Heavy Metal

Title: Heavy Metal – How A Global Corporation Poisoned Kodaikanal

Author: Ameer Shahul

Publisher: MacMillan, 2023 (First)

ISBN: 9789390742660

Pages: 396

 

Those who have visited the small hill station of Kodaikanal would not fail to appreciate its pristine beauty and the calm, misty mornings. This jewel of a town is the favourite destination of thousands of tourists and a number of older people wishing to stay there for an extended period of time to rest or recuperate. The peace of this idyllic spot was shattered in 2001 when it was revealed that a clinical thermometer manufacturing facility owned by the multinational company Unilever was dumping glass waste containing traces of the deadly metal mercury in the ground without any treatment and disposing it to scrap dealers who reused it for various purposes, putting the town’s ecology and the health of its inhabitants in jeopardy. A loud public outcry ensued and the factory was immediately closed down. Demands to remedy the occurred damage through painstaking soil correction procedures and provide compensation to the workers and society in the vicinity of the factory dented the public image of Unilever which was riding on the marketing pitch of an environmentally responsible company. Militant environmental groups such as Greenpeace and local activists fought against the company both in India and abroad, till finally Unilever caved in and accepted every demand. This book is written by one such activist who was in the forefront of the agitation against the company. Ameer Shahul is a journalist-cum-activist focusing on green policies and intellectual property rights.

 

One important characteristic of the factory was that it was not a brand new one. The cosmetics major Chesebrough–Pond’s had set up a thermometer plant in the US and was operating it profitably till the late 1970s. Following the tightening of environmental regulations in the US and the formation of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the corporation found it unable to provide for the increased surveillance and control measures newly incorporated in the rule books. It was also exactly the time India was reeling with the failure of its much vaunted socialist model of industrial development and literally scouring the West with the begging bowl of foreign investment. Tamil Nadu provided a very suitable land at Kodaikanal for the thermometer factory. This was very essential as mercury can vapourize at typical room temperatures in India and it was desirable to find a location which is cooler than the plains. The factory was set up and became operational in 1983 directly employing about 200 people. There were ample safety measures in place at first, but they were slowly relaxed one after the other in a matter of months. Even inexpensive protocols like mandatory bath for workers handling mercury before they went home were also abandoned. As part of corporate rearrangement, Unilever took over the plant in 1988.

 

Shahul claims that a veteran environmental activist named Navroz Mody, who had taken up residence at Kodaikanal, accidentally stumbled upon glass waste at a scrap dealer’s shop in 2001. Mody observed traces of a black liquid in them which he deduced to be mercury. Environmental groups stung into action and about 5.3 tons of glass waste was found in the custody of the trader. A public protest soon took place that accused the company of irresponsibly disposing mercury-laden waste to traders and dumping it in remote areas. The very next day, Unilever suspended operations at the factory, admitting the existence of ‘a remote possibility that contaminated waste may have left the factory due to a small human error’. Statutory agencies ordered closure of the works and the company had no stomach to fight as the factory was not much profitable any way. Streamlining business and setting focus only on the FMCG sector, Unilever withdrew from ancillary sectors like agricultural feeds, specialty chemicals, nickel catalyst and also from manufacturing thermometers in the mid-2010s. The factory never reopened.

 

Every line in this book is specially tuned for propaganda against Unilever and exaggerating the implications of mercury poisoning. Several anecdotes are given in which many good knights in shining armour ‘accidentally’ arrive on the scene and get shocked at the contamination caused by mercury. One such story is the ‘Pathar ke Phool’ ingredient in biryani which was studied by two scientists at the National Centre for Compositional Characterization of Materials (NCCCM) at Hyderabad. Out of ‘curiosity’, they subjected the material to tests on the ultra-sophisticated cold-vapour atomic absorption spectrometer and got alarmed at the high concentration of mercury in it. Pathar ke phool is lichen which absorbs metals and minerals from its surroundings and deposits them in its cells. It is a bio-monitor for measuring air quality. They then traced the origin of the material to Kodaikanal and visited the site to access other contaminated material. It is alleged that air samples taken from the factory premises showed mercury levels 2640 times higher than normal.

 

The author observes that effectiveness of campaigns depends on the amount of media coverage and the public interest it generates. True to this dictum, the environmentalists tried every trick up their sleeve. Hindustan Unilever’s annual general body meetings were routinely interrupted by activists posing questions and sloganeering. The fight extended to all fronts – statutory agencies, social pressure, judicial, legal and even political as the last resort. Jairam Ramesh, who was a union minister at that time and was called ‘India’s Big Green Wrecking Machine’ by the Wall Street Journal for his excessive activism, many a time intervened at the crucial moment in favour of the activists turning government machinery against the company. They set up an Indian People’s Tribunal (IPT) as a pseudo-judicial forum in 1993 to address the issues of environment and human rights. Retired judges took part in it and they ‘summoned’ company executives to depose before them which they refused to do. However, the Pollution Control Board of Tamil Nadu actually attended this stage-managed program. Activists also forced the company to send 290 tons of mercury waste back to the US in 2003 for recycling. Finally, Unilever agreed to pay compensation to workers even though the ill effects of mercury poisoning could not be convincingly proved. However, the constant fight of company officials with environmentalists took their toll in other ways as well. Manvinder Singh Bagga, the CEO of Hindustan Unilever in 2000, suffered the double fiasco of Kodaikanal and the failure to turn around another subsidiary. This cost him the top job of Unilever at the international level in 2010.

 

Studies suggest that mercury, even in low concentrations, can cause a spree of serious medical disorders including cardiovascular, reproductive and developmental problems. The US stopped the production of mercury in 1992. After that year, the metal is only recovered from various end-use products and processes there. However, mercury was, and is continued to be, used as a medicine in traditional practices such as Ayurveda. Potions containing mercury were believed to heal a host of ailments and its use was ubiquitous as a household cure. It remained the drug of choice to treat sexually transmitted diseases such as syphilis. ‘A night with Venus leads to a life with Mercury’ was the moral one-liner elders once gave to young men. It was used as ointment, in vapour baths and taken orally. When the presence of mercury at even trace levels of a few ppm (parts per million) is dangerous, what would be the repercussions of ingesting some of the traditional medicines in which mercury is deliberately added as an ingredient? Even though the author discusses about Tibetan medicine, he remains tightlipped on Ayurveda’s connection to mercury.

 

The book points to the serious health issues of ex-workers of the factory and the illnesses among them and the local people were studied in detail. But these were unable to draw conclusions to link the workers’ diseases to mercury exposure. This difficulty is bypassed by dubbing the studies ‘poorly designed and unsophisticated’. It also gives a glimpse of the militant and intimidating tactics of environmental activist groups such as Greenpeace. We read about the pollution control authorities of Tamil Nadu requesting Greenpeace to recommend a consultant to advise it on the health impact of mercury pollution (p.268). The result of such a study is not hard to guess. The author also maligns all experts who differed in their opinion with the activists. The activists’ demands also appear to be endless. After the requirements of recycling the waste and remediation of soil, the next demand was on assessing the risk to ecosystem integrity and not limiting it to risk to human health.

 

Corporations that pollute their surroundings must be taken to task. There is absolutely no going back on this crucial requirement. Sometimes they spend some money on local community development and through their CSR initiatives. The idea is to spend a small sum on enhancing livelihoods, water conservation, waste management and on health and well-being of communities around the factories and gain some peace in return. Also, corporations usually fail to acknowledge their mistakes and negligence when confronted with an ethical dilemma regarding human lives. These are all valid concerns which any company should address and be accountable for. However, they are the lifeline of the country’s economy and should not be needlessly pestered with. The open attack by intransigent environmental activists mostly funded by foreign NGOs must be reined in.

 

This book is a fine example of excellent diction and the entire topic is well structured and planned sequentially in such a way that even peripheral occurrences happen to fall line at the appropriate time. Scientific terms are lucidly explained. The way this book is planned is a model for aspiring authors. The mercury issue of Kodaikanal alone would not have justified the size of the book and hence a lot of side issues are also included. One full part of seven chapters is devoted to the origin and growth of Unilever and its Indian operations. The history of Greenpeace is interspersed with the biography of all leading characters. If you always keep in mind that this book is an expertly crafted piece of propaganda, reading this would be enjoyable while keeping you balanced in your outlook.

 

The book is recommended.

Rating: 3 Star

Cochin Saga

Title: Cochin Saga

Author: Robert Bristow

Publisher: Bristow Memorial Society, 2015 (First published 1959)

ISBN: Nil

Pages: 292

 

The Kochi harbour and deep water port is the product of one man’s dream and dedication. At a time when the development of the small natural harbour into a modern port was discussed and put in jeopardy by vested interests and competition from other plausible locations, Robert Bristow put his feet firmly down and convinced the British authorities to approve and invest in his plans for dredging the port to a depth which can receive vessels passing through the Suez Canal that was thrown open to traffic just a half century before. This book is his memoir that is divided into four parts – the history of Cochin till the modern times, his personal efforts in developing the port, his domestic life and miscellaneous writings which also include a crude review of Sri Aurobindo’s philosophic treatise, The Life Divine’. The book’s opening line ‘the history of a civilization is written largely in the history of its ports’ excellently sums up the crucial role ports play in the growth of a society. As a harbour engineer, Bristow had worked in the Admiralty in London. He spent the remainder of his career in Kochi that spanned 21 years till 1941. The book also provides a taste of the white bureaucrats’ outlook of Indian society and how they lived their lives in the company of numerous native servants attending to the minutest needs of the sahib. This book was long out of print and was republished in 2015 by the Bristow Memorial Society in 2015.

 

Kochi was a prominent natural harbour on the western coast of India right from the arrival of the Portuguese. An underwater sandbar blocked the entry of large vessels into the harbour and wharves were situated in the Fort Kochi – Mattanchery area that was known as British Cochin in the nineteenth century. Cargo was carried in small vessels from the shore to larger vessels waiting and anchored in the outer sea. The idea to develop the place into a modern harbour germinated with the arrival of Captain Castor for regulating shipping and boats by the middle of the nineteenth century. The years 1859 and 1860 witnessed very heavy monsoon rains that brought severe storms putting the shipping lines in danger. One day, a report came that a certain vessel has anchored in calm water while a furious storm was raging all around it. This was identified as due to the existence of the Njarakkal mud bank and proved the concept that Kochi could be transformed into a sheltered port. British entrepreneurs like J H Aspinwall of the British Cochin Chamber of Commerce actively campaigned for it. Opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 had the potential to place Kochi on the maritime map as a coaling station for the Far East route.

 

In the first part, referring to himself in the third person as a good historian should, Bristow notes that ‘Early in 1920, an Admiralty harbour engineer, a Mr. Robert Bristow, was transferred to Madras for harbour duties’ and goes on to describe his activities. A rock-like sandbar guarded the entrance of the harbour restricting vessels within a draft of only 8-9 feet. The author remembers that dredging technology had not matured in the 1870s to cater to large steam vessels. Any attempt to do the work before the year 1920 would have been financially impracticable and disastrous. Bristow specifically commissioned a dredger for this work and accumulated the sludge adjacent to the Vathuruthy Island and reclaimed a large area from the waters for later use. The present port installations are built on this reclaimed land. The dredging was an engineering marvel too. The dredger was attached to a discharge pipeline of one meter diameter, 1.2 km long and joined at 20 m intervals with universal ball joints flexible in all directions, each length supported by two heavy cylindrical pontoons connected with the next unit by heavy chains. The mud slurry was moved through this pipe by powerful pumps and deposited in the region identified for reclamation. The author also remarks amusingly that the crew dredged up old cannon balls of Portuguese era and rice bags long buried under the sea. Old coins from sea bottom were also deposited among the silt that formed Willingdon Island. With the fall of Singapore in World War II, Cochin became the stronghold of the Allies and resulted in the consequent naval, military and air force developments.

 

Having worked on the island which Bristow had somewhat magically raised from below the waves, I have heard a lot of legends about him. A popular one states that after constructing the bridge connecting the island to Ernakulam, a herd of elephants was marched across the bridge to test its strength while Bristow and his wife waited in a boat right under the bridge! Such heroics are, however, not mentioned in the book. The author’s comments on the state of Kerala’s society and its economy as he saw it attracts our attention. His narration of the chores of a local Christian family on a Sunday morning paints the picture of a sound economy and a pristine, homely culture which matched perfectly well with the ecology of natural resources and climatic conditions. Transport crafts called Vallums were extremely well adapted to low draft. It could be sailed or poled or rowed or even pushed in shallow waters. Around 5 tons of cargo could be transported in it and was the cheapest local transport from pre-historic times.

 

When Bristow first arrived in Madras, the British were pursuing the possibilities of building a port at Kochi, Tuticorin or a channel port at Rameswaram cutting across the so called Ram Setu. After studying the water and shore data, Bristow ruled out Rameswaram, but identified feasibility at the other two locations. Of these, Bristow favoured Kochi, which was in the princely state of Cochin while Tuticorin was under direct British rule. Strong pressure was exerted for that eastern port on this count which was overcome by the endorsement of Lord Willingdon, who was the governor of Madras, in Kochi’s favour. That’s why the reclaimed island was named after him in gratitude. This book contains references to the colossal red tape attached to the British administration which they normalized with the self-righteous assertion that ‘you can’t rush the East’. Blatant colonialism is evident in several of Bristow’s passages. To justify colonialism, he states that ‘the moving force from first to last came from the West; the little-changing peoples of the East allowed the West to find them out’ (p.31). Directly attributing India’s progress to British rule, it is argued that ‘every phase of invasion [of India] brought something useful for the development of India. British occupation introduced a standard of probity and justice never before known in India’ (p.62). But this advocacy of the advantages of invasion and surrender runs contrary to what Winston Churchill hammered into the heads of Britons in these words during World War II: “We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing-grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills. We shall never surrender”! Bristow’s concern about the slow decision-making at the highest levels and the involvement of non-technical bureaucrats is grave as his lament indicates: “once the hand of the accountant is allowed to fetter local initiative and constructive imagination, the end is only a matter of time”. In fact, he remarks this about the collapse of the Dutch empire in India, but it is equally applicable to similar organizations. It is also curious to read about British bureaucrats getting upset about the Montagu reforms that granted more power to elected bodies and Indians. One district collector worried that ‘those damned politicians’ would ruin them!

 

This book is a chronological indicator of the growth of Cochin port from a meagre roadstead on the spice trade in a small native Indian state. It also provides glimpses of the interactions between native states and the commanding stake enjoyed by their neighbouring British provinces. Bristow provides a first-person narrative of the challenges paused by nature, society and power centres in the making of the port. It also includes some old photos of the development work. A drawback is that this book was written in 1959, after a long eighteen years into retirement, and the author had to rely more on diaries than fresh memories. This has evidently denied the readers some informative anecdotes to enliven the reading experience. The portrayal of his domestic life includes the handling of native servants in a very authoritarian manner. He inflicted corporal punishment on them for misdemeanors and the Hindu servants had to submit to preaching sermons by pastors looking for converts to Christianity. The re-publishing of the book seems to have been in a hurry as there are lots of errors including serious ones in printing. Proof reading from the old document has not been fool proof. This book may be considered as a prequel to ‘Ormakalile Bristow’ (Bristow Remembered), a Malayalam book reviewed earlier here.

 

The book is highly recommended.

 

Rating: 3 Star

 

Muslim Separatism – Causes and Consequences

Title: Muslim Separatism – Causes and Consequences

Author: Sitaram Goel

Publisher: Voice of India, 2002 (First published 1985)

ISBN: 8185990263

Pages: 128

 

Indian school textbooks on its modern history follow a formulaic approach to explain how and why demands of partition arose in British India that finally led to its division on religious grounds. We were taught that the British masters cleverly employed a ‘Divide and Rule’ policy which split the opposition to their rule and then played one party against the other. If you read only the text books, this idea would always look fine and satisfying. But the moment you apply commonsense to critically observe the happenings around you (one such thing is the presence of prayer rooms in busy restaurants, but this is the latest fad that comes to mind) or simply read other books, problems start to rise. From personal experience, the first doubt I felt was whether Hindus and Muslims lived in perfect peace and harmony BEFORE the British came on the scene. The vague hint from text books was that it wasn’t so. Further books on medieval history convinced me beyond doubt that what preceded the British era was almost a millennium of unceasing Muslim invasions that looted the country, destroyed its temples, forcibly converted multitudes, captured its inhabitants to slavery and robbed its women to sultans’ harems, all the while expressing the utmost contempt and derision for anything and everything Indian. Those who doubt this conclusion need only to consider the striking similarities in the remarks about India made by Babur and Thomas Babington Macaulay. So I came to the realization that we were ALREADY divided when the British arrived. The next question would be what makes us divided or separated. The answer came in the post-Covid period when a lot of ex-Muslims gave vent to their feelings in social media about Islamic injunctions that advocate a sense of exclusivity and intolerance to other faiths. It is amazing that this book has gone to the root cause of the problem forty years before and thus lighted up several dark corners of inconsistency in the traditional secularist narrative. Sitaram Goel is an insightful historian, writer and activist who need no introduction.

 

Goel claims that there is a fundamental difference between Islam and other religions. Islam came to India as a fully developed ideology of an aggressive and self-righteous imperialism rather than merely a religion. However, Indians mistook it as just another religion and accorded the necessary respect. This imperialism which ruled India for at least seven centuries was unseated by the Marathas, Sikhs and Jats at first and then by the British. But the mindset of superiority and overlordship remained with its adherents and the residues of Islamic imperialism always sided with the British which made the struggle for independence much more difficult. It had one more bout of vigorous manifestation in the demand for partition. Goel advocates that Indian society must do some hard thinking on how to tackle this ideology. Instead, it has adopted some soft and soothing slogans. One such slogan is that the British sowed the seeds of discord between Hindus and Muslims. However, on closer inspection, it can be seen that they had employed the ‘Divide and Rule’ policy on other matters as well. The dichotomies they raked up or simply invented include the Aryans vs Dravidians, martial races vs others, scheduled castes vs others and so on. But as soon as the British readied to depart, all these misgivings were forgotten but the Muslim question remained. The remainder of this book examines why.

 

Another basic trait of Islam is analysed next. The Islamic theology didn’t come to terms with reality in moments of defeat. Never for an instant its scholars could countenance or reconcile with a victory for the other side. This is because the superiority of the believers against the infidels is hammered home very early on into their minds. In such a scenario, only one factor could explain defeat and that is the estrangement of god which can be set right by more fierce piety. This type of piety is a dangerous thing which made its swordsmen behave as brutally as they did. The author alleges that the Sufis who don a deceiving mantle of eclecticism are in fact fanatics trying to convert the unbelievers in a sweet but treacherous manner. Hence the mullahs and Sufis would not let the swordsmen relax and threatened them with hell if they turned away from the ‘divine work’ of subjugating the whole world under the banner of Islam. Contrary to Islam’s tall claims of professing equality of manhood, the author exposes the partisan nature of its scholars’ proselytization plans. Shah Waliullah’s book ‘Fuyud al-Harmeyn’ advises that the leading members of the infidels are to be converted. The lower classes are to be left alone to work in the fields and for paying jizya. They, like beasts of burden or agricultural livestock, are to be kept in abject misery and despair.

 

Then comes Goel’s bold leap to investigate why Islam is different from other religions as far as nationalism is concerned. Muslims are divinely ordained to belong to a supra-national brotherhood (ummah) containing believers from all parts of the world. Leaders of the Indian National Congress continued to foster the illusion that the residues of Islamic imperialism could be mobilized in the fight for freedom from the British. As they offered more and more concessions to placate the Muslim hardliners, the demands grew more and more strident and at last they asked for the ultimate prize – a separate nation. That too was reluctantly conceded, but the basic issue of non-assimilation continues to fester in the ‘secular’ country which remained after the dismemberment. Lala Lajpat Rai made a deep study of the Koran and Hadees (traditions of the Prophet) and revealed the divine injunctions contained in them that forbade the Muslims from mixing with the infidels. Instead, they are commanded to conquer and rule over them in the most brutal way, which was exactly what the Muslim invaders were doing over those centuries of utter misfortune for India. Rai was so taken aback by the reality he discovered as to fervently pray for his reading to be erroneous and a solution to this problem could be found. Gandhi wrote something similar in 1924 that corroborates what Rai said: “my own experience confirms that the Mussulman as a rule is a bully” (p.97), but Gandhi didn’t bother to trace this behaviour to the founding tenets of the religion which continued to be a ‘noble faith’ for him – alleges Goel.

 

So far, we could have dismissed all that happened as old history which came to an end when Pakistan was created to accommodate Muslim demands. But Goel asserts that the same Muslim behaviour pattern that existed prior to 1947 is not rooted out and continues to grow in independent and secular India in ominous proportions. The same old pattern of crying victimhood and discrimination are being raised again and again. Fanatics claim that the economically poor minority community is being persecuted and Muslim lives, properties and honour are not safe amidst rising Hindu communalism and chauvinism which try to wipe out all traces of Muslim culture and religion. Goel made this warning in 1985 but the script even now continues to run line by line in complete agreement with what he prophesied. But our national behaviour in the face of this religious pattern remained true to type even after 1947. The leadership failed to see the pattern and long term strategy at the back of short term tactics. Solid Muslim vote banks ensured their silent obedience. The author then cautions us that the same sin and folly which the national leadership committed in the name of Hindu-Muslim unity in the years before partition continues to be committed by all national political parties in the name of secularism.

 

Finally, Goel summarizes the basic Islamic teachings and proves that it divides the human family into two factions – believers and infidels; human history into two periods – the age of ignorance and enlightenment; the inhabited earth into two – the lands of the believers (dar ul-Islam) and infidels (dar ul-harb) and postulate a permanent war between these two divisions until the infidels convert to the ‘true faith’ or pay jizya and remain as Dhimmis (second-class citizens).

 

At only 128 pages, the book is very short but the ideas conveyed in it are very profound, appropriate and timely for India’s continuance and longevity as a secular country. The clarity of Goel’s thought is amazing and he expresses it with sincerity and conviction but with a touch of disappointment at its futility to awaken awareness among Indians. Readers cannot stop at this one book of the author and would surely seek out other titles from the same pen. This book is actually a review or summary of H V Seshadri’s book, ‘The Tragic Story of Partition’. ‘Residues of Islamic imperialism’ is a new term coined in this book to denote the mindset and the zealots who want to give primacy to religion over the nation. A careful study of the term would convince anybody of the truth in that contention.

 

The book is highly recommended.

Rating: 4 Star

 

Ranis and the Raj

Title: Ranis and the Raj – The Pen and the Sword

Author: Queeny Pradhan

Publisher: Penguin Viking, 2022 (First)

ISBN: 9780670091034

Pages: 336

 

The British Empire established its roots in India in the form of a trading company. Exploiting the unsettled state of polity after the Mughal empire went dysfunctional in the eighteenth century, the British first established their hegemony in the South. Through the battles of Plassey and Buxar, the company then obtained the right to collect taxes in Bengal and Orissa from the Mughals. Over the years, it defeated the Marathas and ate into the body politic of the Mughals. The company incorporated smaller states under its rule by force or treaties whose wording meant quite another thing when a dispute arose. Some ruling families opposed this dynastic liquidation. Quite contrary to the meaning of patriarchy defined by modern liberals, we find an astonishing multitude of queens who handled real political power and took on the British either diplomatically or militarily – by pen or sword. This book examines six such queens – Rani Chennamma of Kittur, Rani Lakshmi Bai of Jhansi, Rani Jindan of Lahore, Begum Zeenat Mahal of Delhi, Rani Guleri of Sirmur and Queen Menchi of Sikkim. All had to negotiate with the British Raj, either the company or the crown, or both. The British records portray the queens as scheming, manipulative and untrustworthy, but the author claims that an attempt to understand the queens in the historical context of their times shall be made beyond the binaries of imperialist and nationalist perspectives and to see them as women of their times spanning two different worlds articulating their identity and asserting their agency. Queeny Pradhan is a professor of history at Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University, New Delhi and an alumna of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU).

 

Pradhan does not elaborate on the entire biography of the queens from birth to death, but stays happy with microhistories when these women filled the stage of political significance. While they fought the British, reforming the restraining social structures were never their intention. The English always harked on the civilized – uncivilized dichotomy between them and the colonized. Indians were portrayed as barbaric savages wriggling in a doomed landscape unilluminated by evangelization. In such a scenario, they did not find it proper or even necessary to extend the principles of international law to native principalities. Such consensus on sovereignty was not applicable to Indian rulers. The final outcome of the actions of these six queens differs widely. One was killed in battle, one was imprisoned, two were exiled and the other two retained their privileges even after their encounter with the British. Pradhan suggests a convincing logic behind this discrepancy. Those who openly defied the English Raj and led to killing of Englishmen were never forgiven. This happened in Kittur in 1825, in the revolt of 1857 and even in the execution of Bhagat Singh for killing an English officer. The imperial narrative on Lakshmi Bai admires her fighting spirit but reduce it to the fanatic zeal of an intemperate oriental woman. They implicate her in the Jokhum Bagh massacre in which surrendered and unarmed English men, women and children were massacred by the rebels. But this claim is unfounded.

 

As is typical of the Left-Islamist narratives, Pradhan also tries her best to drive a wedge through the fault lines of Indian society in order to keep the people always divided and separated along caste and regional lines. It should be kept in mind that she is a product of JNU! To achieve her malicious objective, she makes an irrelevant comparison between Rani Chennamma and Rani Lakshmi Bai and wonders why the latter captured the nationalist imagination on a larger scale. This, in fact, is not true. Both the maharanis are highly revered and respected in the nationalist narrative. Even if her contention is accepted for argument’s sake, the reason is not hard to decipher. Lakshmi Bai died in the battlefield fighting for her country while Chennamma had to surrender and died in captivity five years later, unknown to all. But this does not belittle her contribution as she also had to lay down her life for her convictions. But the reason given by the author is obnoxious and simply venomous. Pradhan states that it was because of Lakshmi Bai were a Brahmin and Chennamma belonged to the Lingayat sect (p.35). Lakshmi Bai’s stature as a nationalist icon irritates the author to no end. She then belittles the Rani of Jhansi and accuses her of having made ‘a tightrope walk by holding the rebels in check and colluded with the British in the early stages of rebellion’. When the rioting began, she asked the British to send in troops. She assisted British officers by providing ammunition. She negotiated with them afterwards to avoid a confrontation and as the last straw, the queen is accused of fighting to perpetrate the ‘old patriarchal order’. Pradhan is especially harsh on Lakshmi Bai and Chennamma while the other four are treated with at least a modicum of respect. The real purpose of the book might be to dull the sheen of these two bright stars of the nationalist history.

 

What upsets the author the most is the adulatory portrayal of these martyrs as warrior queens. She makes a redundant observation that one cannot read the story in the framework of Indians against the English as such a consciousness did not exist then. Ranis Chennamma and Lakshmi Bai were only fighting to continue the existence of their princely states and the right to decide on the successor. This is true in the literal sense. There was definitely no ‘socialist, secular republic’ of India in existence then. Even though Pradhan asks us not to see the conflict as between Indians and the English but as between Kittur royals and British and also Jhansi royals against the British, the English viewed the fight exactly as one between the white British and black Indians which explains the uniformity of their response. What is unfortunate is that there are scholars even 150 years later, trying to nitpick on the few factors that divide India rather than the thousands which unite it. She then criticizes two recent historical movies based on these queens and stoops so low as to accuse these commercial ventures as containing historical inaccuracies! Stung by the queen’s laurels in the film ‘Manikarnika’, she claims that the queen had an unhappy domestic life contrary to what is exhibited in the movie. Similarly, a 2012 movie ‘Krantiveera Sangolli Rayanna’ eulogizing the military chief of Rani Chennamma is also said to be contain errors.

 

This book enumerates the castes of the leading personalities. Lakshmi Bai was a Brahmin, Chennamma was Lingayat, Sangolli Rayanna was Kuruba and remarks on the domination of the upper castes. By the author’s logic, the lower castes should have been treated as untouchables and studiously kept out of the palaces and aristocratic dwellings. But what she describes contradict these oversimplifications. A Dalit woman named Jhalkari Bai who had closely resembled Lakshmi Bai was disguised as the queen and sacrificed her life so that the real queen could escape unnoticed. Doesn’t it mean that Dalits were allowed entry in the queen’s palace? Such examples abound in Indian history. The Holkar dynasty of Indore rose from a herding caste. Kalhana mentions in Rajatarangini that king Chakravarman of Kashmir (r. 923-933) married an untouchable Domba woman. The author also finds a similarity that united Indian and British societies. The patriarchal bent of the British further reinforced the patriarchy of traditional Hindu society. The word ‘patriarchy’ is used so many times in this book.

 

Whatever be her preoccupations with patriarchy or caste dominance, Queeny Pradhan is all praise when the Mughal queen Zeenat Mahal is mentioned. It is interesting to compare one of her passages about Lakshmi Bai on her marriage. She claims that Lakshmi Bai was ‘hemmed in by patriarchy. From being Manu Bai, her marriage into the royal family of Jhansi, she was only following the prevailing norms of society marrying a man twice her age, becoming his second wife and trying to adjust to a traditional household and husband with his eccentricities’ (p.102). But on Zeenat Mahal she says that the ‘Begum married Bahadur Shah Zafar when she was 19 and he 64. But it was a marriage of honour’ (p.166). Note the irony here. Lakshmi Bai married a man twice her age (This too is clever arithmetic in fact, she was 14 and he was only 28), became his second wife and was ‘hemmed in by patriarchy’ while Zeenat Mahal married an man more than thrice her age and old enough to be her grandfather, became his fourth wife, but it was ‘a marriage of honour’! This intellectual dishonesty and inconsistency plainly exposes the Left-Islamist agenda behind this book. From this distortion of facts, the author then moves to its outright suppression. In the chapter on Rani Jindan, she states that ‘the Mughal-Sikh history is complex. The Mughal prince Khusrau was closely associated with Guru Arjan Dev in his revolt against his father, Jahangir’ (p.120). So simple and benign! But the truth is a little more complex than this. Jahangir asked the venerable Guru to convert to Islam. He refused and was tortured inhumanely and executed at Lahore. His grandson Aurangzeb beheaded Guru Tegh Bahadur. Such is the ‘complex’ nature of Mughal-Sikh relationship! There is no use hiding it or beating around the bush.

 

As the author suggests, even though these brave women exhibited the force of their character, they did not try to restrain or reform the morals of the time. Rani Jindan was behind purdah when she plotted against the British. She used this handicap to good advantage by escaping from her place of detention as the British did not know how she looked like. Even though politically minded observations like ‘cross-class collaboration’ ‘change in mode of production from feudal to capitalist’ and ‘never ending quest of profit for capitalism’ crops up occasionally, the text is readable without a primer to Marxism kept handy. There is a 60-page introduction that summarizes all that the book has to offer and this includes 147 footnotes. Many referenced scholars are mentioned by name also, giving the narrative an academic flavour. Altogether, the author has not been able to provide a concise, consolidated and sequential narrative of what she wanted to say. The occurrences taken from different books are sometimes included separately without collating them into a harmonious whole. The depth of research is quite superficial and haphazard. The only purpose of this book seems to take a shot at cracking the nationalist discourse elevating Ranis Chennamma and Lakshmi Bai to mythical valour. However, the author’s criticism of the British is sharp and genuine.

 

The book is not recommended.

Rating: 2 Star