Culture of Encounters

Title: Culture of Encounters – Sanskrit at the Mughal Court

Author: Audrey Truschke

Publisher: Allen Lane, 2016 (First)

ISBN: 9780670088942

Pages: 362

 

India’s language and culture underwent great changes during the six hundred years of Islamic invasions and occupation. An oligarchy attached to the rulers and who had no roots in the country subjected it to autocratic rule. Earlier, Sanskrit served as the link language on its position as the primary medium of literature all over the subcontinent. With the advent of the Sultanate and later Mughal dynasties, Sanskrit fell from grace. The sultans co-opted Persian as the court language. After Mughal power was consolidated during Akbar’s reign, he looked for ways to establish post-factual legitimacy by understanding and assimilating traditional royal claims to the throne. With this requirement in mind, they translated epics like Ramayana and Mahabharata and a few other works into Persian. This book is a case study of how the Mughals engaged with Sanskrit texts, intellectuals and ideas and how Sanskrit scholars responded to and participated in this demand for Indian stories, practices and philosophies. It deals with Sanskrit at the Mughal court from 1560 to 1660 CE, that is, from the reign of Akbar to Shah Jahan. A few minor works are artificially enlarged to match with the author’s high assessment of its worth and impact. The book also accepts that Sanskrit tradition collapsed entirely by 18^th century. Audrey Truschke is an assistant professor of South Asian History and is the author of two controversial works on Indo-Islamic interactions. Her book on Aurangzeb had received much criticism in its dishonest handling of descriptive sources to paint the bigoted sultan in an admiring light.

 

Akbar declared Persian as the official language of his empire in 1582. Even before this event, Mughal court had extended lavish patronage that attracted Persian poets, thinkers and artists from across Asia. With this virtual takeover by a foreign tongue, little space was left for Indian languages. However, Akbar sensed the disconnect this move had engendered with the numerically majority community of India. With this in mind, he initiated links with the Sanskrit tradition that were concentrated around the central court. Akbar sponsored the translation of many Sanskrit texts into Persians, hosted dozens of Jain and Hindu Sanskrit intellectuals at court and hired Sanskrit-medium astrologers. Initial Mughal engagement with Sanskrit was about music and dance. Akbar very much enjoyed Indian performance traditions. However, the favourite theme of court poetry centred on eroticism. The title of one such treatise if ‘Akbar Shahi sringaradarpana’ (mirror of erotic passion for Shah Akbar). This book devoted bulk of its attention to the erotic mood and typology of heroines. Mughals were voracious readers of such concepts in other languages like Hindi, Arabic and Persian too. Such were the subject matter of original books composed during this period.

 

The Sanskrit intellectuals in Mughal court were not solely interested in translation or helping Persian scholars gain insight into Indian treatises by explaining their meaning in the vernacular language. Truschke claims that Hindi had become the most common vocal language of the palace. Perhaps she means Urdu, as the Braj Bhasha was still not used by Muslim aristocracy. The Indian scholars also managed to gain a few meager political concessions due to their proximity to the sovereign. Jain monk Hiravijaya elicited from Akbar a prohibition of animal slaughter during the Jain festival of Paryushan. Similarly, a punitive tax on Hindu pilgrims visiting Varanasi and Prayag was rescinded for a while. But it seems that nobody took these prohibitions seriously and nothing changed on the ground as we see Jahangir reissuing the same injunction a quarter century later. Their position at court was not secure either, depending solely on the whim of the emperor. Mughals occasionally grew suspicious of the Jain doctrine as harbouring atheistic notions. Atheism was such a serious offence to Mughal sensibilities that even Akbar was not prepared to countenance it. Jahangir banished all Jain monks from the empire and stopped the stipend of his Jain court scholars by 1620. Some scholars moonlighted as court performers. Kavindracharya Saraswati and Jagannath Panditaraja were renowned Hindi singers as well. The author claims that development of vernaculars led to the gradual eclipse of Sanskrit.

 

The book displays the entire spectrum of Sanskrit literary work other than translation of epics in the time of Akbar and translation of philosophical texts like Upanishads commissioned by Dara Shukoh, a truly India-minded Mughal prince. Other genre included hagiographies such as Allopanishad (Upanishad of Allah) penned in the Vedic style on Akbar’s own request. This work alluded to Akbar’s status as a prophet. The vassal rulers imitated the fashion in the central court in the form of sending Sanskrit praise poems to the Mughal court. Rudrakavi, a Deccani king’s courtier, created panegyrics for Jahangir, his brother Danyal and son Khurram - later Shah Jahan. The rulers did not understand Sanskrit, but these were primarily intended as gifts rather than a literary article to be read and understood.

 

This book is the product of a clever agenda to present the period of Islamic occupation of India as something beneficial and benevolent to India’s culture. The very need for such highly organized and heavily financed high-decibel campaign provides the answer to the question of how it affected Indians. Through the translation of Indian texts into Persian, the Mughals had had some definite plans in motion. The translators often bitterly complain about their unsavoury task in having to handle a religious text of the unbelievers. Akbar had Mahabharata translated into Persian as Razmnamah (Book of War). Mulla Shiri, a translator in the project, characterized the book as ‘rambling, extravagant stories that are like the dreams of a feverish, hallucinating man’ (p.110). Abul Fazl was instructed to write a preface to the Mahabharata against his will. So, he remarked in the preface that the translation is intended to bring the religious texts in a clear, expressive language intelligible beyond elite circles, so that simple believers would become so ashamed of their beliefs that they will become seekers of truth (Islam) (p.131). Badauni refused outright to write a preface to his own translation of the Ramayana, denoting it to be a ‘rotten, black book’. Badauni even writes out the Islamic profession of faith in the translation and begs Allah to forgive him for translating a ‘cursed book’ (p.138). The content of the texts were also altered to suit the need. Praises of Akbar were made to come out of the mouths of the heroes of epic poems! The Islamic god was inserted into a supreme position in the Mahabharata translation and Hindu gods were preserved as mere intermediaries between humans and Allah. This is replicated in the Ramayana translation also. The Bhagavad Gita is condensed into a barebones sketch of the conversation, eliminating most of the source version’s abstract reflections and philosophical concepts.

 

The book is replete with gross exaggerations and conclusions disproportionate in magnitude to the available evidence. Just because the Mughals had encouraged a few intellectuals whose number can be counted on the fingers of our hands, it does not mean that Sanskrit was a part of the Mughal cultural milieu. Truschke then makes a leap of wishful thinking and claims that this suggests a multicultural imperial context. In fact, the real seeds of development of Indian culture grew outside the Mughal court, often in fear of royal oppression. Persian court texts very rarely mention the Indian scholars or if at all, portray them as marginal figures of no consequence. Only Hindus and Jains developed bilingualism by learning Persian while even Indian Muslims did not study Sanskrit. Other than classical works, only very insignificant books were produced after nearly a century of ‘encouragement’ and very few copies survive in manuscript form. Glimpses of Truschke’s pet program of glorifying Aurangzeb’s hate-filled actions are seen in this book also. His withdrawal of encouragement to Sanskrit is described as ‘a sensible political act’ in view of his rivalry with Dara Shukoh. Oxymoronic statements like ‘Sanskrit was an undeniable part of Mughal court culture, and yet the language itself remained grammatically inaccessible’ betray the lack of careful analysis of facts. Readers also encounter pompous statements like ‘I stand on the shoulders of many giants in shaping this book’ undeservedly presuming that this is a masterpiece. Last time we heard this statement was from Isaac Newton commenting on his ground-breaking discoveries on gravity and calculus.

 

The author repeatedly stresses on the term ‘multicultural’ to characterize the Mughal court. In every chapter, you see it used again and again as a form of conditioning the reader. A glance at the number of individuals and texts in each courtly language would expose the fallacy of this argument. The book includes a chapter on Abul Fazl’s Ain-i-Akbari which introduced Indian and Sanskrit literary concepts to the Persians in a comprehensive way. The author unduly pits the Jains against Brahmins and Rajputs by exaggerating scholarly and professional jealousies common among competing intellectuals in a royal court to the level of bitter enmity. This fight is then portrayed as moderated under the benevolent gaze of the Muslim rulers. The book is a drag on readability due to its complex formation of sentences and ideas.

 

The book is recommended only for serious readers.

 

Rating: 2 Star

Our Moon Has Blood Clots

Title: Our Moon Has Blood Clots – The Exodus of the Kashmiri Pandits

Author: Rahul Pandita

Publisher: Random House India, 2013 (First)

ISBN: 9788184000870

Pages: 258

 

When India was partitioned in 1947, the British provinces were annexed to each successor state on the criterion of which community commanded a majority in population. When that majority was thin, the province also was partitioned otherwise it went as a whole. For native states ruled by local princes, there were no solid criteria but the general communal principle was still upheld. If a state had a majority of a particular community and if it was geographically contiguous with the new nation in which that community held a majority, the native king acceded likewise. The rulers of Junagadh and Hyderabad wanted to join Pakistan, but that was out of the question. Not only were those two states having a very large Hindu majority, but were totally landlocked by India. States on the border regions had much more flexibility. Two states were notable in this respect for the choices they made. The state of Amarkot had a Hindu ruler and a Hindu majority in population, but the ruler decided to join Pakistan. Jinnah readily agreed even though the merger went against his foundational two-nation theory. The ruler of Kashmir prevaricated for a while, but Pakistan forced his hand with an invasion of his country by a mixed lot of tribal Pathans and disguised Pakistan army soldiers. Kashmir immediately acceded to India, but Pakistan continued its subterfuge ever since; and from the 1980s onwards, it is carrying out an armed jihad. The Islamists don’t want to just free Kashmir politically, but also to drive out the Hindus from their own soil and establish an exclusive Islamic state. Consequently, the Kashmiri Brahmins called Pandits have been at the receiving end of a brutal planned violence from the year 1990, forcing them to flee Kashmir and settle as refugees in other parts of India. This book tells this story from the author’s own painful personal experience. Rahul Pandita is a journalist-cum-author who has reported extensively from warzones. He was born in Kashmir valley and was only 14 years old when his family was forced into exile.

 

Pandita establishes his community’s roots in Kashmir with an eagle’s eye view of the attacks and persecutions they suffered at the hands of religious bigots. Towards the end of 14^th century, Islam entered Kashmir. Initially it fused with local practices and evolved into a way of life rather than a strict monotheistic religion. By the turn of that century, the picture changed. Sultan Sikander unleashed a reign of terror and brutality against his Hindu subjects. It is said that the number of Pandits he killed was so large that the sacred threads worn by these unfortunate men weighed nearly 200 kg when they were weighed before burning. A century later, Chaks of Shia sect took power and they were intolerant to both Sunnis and Pandits. Iftikhar Khan, who was the provincial governor in the time of Aurangzeb, was the next in the line of oppressors. Guru Tegh Bahadur, the ninth Sikh guru, was martyred when he intervened with the Mughals on behalf of the Pandits. Kashmir fell to the Afghans in 1752. Conditions were then so hostile that during the reign of Atta Mohammed Khan, any Muslim who met a Pandit would jump on his back and take a ride (p.17). Finally, the Hindu Dogra family bought Kashmir from the British for 75 lakh rupees, one horse, twelve goats and three Cashmere shawls! Even under their rule, Pandits were targeted by Muslim hardliners many times, especially in 1931.

 

The author claims that irreversible bitterness between Kashmiri Muslims and Indians caused the minority Pandits to be at the receiving end of the wrath which it evoked. A lot of illustrative examples are given in the book in which Kashmiris victimized the Pandits. Crowds half-mad with religious frenzy chanting hum kya chahte? – Azadi (what do we want? – freedom) would attack Pandit homes and their business establishments on the wayside. They would kick Pandit children at school for singing India’s national anthem. The author’s personal experiences include Kashmiri children tearing off images of goddess Saraswati from school magazines and grown up men flashing openly when Indira Gandhi addressed them in a public meeting in Srinagar. When India played against other teams in cricket, spectators would raise Pakistan flags and cry for Pakistan’s victory. Pandit homes’ window panes would be smashed whenever India defeated Pakistan in cricket. The entire Kashmir erupted in celebration when Javed Miandad scored a sixer from the last ball at Sharjah in 1986. This was in the 1980s, even before the violence escalated.

 

Matters came to a head in 1990. A notable feature of the book is that it horrifies readers with the plain truth in the narrative. One would be unable to contemplate the emotions which would stir a person to inflict such cruelty on his fellow humans. The events of Jan 19, 1990 were nightmarish for the Pandits. Slogans and war cries were raised from mosque loudspeakers throughout the night. Meanwhile, hoodlums assembled outside Pandit homes and threatened them by pelting stones. This pattern repeated in the following days. The mayhem would begin in the night and would continue till the wee hours of the morning, thus continuously depriving sleep for the victims. The incident of Naveen Sapru’s murder exposes the complicity of ordinary Kashmiris in the ethnic cleansing. Sapru was targeted and shot near a mosque in Habba Kadal. The attackers and spectators then danced around the bleeding body which was writhing in pain and agony of death. Minutes later, the spectacle ended and Sapru’s body lay motionless. A police truck then took the body to a hospital. The crowd followed the vehicle cheering from behind and shouting slogans. Nobody was convicted as the police also sided with the militants. Throughout the year 1990, Pandits were picked up selectively and put to death. If the chosen one was not to be found, a proxy of the same community sufficed. It was all about numbers and how many were killed. Kashmiris freely molested Pandit women in public and they habitually removed their bindis while going outside their homes. These innocent people suffered because the Islamists wanted Kashmir to be cleansed of Pandits. The jihadis were sure that if one was killed, a thousand would flee. Ads were placed in newspapers asking the Pandits to leave the valley or face consequences. Once they vacated their houses, the neighbours swooped in to claim the articles left behind. After a few months in the hellish refugee camps in Jammu, agents would approach them with offers of sale of non-movable property like houses, land, farms and orchards at rock bottom prices. Desperate for money, the Pandits would sell their assets to their attackers. The Kashmiris had done their groundwork well and made a perfect example of ethnic cleansing.

 

The author provides a grim description of the refugee life. His house in Srinagar had 22 rooms in total, but the family had had to accommodate themselves in a single room in Jammu without any kind of privacy. Government employees continued to receive their salaries but most others had to manage with the pittance offered by the administration. Denied their cool homes, several refugees were killed by heat stroke in Jammu. Eventually, they spread to various parts of India, notably in Delhi, with memories of uprootedness still fresh in their minds. For some of the older generation Pandits, this was a rerun of the 1947 exodus from the areas that lay in the path of attacking Pakistan tribals. They also killed, raped, looted and burnt. We read about people who had thus to undergo two such migrations in a single lifetime.

 

What makes this book unique is its personal touch. Most of the described incidents were directly experienced by the author or occurred to a close friend or relative. In spite of this, he maintained a right balance of mind and sense of justice. Years later, as a journalist, he questioned and opposed the authorities in cases of alleged human rights violations of Kashmiri Muslims during counter-insurgency operations. He also declined to join right-wing organisations as an act of avenging for his losses. Pandita’s lack of bitterness against his tormentors is remarkable. He still maintains touch with several people in Kashmir and visit there often as a solace to the feeling of loneliness in the collective psyche of the Pandits. The book has some disadvantages as well. There is no mention of the actions of the mainstream parties in the uprising and also in the buildup to the final outbreak. Readers don’t get an idea of how the restlessness originated and developed to disastrous proportions. Readers can not close the book without a pang of sadness and a thought for the miserable plight of an innocent diaspora that is still struggling to find their place and plant roots wherever they are living at present.

 

The book is highly recommended.

Rating: 4 Star

 

The Indian Contingent

Title: The Indian Contingent – The Forgotten Muslim Soldiers of the Battle of Dunkirk

Author: Ghee Bowman

Publisher: Macmillan, 2020 (First)

ISBN: 9789390742097

Pages: 310

 

The Indian army was constituted by the British more than a century ago and they widely used the troops in their battles around the world. The Indians excelled in warfare after it obtained modern training and lessons in discipline. The Indian contingent was effectively used in both world wars in many theatres of operation such as France, Italy, north and east Africa, Mesopotamia, Burma, Malaysia and Singapore. They fought on all roles like combat troops, transportation and medical corps. This book narrates the experiences of an Indian support contingent who operated in France and England. These transportation companies assisted frontline soldiers by carrying the war material on the back of mules. When the Allies buckled before the German onslaught in 1940, a large number of them were evacuated to Britain. A group surrendered to the Germans as prisoners of war. Some of them enrolled in Subhas Chandra Bose’s Indian National Army (INA) and fought on the Axis side. After the major thrust of the war was over, the troops were reunited in India but the country was just about to submerge into the partition horrors. Contrary to expectations of racism, the British people treated the Indian soldiers rather well and there were even some instances in which a few babies were left to the care of their mothers when the troops returned home! Ghee Bowman is a historian, teacher and story teller based in Exeter, England. This is his first book that sprang from research he undertook to explore Exeter’s multicultural history. His extensive study of the Indian military contingent took him to five countries and numerous reference sources.

 

Even though the soldiers under study were part of the transport company and only indirectly linked to combat, Bowman presents their important contribution to the war and how the British war effort would not have been complete without them. The sound of a lorry engine and its high profile would draw fire from enemy side. Mules were quieter and far less visible. So, they were used to carry barbed wire, sand bags, timber and ammunition to the frontline within the view of Germans. This book deals with men of the 25^th Animal Transport Company of the Royal Indian Armed Services Corps, also called Force K6 or simply, Indian Contingent. They handled the mules really well. Almost all of them were Muslims and joined the Pakistan army after partition. Only a small part of them were assigned forward duty, assisting the British Expeditionary Force tasked with holding a 15-mile frontage of the Allied Line. They carried the soul of their native land abroad. The company resembled a Punjabi village transplanted in European territory minus women and children, self-sufficient in every physical, medical and spiritual need. Deaths occurred were mainly due to disease or accident. The only member of Force K6 killed by a rifle during their time in Europe was shot by a colleague after a petty dispute.

 

Bowman provides a glimpse of how the British Indian army restricted its recruitment to specific groups of people called the ‘martial races’ such as Sikhs, Gurkhas and Punjabi Muslims. These people were short in stature, but believed to be warlike and obedient. This false theory was based on colonial pseudo-scientific discourse and established by Field Marshal Roberts in 1857. However, the real reason was that it was these groups that opposed the national rebellion in 1857 and fought alongside the British. The recruitment policy lasted till World War II when the Commander-in-Chief Claude Auchinleck started recruiting from all areas. For a long time, the Indian army was led by an exclusive cadre of white British officers. Indians were admitted into the officer cadre only from 1919 onwards. Even then, they were not treated on equal terms with white officers and not paid the same amount as their British counterparts. They were not permitted to serve in courts martial, most social clubs would not admit them as members and there was a general feeling that they were still on a lower level.

 

This book also points out the sectarian feelings in the army, sometimes encouraged by the British. There was no feeling of equality between men. Even though the Indian contingent – basically muleteers – were entirely Muslim, the sweepers who disposed human and animal excrement were untouchables who belonged to Hindu, Sikh and Christian communities. Theirs was a sad lot among the others and even now in Pakistan, such menial jobs are reserved for them as seen in employment notices on newspapers. And there was no national feeling. The Muslim soldiers fought for the British and then for their religion. It was only after Jinnah’s profession of Pakistan that these men thought about an alternate career other than serving the British. When the fleeing Indian troops were evacuated from Dunkirk in France, they were taken to Britain. These were the first companies that were ever posted in Britain for war duty. It is interesting to note the people who gathered to welcome them. They were received at the dock by a representative of the Muslim Working Mission and a smattering of British and Indian Muslims.

 

Surveying the overall picture described in the book, readers reach a conclusion that racism spread its wings on all avenues of life, not only in Britain but their enemies Germany as well. However well the British generally behaved, the author does not deny a strong undercurrent of colour prejudice. Discrimination extended also to civilian sailors of the merchant fleet. They worked longer hours than their European colleagues, slept in worse conditions, ate a cheaper diet and were generally exploited. Things were not better in the case of prisoners who fell to the Germans. Nazis practiced racial supremacy principles and black Africans, Russians, Jews and Romany Gypsies were very badly treated. The author claims that Indians fared comparatively better as Hitler believed that the origin of the German ‘master race’ was in north India and they were thought to be fellow Aryans in the Nazi racial hierarchy. Even with these disadvantages, conditions in Europe were far more comfortable to what they experienced at home and were in fact enjoyable. When they returned home, their commanders found that England had softened and weakened the soldiers and observed that they were making silly demands that were impossible. They were like spoilt children much indulged by their parents. With this remark, the author has unknowingly let the colonial paternalistic attitude slip out.

 

For the Indian prisoners of war, there was one more chapter to play out before the end of the war. This book handles this topic with some seriousness. Subhas Chandra Bose escaped from his house arrest in India and reached Germany by clandestine routes. He implored the Indian prisoners to join him and fight against the British for Indian freedom with German and Japanese assistance. Bose’s personality and conviction won him many men. The trickle of Indian POWs grew into a flood after the surrender in Crete. A good many people demurred to make the defection to the German side. Objections were raised against breaking their oath of allegiance to the British. Pragmatic religious teachers found ways to circumvent the moral dilemma. The Indian camp maulvi informed the prisoners that the Quran exempted a Muslim from an oath if he starved for three days (p.150)! Instead of separation by community, Muslims, Sikhs, Gurkhas and Hindus were mixed up in Bose’s army, going against the idea of segregation. This policy was initially strange to the men, but proved surprisingly successful.

 

Bowman has chosen the K6 contingent as it had been stationed in his home town of Exeter. Otherwise, the selection of this company would have been odd. Thousands of Indian soldiers had laid down their lives elsewhere in Europe in a war for which they were deployed as mercenaries. Tales of heroism abound in those warfronts. Instead, the author has selected a group of Pakistani troops whose sole job in the war was to transport material on mules. The book is neatly and pleasantly written that readers would find it difficult to believe that it is the author’s first work.

 

The book is recommended.

 

Rating: 3 Star

Beyond Rampage

Title: Beyond Rampage – West Asian Contacts of Malabar and Khilafat

Author: B S Harishankar

Publisher: Bharatheeya Vichara Kendram, 2021 (First)

ISBN: 9788195394241

Pages: 328

 

The year 2021 marks the centenary of a massive communal violence that shook Malabar to its roots in 1921. Normally, by the term communal violence we mean clashes between two communities. But this was strictly a one-sided affair in which Mappilas (the local appellation of Muslims) subjected their Hindu neighbours to all kinds of outrages imaginable to a wicked mind – murder, rape, pillage, forced conversion, arson, eviction and temple destruction. The scale of violence was so high that it is often termed as ethnic cleansing like what we saw the Islamic State doing to non-Muslims who came under their rule in Iraq and Syria. However, left historians portray this pogrom as a peasant uprising and the ruling governments in Kerala has granted freedom fighter pensions to those criminals implicated in the violence. This book attempts an academic reassessment of the historical documents which have been hitherto conveniently suppressed or marginalized by left historians. It identifies the outbreaks from 1836 to 1921 as one single stream and provides an ideological framework by analyzing history from the time of the Portuguese in Kerala. B S Harishankar is a member of the academic committee of the Indian Institute of Advanced Study in Shimla. He has completed two post-doctoral researches in archeology and has six published works and numerous articles to his credit.

 

Historians who are prejudiced to paint the 1921 outbreak as some kind of class struggle routinely try to emphasize the economic condition of Mappilas as very poor and dependent on agriculture alone. The author takes the wind out of this argument’s sails. Trade and commerce in Malabar were virtually under the sole control of Mappilas at that time. Many of them were very rich, with monopoly rights on spices and timber trade. Of course, their numbers were small, but their clout in the community was considerable. Much before the outbreak, they had emerged as coastal cosmopolitan entrepreneurs and commercial tycoons who also financed other traders. Thus the leftists’ portrayal of them as tenants, landless labourers and petty traders is an outright falsehood. Muslim notables are even now addressed by the honorific kakka which was first used by Gujarati traders in their deals with Mappila merchant princes. The Mappila merchant community also got on well with the English East India Company and usually financed them in their ventures. A few even entered into marital relations with company officials. Chovakkaran Moosa, a merchant magnate, married off his daughter Mussooruat Sauer Nhaunus (sic) to William Tippet, later magistrate of Patna (p.37). The book includes tables listing prominent Mappila merchants and landlords.

 

The arrival of the Portuguese upset the Mappilas’ monopoly of overseas trade. As the clashes escalated, the Portuguese attacked pilgrim ships carrying devotees for Hajj. This grew into calls for jihad and extreme hostility to the Europeans was stoked on by religious teachers known as thangals and musaliars. There was no element of nationalism in any of these fights. During those battles, the ideas of jihad and shahadat (martyrdom) established the dividing line between Muslims and other-religionists. During Tipu Sultan’s invasion of Malabar, the strife reached breaking point. Arackal Ali Raja invited Tipu to invade Malabar and local Mappilas sided with them. Harishankar specifically targets the myth of Tipu’s struggles as forming a part of Indian anti-colonial resistance. This was nothing of the sort. Tipu was an ally of the French which was trying to establish their own colonial possessions in India at that time. Moreover, Tipu encouraged Zaman Shah, the Amir of Afghanistan, to attack Delhi and replace the weak Mughal Emperor Shah Alam, who was a puppet of the Maratha confederacy. The plan was to make a joint attack with Tipu coming from the south. How such a person who instigated outsiders to attack India can be called a national hero? Tipu’s cruelty to captured Hindus and Christians was hellish. Men and women who refused to convert to Islam were hanged. Small children were hanged from the neck of their mothers’ lifeless bodies, themselves dangling on another piece of rope. Mappilas of Ernad and Valluvanad became a law unto themselves during the Mysorean invasion. Conversion ceremonies ended with forcibly feeding beef to the victims. Thousands of wealthy Hindus fled to Travancore. After the British defeated Tipu, they returned. But their Muslim tenants had appropriated their land in the meantime and refused to accept overlordship of Hindu landlords. Adding to the explosive mix, Tipu had taken over land from temples while destroying them and had allocated it tax-free to mosques. The British resumed the land to its previous owners.

 

Claims of peasant unrest as the cause of the Malabar riots is laid to rest by logical arguments in this book. The British had made investigations to assert the cause of the periodic riots occurring in Malabar from 1836. T L Strange, who was the Special Commissioner for Malabar, pointed out fanaticism as the root cause in a report submitted in 1852. The general character of the dealings of Hindu landlords with their Muslim tenants had been mild and equitable. The report rules out any discrimination between Hindu and Muslim tenants. Whatever be the causes of grievances, it fell equally on both. Moreover, the Mappila tenants remained quiescent when their landlord happened to be a Muslim. There was no outrage anywhere against a Muslim landlord from his tenants. The jenmi (landlord) system devised under colonial rule had extended to Tamil and Canara regions in addition to Malabar, but nowhere else did the violence and uprising occur. The social makeup of the rioters proves the fallacy of peasant revolt theorists. It included all class of Muslim society such as wage workers, poor tenants, mullahs of low economic standing and criminals.

 

Harishankar recasts the illogical leftist narrative in the light of historical truth. The Mappila community always had strong links to west Asia on account of their trade relations. The defeat and resultant elimination from Kerala’s maritime commerce at the hands of the Portuguese radicalized the community. Religious preachers added fuel to the fire. When Tipu conquered Malabar, Mappila prominence was restored, but it was short-lived. Rich merchants and timber barons planned and financed violent outbreaks as a consequence. This argument is well followed up in the main text. What makes this work noteworthy is the large number of tables listing out various facts. For example, it lists out 53 violent encounters that occurred in the period 1836 – 1919. It was only the 54^th in the series – in 1921 – that was against the British, all others were directed against Hindus. The list of temples destroyed by Tipu in Malabar runs into eleven full pages of the book with names categorized district- and panchayath-wise. Another little known fact that is fully developed in the text is the brutal violence perpetrated against lower castes. This busts the myth of Mappilas targeting only the upper caste rich landlords. People who were forcibly converted to Islam sometimes retracted to their original faith. Such people were summarily executed as per punishment prescribed by Islamic law for apostates at the next available opportunity. The book contains a list of incidents which were specifically aimed on lower caste people.

 

This book is an essential reference to students of Mappila riots in Malabar. There are plenty of tables, maps, notes and reference sources for them. The wide chronological span and analysis of west Asian links provide a comprehensive idea of the root causes of the unrest of 1921. Very few books handle Ottoman interference in Indian politics from the time of Tipu Sultan. It plainly confirms that Mappilas did not profess any allegiance to Indian nationalism, but were attracted by the religious status of the Ottoman sultan. Their prime motive was to establish an Islamic State in Malabar. The fight against the British was only a way to reach that objective. The author repeatedly quotes the writer’s name when a reference is made to him such as ‘according to Appadurai and A M Shah’ or ‘as recorded by C A Innes’. This becomes tedious after a while. This would be better indicated by super-scripted numbers and corresponding authors’ names and sources in footnotes or end-notes.

 

The book is highly recommended.

Rating: 4 Star