The Story of the Integration of the Indian States

Title: The Story of the Integration of the Indian States

Author: V P Menon

Publisher: Orient Longmans, 1956 (First)

ISBN: 9780405045752 (typical)

Pages: 511

When India became independent, the country was a kaleidoscope of small and large states of various hues and shades. The bigger provinces were under direct British rule, but the native princely states, which were 554 in number, were scattered over the entire area. Nobody could have imagined that all these principalities would be merged into a single union within two years – a blink of an eye as far as national timescales are concerned. But Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel and Vappala Pangunny Menon, his adviser and secretary to the States ministry achieved the impossible in such a short time. They tamed the quarrelsome princes and convinced them of the need first to accede to India and then to merge their states with others or British Indian provinces. With patience, tact, compromise and a little bit of coercion when all else failed, the states were eventually pulled under the wings of the Indian republic. V P Menon tells the story of that heroic effort that has not received the grateful attention of India because the state machinery was bent upon conferring on Nehru the laughable epithet of the architect of modern India. The country trod the path of economic progress only when Nehru’s policies were thrown out with contempt in the liberalization era. How then can he still be called the architect? However, the focus on Nehru in state-approved history came at the cost of Sardar Patel.

India maintained its unity of culture at all times but politically it was a hopeless case during most of its existence. Rare exceptions like the Mauryas and Guptas may be cherry-picked, but they were just that, rather than the rule. The British united it politically – no doubt, for their own ends – but united it indeed came to be. Menon acknowledges the British contribution with an encomium that “no greater achievement can be credited to the British than that they brought about India’s enduring political consolidation. But for this accomplishment and the rise of national consciousness in its wake, the government of free India could hardly have taken the final step of bringing about the peaceful integration of the princely states” (p.3). The East India Company established its administration from the districts to the Governor General. The administration was impersonal and no hereditary posts were envisaged as done by the native rajas. The company’s officers were imbued with a sense of their mission and introduced the principles and practices which obtained in their country. The East India Company annexed many states outright to their dominions, but abandoned this policy after 1857, considering the limitless help in men and material they received from the local princes in suppressing the Mutiny. This temporarily halted the drive for unification. The Simon Commission report submitted in 1930 restarted the process by hinting of a federation of all states. It proposed setting up of a standing consultative body containing representatives from British India and the states, to be called the Council for Greater India. The federal portion of the reforms enunciated by the 1935 Government of India Act was not implemented due to reluctance of the princes over loss of revenue. At that time, World War 2 intervened and all consultations were stopped.

Menon was very active in the bureaucratic circles after the end of the War and provides a blow by blow account of the British effort to grant freedom in a peaceful way. Stafford Cripps proposed a union in which the states were given the privilege to opt out if they so desired. Such states would still continue the same treaty relationship with the Crown. Both the Congress and the Muslim League rejected this half-way offer. As late as 1946, Viceory Wavell was assuring the princes their continued positions of power and prestige. The Cabinet Mission specified in no uncertain terms that paramountcy of the British would end with the handing over of power and the new dominions would not be the overlords of the states. It was left to the princes to negotiate and make a working arrangement with the new states. For a brief time, the princes were quite content at the fact that they were now free to take decisions that concerned their future. This was a short-lived dream. The new dominions – India and Pakistan – wanted the states to accede to them on the three subjects of external affairs, defence and communications. The Centre’s right to enter any state for protection of internal security was guaranteed in the defence clause. A Standstill Agreement was also signed by the states that transferred the arrangements which they had had with the Crown to the new governments until alternate schemes were finalized.

This book describes the feverish pitch of India’s struggle to ensure accession of all states that were contiguous to it. Pakistan was breathing down their neck. When Maharajah Hanwant Singh of Jodhpur was initially disinclined to accede, Jinnah gave him a signed blank sheet of paper, asking him to fill in the conditions to join Pakistan. But soon, the public unrest in that predominantly Hindu state forced him to accede to India. Menon thankfully acknowledges Lord Mountbatten’s support, who was the first Governor General of free India, in swaying the decisions of some princes to India. He notes that Mountbatten had abundant love for India. Some states proved intransigent at first, especially Travancore under its Dewan Sir C P Ramaswamy Iyer. Hyderabad, Kashmir and Junagadh were stubborn in keeping their independent existence and later Junagadh in fact acceded to Pakistan. Their show of force against nearby Mangrol, which had acceded to India, was met with Sardar’s military muscle. Eventually, the Muslim Nawab of Junagadh fled to Pakistan and the state joined India.

If the princes had thought that they could exert their sweet will on the people on all matters except the three subjects relegated to the Centre, their hopes were soon dashed by the flow of events which came thick and fast. Clamour for governments responsible to the wishes of the people were rising from all corners. Most of the states were not in a position to dally with popular government and democracy owing to their small sizes and meagre financial resources. There were 222 states in the region of Kathiawar itself, of which Vijanoness had an area of just 185 acres, with a population of 206 and annual income of Rs. 500! There were scattered islands of territory outside their individual boundaries. In the 57,000 square kilometer area of Saurashtra, there were 860 different jurisdictions that hindered movement of people and trade. Sardar and Menon set about on the task of merging unviable states into unions, to other states or to nearby provinces. This was the second stage of integration. The rulers were effectively threatened to hand over power or else the responsible governments which they’d eventually be forced to concede would agree anyway. In that case, the decision would be against their will and without any compensation. In its place, Menon promised liberal Privy Purse payments to the rulers with which they can settle down to a quiet life in lieu of sovereignty. The situation was very fluid and the unsettled nature of the things was fully utilized by the author. The pettiness of the rajas came out when talks progressed. Menon lists out a few instances of the Travancore raja who was unwilling even to meet his co-ruler in the new state, the raja of Cochin. Some princes protested at the amalgamation and wanted plebiscite. Menon preempted them by telling that he could not believe it to be their intention to deny the representative character of Nehru, Sardar and the central cabinet. Reminiscing with obvious delight and slight mischief, Menon remarks that ‘much water had flowed under the bridge’, referring to the total surrender of the native principalities from the initial demand of accession on just three subjects. In the end, out of the 554 states, 216 were merged to nearby provinces, 5 were taken over as Chief Commissioner’s provinces, 310 were consolidated into six unions, 21 Punjab hill states were merged into Himachal Pradesh and Mysore and Hyderabad remained untouched.

The firsthand experience of the author in merging Hyderabad and Kashmir are detailed in the book. Ever since the Kashmir issue was referred to the United Nations, it ceased to be controlled by the States ministry and the External Affairs ministry took over. But in Hyderabad, his experience was comprehensive from the initial posturing of the Nizam to his unconditional surrender. Hindus comprised 85 per cent of the state’s population but the Nizam had stuffed his administration, police and armed forces with Muslims. Initially he refused to accede to India and wanted dominion status. To buttress his claim and to blackmail India, an organization called the Ittihad ul-Muslimeen was launched to intimidate and suppress the Hindus of Hyderabad. Kazim Razvi was its leader and its members were called Razakars who were given a free run of the place. The Nizam conducted parleys with Jinnah and appointed Mir Laik Ali, who had represented Pakistan in the UN as the president of his executive council. He arm-twisted the Indian government to sign a standstill agreement without accession, but followed it up immediately with two ordinances that banned export of precious metals to India and prohibited the use of Indian currency as legal tender in his state. Moreover, he displayed where his real sympathies lay with a loan of Rs. 20 crores to Pakistan. Razvi’s incendiary speeches and attempts to cleanse Hyderabad of its non-Muslim population were escalating the tension with each passing day. With a Koran on one hand and a sword on the other, he exclaimed jihad against India and swore that the 45 million Muslims in India would be their fifth-columnists in the case of a war. On 22 May 1948, the mail train from Madras to Bombay was waylaid at Gangapur station. Several male passengers were killed and the assailants kidnapped many women passengers. The Nizam was testing the patience of India and counting upon the lucky chance that its troops were tied up in Kashmir and some British politicians were demanding independence for Hyderabad. Finally, Indian forces barged in by a pincer movement and humbled its troops within 108 hours of fighting. The Nizam was allowed to remain as the head of state and he returned the favour by faithfully signing on the dotted line whenever asked for. However, Menon gives only scant details of the invasion.

A serious drawback of the book is that its author is not as candid as the readers wish him to be. Even though he had retired from service by the time he wrote this book, Menon still keeps the veil of secrecy and stays on the narrow course offered by the official version. The economic blockade of Junagadh and Hyderabad doesn’t find mention in the narrative because it was put in place covertly. Detailed coverage of the articles, schedules and letters reproduced verbatim is a little trying on the reader. At the same time, he has presented some interesting anecdotes and asides such as the Gangajal Fund of Gwalior and the air crash involving the Maharajah of Jaipur. An accusation levelled against Menon’s ministry was its generous spirit in granting privy purses to deposed rulers. This argument is categorically refuted by the author with clear logic and facts.

The book is highly recommended.

Rating: 4 Star

Khajuraho

Title: Khajuraho

Author: Devangana Desai

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 2001 (First published 2000)

ISBN: 9780195656435

Pages: 107

‘Monumental Legacy’ is a series of books on the rich architectural heritage of India, published by the Oxford University Press. This volume is on Khajuraho which is world famous for its magnificent temples, richness of construction and the uncharacteristic boldness in erotic depictions portrayed on its walls. Thousands of tourists visit the town every year, and there is nothing which delights a serious enthusiast of Indian temple architecture more than an authoritative text from a master of the art. Guides – both human and books – often provide fantastic and farfetched explanations for mundane things which challenge one’s commonsense. Dependable books such as this would go a long way in satisfying the craving for knowledge. Devangana Desai is a reputed art historian and former vice president of the Asiatic Society of Mumbai. She has served in the boards of well-known museums in India. She was consultant to the project on the Museum Images of Khajuraho and has also authored many books on ancient art and its rich representation in Khajuraho.

What we see in Khajuraho is a full blown representation of the religious pantheon prevailing in the tenth to twelfth centuries CE of the Chandela dynasty. Shiva, Vishnu and Surya are the male gods worshipped there, along with Jain tirthankaras. However, Desai reminds us that the adoration of mother goddesses seen in many temples was derived from the worship of Maniya Devi, a tutelary deity of the Chandelas. She was a tribal goddess of the Gonds who inhabited the tract, but was later incorporated as an aspect of Goddess Parvati in the refined theology of Hinduism. The architecture of the temples follows the Central Indian Nagara style. All the religious places more or less follow the same pattern of a sanctum (garbhagriha), a connecting chamber (antarala), a large pavilion (mahamandapa), a smaller pavilion (mandapa), a porch (mukhamandapa) and a platform (jagati). The temple’s spire rises exactly above the centre of the sanctum. This invisible axis joining the centre of the sanctum on the ground level and the finial of the superstructure above is conceived as the cosmic axis connecting the earth and heaven.

Any mention of Khajuraho evokes references to wild erotic postures sculpted on the temple walls. This is especially significant considering the Victorian morality of the Indian state and its present society. Authors are hard-pressed to explain away the presence of shocking sexual unions portrayed there which would make porn industry barons nod in agreement and smile in silent amusement. However, Desai specifically informs that such erotic sculptures don’t constitute even a tenth of the total number of such icons. Belief in ‘free love’ that once abounded in the region is clearly unfounded. Women, as usual anywhere in the medieval world, were not allowed much freedom by the male-dominated patriarchal society, whatever may be the Chandela representations on temple walls. The author suggests that the shilpashastras and other authoritative texts on temple art have recognized the auspicious and protective aspects of erotic figures. She reminds the readers that such figures appear in temples built between 900 and 1300 CE. Perhaps the tastes of the country’s elite had undergone a change in that era! Anyway, erotic figures appear on the walls only at Khajuraho, whereas it is shown on the platforms in others temples. As all apologists do, Desai puts forward a hypothesis that these figures can be metaphoric and might conceal a deeper symbolism. The influence of Kamasutra on the postures is definitely ruled out as fellatio is condemned in that ancient text, but is freely seen at Khajuraho.

Hinduism and Jainism thrived side by side in India, even though there are some indications of strife in the South. Traders generally practiced Jainism. In many places we see magnificent Jain temples accompanying equally grand Hindu temples. The kings patronized Hinduism by the medieval period. The dignified magnificence of Jain temples at Khajuraho attests to the material wellbeing of the trading community. All Jain shrines are of the Digambara sect. In addition to images of Tirthankaras, figures of Yakshas and Yakshis are freely found. The jina images are only objects of meditation and no earthly rewards are expected from their veneration. Yakshas and Yakshis fulfil the worldly needs of devotees. The main Yakshis depicted are Chakreshwari, Ambika and Padmavati who are respectively associated to Adinatha, Neminatha and Parshwanatha.

The glossary of common terms used in the book is extensive and nearly covers all attributes of Indian archeology. The great effort exerted in compiling such a long list is commendable. Equally noteworthy is the chapter on interesting places situated in and around Khajuraho that can be visited without much effort. The book’s contention that the town of Khajuraho is not connected by rail is, however, plain wrong. The rail link to the town was commissioned in 2008 and since the book was published in 2000, the omission is understandable. What is unpardonable is the tardiness of the publisher in issuing a revised edition. This book can be read in full very quickly and is an asset to the traveler who plans to visit Khajuraho.

The book is highly recommended.

Rating: 3 Star

Kannur

Title: Kannur – Inside India’s Bloodiest Revenge Politics

Author: Ullekh N P

Publisher: Penguin Viking, 2018 (First)

ISBN: 9780670090693

Pages: 223

Kerala leads most other Indian states on the indices of human development and social progress. Its life expectancy is comparable even to the most developed nations. Kerala’s economy is also peculiar in its makeup. Industrial manufacturing and production of food grains are given no priority at all and the state’s scanty agricultural produce is limited to cash crops like tea, rubber and cashew. The public sector is the major investor as far as industries is concerned. What drives it’s otherwise faltering economy is the remittances made by Keralites working overseas, which comes to about 35 per cent of its income. This makes the human resources of the state a valuable source of income. The topmost position of Kerala in education, healthcare and welfare schemes is thus correlated to its imperative of properly tending to a rich capital of manpower at its disposal. Naturally, this translates to suppression of violence and civic unrest. While most of the state is so peaceful as to make the slogan God’s Own Country no exaggeration but a plain statement of fact, the northern district of Kannur is wrought with political violence of the worst kind. Rival parties employ killer squads to eliminate or maim their opponents working in other political parties. This goes on unchecked even now, and the ruling CPM is arraigned by serious allegations of colluding with the criminals. This book examines the political situation in Kannur, how this sorry state of affairs came into being and the supposed causes and remedies. Ullekh N P is a native of Kannur and is a journalist and political commentator based in New Delhi. He has working experience in India’s leading newspapers and writes on domestic and international politics, economy, governance, public health and corporate affairs.

Continuously targeted by the Marxists, the RSS initiated a nationwide campaign titled ‘Redtrocity’ that highlighted the state-sponsored violence in Kannur. The movement has been immensely successful and Kerala’s Chief Minister, who is also a Marxist and alleged to have links to political violence himself in Kannur, had had to change his travel routes in Bhopal and Delhi to evade the protestors. This book is in fact a Marxist reply to the Redtrocity campaign. The author is the son of Pattiam Gopalan, a former member of parliament of the CPM and boasts of close relationships with the chief minister and CPM’s top brass in the state. The author’s acute political bias is evident from his tweets with the Twitter handle @Ullekh. What is amusing is his shuffling of facts to present himself as an impartial author. On closer inspection, it can be seen that the entire book is an attempt to project the CPM line that all parties in Kannur indulge in violence and their own fury is to be construed as acts of self-defense. Ullekh mentions the death toll at least half a dozen times, like a basketball score, to drive home the CPM’s contention that all parties resort to atrocities to score political points.

The book makes a social analysis of the situation prevailing in Kannur. Whereas the caste groups defined social identity in other parts of Kerala, political affiliation alone matters in Kannur. Even matrimonial alliances are chosen along party lines. Ullekh identifies the Thiyya community as the major pool which supplies both the perpetrators and victims of violence. As times advanced, the strategy also changed. Now, men are picked up randomly from various parts of the district, given fake names and put together as a killer squad. Tipper lorry drivers are the group used most frequently as killers. Another notable feature is that it is the areas that were once mentioned in the Northern Ballads that have seen disproportionately high levels of bloodbath. The ballads sing the saga of Chekavars, who fought and died to settle the personal vendettas of their upper caste overlords. The author assumes that the martial spirit of the Chekavars lingers on today. Widespread practice of the martial arts form called Kalaripayattu also plays a part in driving its practitioners to the battlefield. We should also note that guns and other projectile weapons are not used at all to kill people, while knifes, daggers and machetes are freely employed.

Ullek lays before us the history of the Communist movement in Kannur and how the poison seed of wanton belligerence was sowed by unrelenting physical attacks from Congress and their hired goons. M V Raghavan, who later left CPM to align with the Congress, was the lynchpin of the party’s resistance. As the CPM’s might consolidated, the Congress faded away from the scene and the RSS took its place. The book describes the brutal murder of K T Jayakrishnan Master of the RSS who was hacked to death while teaching his primary school students in the classroom. Forty-two eleven-year olds watched in horror and shock as a few assailants chopped their teacher to pieces. What stuns the civilized reader is the callous indifference with which CPM handled its aftermath. Seven were arrested for the murder, of which one committed suicide during trial. One was acquitted and the remaining five were sentenced to death by a sessions court. The verdict was upheld by the High Court, but on appeal the Supreme Court acquitted four and commuted the death penalty of a CPM activist named Pradeepan to imprisonment. After he spent twelve years in a very liberal prison he was released by the CPM government in 2011. And – the worst was yet to come – he was elected the president of the Parent-Teacher Association of the very school where Jayakrishnan Master was slain. CPM’s retaliation can sometimes turn beastly too. One of their attacks against M V Raghavan turned to smashing of the institutions he had helped found. Consequently, a snake park was attacked by the Marxists and the snakes and tortoises caged in the stalls were roasted alive. However, the author cleverly fails to mention this gruesome incident.

This book’s raison d’etre is the whitewashing of CPM and its chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan, who himself was one of the accused in the horrific murder of Vadikkal Ramakrishnan, an RSS worker in 1969. This is clear from the author’s painstaking research of crime records and party lore on the atrocities committed by the RSS. As K T Jayakrishnan Master was killed in front of his young pupils, so Ullekh cites two other cases in which CPM-men were also killed likewise. Not to be satisfied with this macabre tallying game, he quotes a general principle that recognizes violence as a rightful tool of political movements. He claims that ‘history teaches us that the world over, violence has served certain functions to ensure justice in an unjust society (p.103). We can only wonder why Penguin Books chose to promote such a blatant piece of political propaganda. The book also contains some fanciful theories of Alexander Jacob, a former police chief who served in Kannur during the unrest, which attributes racial factors to the violence. Such ahistorical conjecture which links the people of Kannur with ancient dynasties in Central India and even far away Assyria in Iraq are just flights of fancy.

The book is recommended.

Rating: 2 Star

Alexander the Great

Title: Alexander the Great

Author: Philip Freeman

Publisher: Simon & Schuster, 2011 (First)

ISBN: 9781416592815

Pages: 391

The world is a thoroughly connected place today with technology serving as instant messenger between people living in far off places. Before the onset of the early modern age with its idea of a postal system, information flowed from one place to the other through trade, war and exchange of cultural contacts. Of these three, war usually preceded the other two. Alexander the Great inaugurated an era of integration of Asia into an overarching Greek culture that profoundly influenced later history. At the tender age of 22 and three centuries before Christ, he set out from Macedonia to conquer the whole known world. No adversity could stop them as he was the embodiment of pure human ambition, unwilling to lose. He led his loyal army across blistering deserts, towering mountains and steaming jungles to conquer all the kingdoms and societies that crossed his path. Alexander’s true legacy is more solid and subtle than his military victories. The contacts established between civilizations and the imposition of a standardized military state helped to fuse the nations in the crucible of the Greek language and customs. This book compiles the biography of Alexander from ancient sources and presents the facts in an immensely interesting way. It subscribes more towards the readability of fiction than the rigour of historiography. Philip Freeman is a Professor of Humanities at Pepperdine University in California. He is the author of more than a dozen books on the ancient world. His doctorate in classical philology has enabled him to trace the development of specific words from a particular historical source. We can see numerous such examples in this book.

It is instructive to learn how ambitious rulers could engineer ill will against a neighbour when none existed before. Alexander cited the invasion of Greece by Persia in the previous century as a just cause for exacting revenge. This may sound plausible until we stop to find that the Persian forces were routed first at Marathon on land and then at Salamis on sea. The defeat was a crushing one for Emperor Xerxes’ self-pride, but Alexander played up the sentiment of being a victim to foreign aggression. Not for the first, nor for the last time for a politician, he reaped rich dividends by provoking mass hysteria. This Macedonian fervor was at odds with the spirit that led tens of thousands of other Greeks to serve as mercenaries in the Persian army. They fought against their compatriots in Alexander’s troops and often inflicted crippling damages as they knew the techniques of the attackers too well.

For those who wonder whether the great king left behind any material proof of his existence other than eulogies, Freeman introduces the temple dedicated to Athena in Priene, Turkey. Alexander commissioned the temple and the inscription on a stone slab is still visible at the site in which Alexander’s name is spelt out in full, leaving no scope for skeptics. This is one of the few pieces of contemporary evidence we possess for naming the Macedonian king. His quick temper and uncanny ability to follow outlandishly difficult war strategies that finally ended up in victory are amazing. Never before did warring nations fought in winter or in snow-clad mountain terrains. In the early stages of the war, Alexander scored many victories on land in Asia Minor. His namesake navy was a poor cousin to his army and could not keep the harassing Persian navy away from their bases. What did Alexander do then which surprised the Aegean world other than disbanding his entire navy after a small battle at Miletus? This tied his hands on the sea. Only one option was available to him at that point. He could deny replenishment to the Persian sailors by occupying the entire Mediterranean coastline from the Hellespont to Cyrene. This was exactly what he did which also helped in his plans for global conquest.

Even though most historians portrayed the Macedonian in a positive light till the heyday of colonialism, the two bloody world wars in the twentieth century made them more circumspect in whitewashing the inhuman war crimes of the Greek king. His brutal sacking of the Persian capital city of Persepolis after its peaceful surrender, his assassination of the trusted general Parmenion and his son Philotas to preempt any future threat to his power and the massacre of his fellow compatriots called the Branchidae who had fled Greece earlier to seek asylum in Central Asia are all dark spots that mar the humane face of Alexander’s portrait. The king’s transformation from the Macedonian paradigm of ‘First Among Equals’ to the Persian ‘Oriental Despot’ was vehemently opposed by his countrymen. In Persia, the social status of each person was keenly observed in their interactions. When two people met, they kissed on the mouth if of equal rank, while a superior nobleman kissed one below him on the cheek. But if they met the emperor or a person of very exalted rank, they had to prostrate on the ground to show their respect. This ritual of proskynesis attracted the attention of Alexander while staying in Persia and he wanted to adopt it into the army. In the end, on the face of fierce opposition by the Greeks, he quietly shelved the plan.

A full chapter is earmarked in the book to describe Alexander’s campaign in India. This was the first time the country became the focal point of international attention in history. Ancient historians like Herodotus had spun fantastic tales about the country, such as the existence of gold-digging ants in India. Being an avid reader of the classics, Alexander was eager to ascertain his domination over the rich country which he thought was at the extreme end of the world. He encountered pliable rulers like Omphis of Taxila and ferociously independent kings like Porus. Alexander made it a practice to return the land back to the king after their submission to him. It may also be remembered that Alexander fought some of his campaign’s toughest battles in India. In a fierce encounter with the tribe of Malli, he nearly lost his life with an injury to his lung. His favourite horse Bucephalus was killed in battle in India. No wonder then that the king decided to retrace his steps after his home-sick soldiers refused to march any further beyond the Punjab rivers. The Greek expedition’s sailing on the Indus River and their consternation on seeing the open ocean for the first time are neatly recorded by Freeman.

The author clearly establishes the role played by Alexander’s campaigns in Asia in spreading the Greek language in the region as its lingua franca. This helped later movements to distribute their books and propaganda material over a very wide area. Freeman claims that the Christian religion would have remained a local phenomenon but for the sway of Greek as a universal tongue, at least in the Mediterranean world. The writings of Paul, the apostle who took Christianity across the mountains and seas wrote in Greek. The book is very easy and pleasant to read. It offers a comprehensive glossary, a long list of books in bibliography for further reading and an all-inclusive index.

The book is very highly recommended.

Rating: 5 Star