Thursday, November 13, 2014

The Clash of Fundamentalisms




Title: The Clash of Fundamentalisms – Crusades, Jihads and Modernity
Author: Tariq Ali
Publisher: Verso, 2011 (First published 2002)
ISBN: 978-1-85984-457-1
Pages: 428

Tariq Ali is a renowned Pakistani writer and journalist, now settled in Britain. Author of many books on Islam and world politics and a film maker, he is noted for his leftist leaning that reasserts itself in his writing style. Ali tries to put in perspective the new phenomenon of Islamic terrorism that devastated many parts of the globe since the fall of Communism in early 1990s. Terrorism is fuelled by fundamentalism, which is not limited only to Islam. Any religion is capable of rearing a bunch of hell hounds who would carry out any imaginable atrocity in the name of god. Not only religion, but an ideology is also capable of mimicking all the destructive proclivities of religion. In this book, the author argues with free flowing logic that American Imperialism is an equal partner in spawning fundamentalism in its mindless quest for material wealth from every corner of the planet. In a bid to keep one step ahead of rivals, this capitalistic imperialism utilizes the harmful elements of other fundamentalisms to play them against the others. Though the author does not state as such, Communism has been another instance of imperialism - and the fundamentalism such an intolerant philosophy would no doubt produce – till its unexpected though long due demise in the last decades of the previous century. Thus, when one rival suddenly left the fray, the remaining players, who had worked hand in glove till then, turned against each other. What we see today is a clash of fundamentalisms, and forms the core idea of the book. The cover page is also cleverly conceived, with the former U.S. president Bush Junior portrayed in the garb of a hardline Muslim cleric. The book is easy to read and noted for the clarity of its arguments, even though the reader may not agree with him. His balanced views on South Asia is especially noteworthy, as the author is himself a Pakistani and thoroughly knowledgable about what goes inside the nation. Indians should learn from his criticism of the Pakistani establishment and not repeat the same mistakes on home ground.

The book presents a picture oscillating between truth and falsehood through its chapters. There are many sections that paints a down to earth portrait of how things actually happened, especially early Islamic history where the author’s irreverent style helped narrate the events truthfully without offending the sentiments of even diehard adherents of the faith. But on Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait, such neutrality and objectivity is thrown to the winds. Again and again, we see justifications for Saddam’s fateful incursion against his weaker neighbour. We hear Ali say, “Kuwaitis were very provocative in their oil disputes against Iraq” (p.142), “Democratic elections in Kuwait immediately after occupation would have ensured massive support (to Saddam Hussein)” (p.143), “venal rulers of Kuwait became part of Western propaganda offensive” (p.143) and “Iraqi occupation of Kuwait was no exceptional outrage in either the region or the world at large” (p.147). Isn’t this sufficient to prove the hollowness of his arguments elsewhere about freedom and progress? The author’s strong tilt towards the political left must have dislodged the rational thinker in him to churn out unwarranted indictments against the victim, while at the same time condoning the aggressor. Thankfully, the book came about before the U.S. toppled Saddam. Otherwise, we would have witnessed more gruesome and vocal condemnation of the West.

A noteworthy feature of the book is its candid exposure of the state of affairs in Pakistan. Being the arch-enemy, Pakistan has been a country of interest to most Indians evoking a mixed feeling of hatred, mistrust, enmity and all those emotions that one should not be proud of possessing. We think Pakistan to be a country of evil, but this book presents a different picture. Ali declares Pakistan to be a failed state, where the Military calls the shots and politicians have lost all credibility due to widespread corruption. Unlike its eastern neighbour, this country is not seen to be wedded firmly to democracy, as four military takeovers have already marred its chequered history that spans seven decades. However, reading between the lines, we see that not all military establishments had been detrimental to the long term interests of the country. The most corrosive of them all was Gen. Zia ul Haq’s regime in 1977 – 1989. He brought in the hardline militant into the ranks of the army, which was as professional as any other army in the Islamic world up till then. Pakistan’s downward slide to a theocratic state, thus initiated by the unscrupulous Haq, continued unabated. Now, many parts of the state has become lawless, with brainwashed fanatics from madrassas becoming a law unto them. As usual, Tariq Ali blames the responsibility for this metamorphosis on America, especially its Afghan War, in which it trained, armed and paid for the Mujahideen to combat Soviet troops. Osama bin Laden arrived there to supervise the action on America’s behalf, as the author says. But there is something fundamental that is flawed in this ‘blame-it-all-on-America’ attitude. Soviet occupation lasted barely ten years, ending in 1989. But Afghanistan has not been able to stand on its feet for 25 years thereafter, till the time of this writing, and there is no hope that peace would return to the rugged country in the foreseeable future. True, there was an enemy and it was routed. But why do the combatants are not able to sit around a table and exchange ideas, instead of bullets and bombs? This issue is not addressed by the author.

The book offers an enjoyable experience, but the readers should never lose sight of the fact that the author is a Leftist, and none of his words are to be accepted at face value without ascertaining its truth. He waxes eloquent on the political murders in Indonesia and Vietnam, where the Communists were heavily oppressed, but keeps silent on Stalin and Mao’s equally bloodthirsty pogroms. The author’s ideas are liberal, but he should owe them to the permissive culture of the West where he sought and obtained asylum. Pakistan would not have tolerated his unorthodox ideas. Many a people have been executed in that country for the offense of harbouring even less revolutionary thoughts. When the time came to emigrate, Ali had no hesitation about which country to choose. There was Soviet Union, China and a few dozen Communist havens, but he promptly found his nest in Britain. Ever since his life was assured, he turned against the society that provided him with shelter and this book is another example of the ungrateful tirade.

The book is recommended.

Rating: 3 Star

Tuesday, November 4, 2014

From Lineage to State




Title: From Lineage to State – Social Formations in the Mid-First Millennium BC in the Ganga Valley
Author: Romila Thapar
Publisher: Oxford University Press, 1995 (First published 1984)
ISBN: 0-19-562675-3
Pages: 189

Some of India’s complex social systems are hard to comprehend, like caste or jati. There is no mention in the country’s ancient texts on how this practice originated and developed. Hindu religious literature is vast, esoteric and complex, yet fails to mention how the religion’s most observable parameter came about. There are four varnas throughout the literature, no doubt, but caste is much different than Varna. While trying to reconcile the idea of caste, another hurdle faced by students of ancient Indian history is to demarcate an era in which the clan-based societies prevalent in the country and mentioned in sacred literature yielded to the pressure of monarchical states. What caused the transition and how was it related to similar events happening in other parts of the ancient world? Romila Thapar, who needs no introduction as a reputed scholar and historian, attempts to answer both the questions and to pin down a point in time at which a clear indicator of change is visible to her learned eye. 500 BCE and around was an important period in Indian history owing to the time in which states slowly emerged from the mists of history and caste began to take shape. This was also the time when religious reformers and founders like Buddha and Mahavira appeared on the scene. It was also the moment in history when the incidents heroically narrated in the Mahabharata and Ramayana materialized in real life, perhaps in a less romantic style. Both the epics were written down much later than that, but the core events of narration took place around this era. Romila Thapar makes an excellent analysis of historical events as gleaned from the Vedas, epics and puranas. With a master stroke the author compiles information from varied texts and brings out a comprehensive story of the change that transfigured the country’s visage forever. The profundity of the events which are described in this book are so enormous that even the sophisticated Indian of the 21st century is still a product of the legendary course of events unfurled in that remote past and living with a mindset that still displays the imprint of long eons of compressed history, nicknamed as heritage!

The early first millennium BCE was a period in which profound changes were taking place in Northern India. The pastoral societies of the Vedic age in the Punjab plains began to migrate eastward to the west Ganga valley, including the Ganga – Yamuna doab. When the curtain goes up around the mid-first millennium BCE in Thapar’s narrative, we see agricultural communities having firm roots in west Ganga region extending their migration towards further eastward to the middle Ganga watershed. Thus, the focus of attention in the political sphere gradually shifts from the Kuru – Panchala region in the doab to Magadha – Sravasti – Kosala regions of the latter area. Power over the farm lands and ownership of cattle wrested with clans. This lineage system was nearing breaking point by 500 BCE. Unit of economic production had changed from lineage to individual household, the gruhapati (householder) owning the assets. Protection of the assets, which was earlier under the collective responsibility of the clan, gave way to chiefs (rajas) who led the people in cattle raids against other neighbouring groups and gave shelter when under reciprocal attack. Cattle-lifting was an accepted way of gaining wealth, out of which the chiefs quite not unnaturally amassed a greater share. Such discrepancies in the distribution of wealth and the transfer of ownership of land from lineages to households created stratification in the society. The egalitarian clans transmogrified to the Varna system.

Thapar presents a plausible mechanism to the evolution of varnas. The term ‘Vish’ that later applied only to Vaishyas, the third Varna, was earlier used to denote the entire membership of the clan. As the chiefs continued to gather strength, they and their families came to be called rajanyas. When the administrative chores became extensive, these people handled greater power, ‘kshatra’, and began to be called kshatriyas. The rajas were elected or selected by a council of peers called ’sabha’. The legitimation of the ruler came through the priest, Brahmin, who also conducted sacrifices or yajnas of elaborate etiquette. As ownership of land changed hands to households, the peasant workforce was depleted considerably. The term ‘Dasa’, originally connoted people of non-Aryan origin, or to people initiated into the Aryan fold to do menial jobs. Earliest settlers of the Indus basin, called Asuras were technically superior to the Aryans and were also integrated into the society in the lowest stratum. These were called the Shudras. Thus we see the Varna system getting solidified into the four familiar categories around 500 BCE. It is curious to learn that the Devas and Asuras who represented the good and the evil respectively in Vedic texts, are present in Iranian legends as well, as Devas and Ahuras, with the well known Persian trait of changing the sound ‘s’ to ‘h’. But the interesting point to note is that there, the roles are interchanged, with Devas doing evil and Ahuras doing good!

The crucial transition from clan-system to state occurred in the middle Ganga valley. This area was newly incorporated into the post-Vedic society, and the presence of only two Varnas, the Kshatriya and Vaishya is noticeable. Labourers were used for agriculture on land which had become household property and the status of Shudras assigned to them. Surplus wealth was generated from agriculture, which was invested in trade and commerce. Traders called Shrestins established market towns, nigamas. Coinage arose in order to support commerce and financial transactions presented the need for a higher power to adjudicate over disputes that invariably arose. Brahmin sources depreciated the middle Ganga valley comprising Magadha and Kosala, where the surplus wealth was not usually distributed to Brahmins as gifts or as prestations in the case of yajnas, which they used to receive in Kuru and Panchala lands. But on the other hand, we see Buddhist texts commending the gruhapatis for bestowing liberally on the Sangha. Thus we see Magadha emerging as a kingdom which held under its wings the various parts that were required for the formation of a state, in the form of monarch, trade system with many guilds, markets, soldiery, peasants and rich householders who could pay taxes.

Thapar claims that both the Indian epics of Ramayana and Mahabharata deals with the social issues related to the transition from a lineage system to state. Ramayana’s Ayodhya was the capital city of Kosala which had already turned into a state. Hastinapura and Indraprastha of the Mahabharata were transforming themselves from clan-system. The transitory phase of the largest kingdom of the period, Magadha, is depicted in Buddhism’s Ceylon chronicles, the Dipavamsa and Mahavamsa. It is not coincidental that India’s great contribution to ancient statecraft, Kautilya’s Arthashastra, was formulated during this time. It is to be stressed here that the clans were not swept away overnight. Gana sanghas, variously translated as republics and oligarchies continued to exist till the post-Gupta period, a full millennium later than the events described in this book. This longevity was facilitated by the flexibility of metropolitan states like Magadha which contended peacefully with extraction of revenue from conquered clans, while leaving their economic and social structure intact. This could go on as long as there was wasteland existed for dissident or rebellious groups to dissociate themselves from an existing society and migrate to. As this declined in area, contests became fiercer, and the mild clans could not cope with the force exerted by powerful states and India underwent a supremely important change in her political history.

An unfortunate thing to note is that outside influence of any sort is not taken into account in the study. Though it is fairly evident that the Achaemenid Empire of Persia shared a common border with many of the Vedic societies in the Punjab around this period, its contribution to the events in India is not taken into consideration. We are not sure whether such a crucial influence is not discernible to the author or that she has simply omitted them altogether. This critical missing link counts terribly as one of the drawbacks of the book which needs to be filled in by other historians. The input received from the West that comprised the Assyrians and Achaemenidae must have been substantial.

The book is highly recommended.

Rating: 4 Star