more than a man in terms of the fire power at his disposal. He can see at night – with night vision goggles, his guns are sleek, silent, accurate and fast, his vest is light and bullet-proof, his radio communicates with his team members on the ground and with the command centre through a satellite link. Equally or more dangerous is the mission for which he is called for. He enters the hideouts of militants - most of them bent upon doing a suicide mission – and destroys the targets. Owen describes the gruelling training regime which a SEAL has to undergo to be a part of the elite force. Whenever they are not on actual duty, they’d be training somewhere else, simulating extreme conditions of atmosphere where they might be called upon to operate one day. Owen himself was deployed in Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia before he was assigned to the team targeting Osama Bin Laden.

Osama was the son of a Saudi billionaire. Born as the seventh child on the tenth wife of a father who’d go on to have a total of fifty children. Attracted to religious orthodoxy from a very early age, Laden moved to Afghanistan to fight the Russian occupation, sometimes aided by U.S. weapons. After the Soviets withdrew, the restless Laden turned against his own allies and orchestrated the bombings against U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Exiled to Sudan as a result of American pressure on the Saudis, he founded Al Qaeda. The new organisation planned and executed a number of attacks on American targets, the assault on U.S.S. Cole in Yemen being one of them. Laden found asylum back in Afghanistan under the Taliban who wholeheartedly welcomed their one-time colleague. Bin Laden attained ever lasting notoriety by masterminding the attacks on World Trade Center in New York and Pentagon in Washington. A total of 3000 people of many nationalities perished in the attacks which shook the whole world to its core. It had never witnessed such a horrendous strike before, of crashing in hijacked aircraft on to targets. U.S. stung into action immediately and toppled the Taliban regime a few months later. Laden was on the run from 2001 onwards and a relentless manhunt went on in search of him until the CIA zeroed in on him to Abbottabad in Pakistan.

The CIA had many false starts in tracing the master terrorist. He was reportedly sighted at various places, facilitating a large scale operation in Tora Bora caves in 2007. The real turning point came when they identified the brother of Ahmed al-Kuwaiti who was Laden’s courier. Cut off from the outside world in his compound which didn’t have telephone or Internet connections, al-Kuwaiti was his right-hand man. The CIA traced his phone call to his family when he said that he had been doing the job he did earlier, confirming the sleuths’ suspicions. The suspected compound was continually watched by drones, satellites and other means. The layout of the area was utterly familiarized by the SEALS by re-creating the structure in the attack team’s training facility before they went in for the kill. The curious thing we note in the book is the lack of preparation on Bin Laden’s part to fight the commandos. Even though he had fifteen minutes in which to prepare a weapon or suicide vest, Laden was unarmed when the assualters rushed in. Owen remarks that the man who advocated thousands to court death in Jihad (the sacred religious wars) was unwilling to risk his own life when the time came.

Though the description of previous missions is flamboyant which is to be expected from a soldier, he could’ve done away with descriptions that reeked of disrespect to their victims or targets. Commandos who take bras from households they raided, only to hang it on to projecting attachments on their team mates’ gear appear revulsive to the readers, however hilarious it might have seemed to the proponents. Also the description of taking out Laden’s body from the truck to the ground after they reached their base in Jalalabad is in bad taste. Owen states that his body ‘flopped like dead fish to the ground’ (p.265). The book is mainly an item of propaganda, even with all protestations of the difficulties in getting it whetted by the security system. It conveys the idea of invincibility of the special forces.

The book is easily readable and is endowed with good colour plates on the training missions in Afghanistan and other parts of the world. Also, detailed schematics of Laden’s compound and the methods of commandos to get inside provide amply for leisurely reading.

The book is recommended.

Rating: 3 Star