Cleopatra’s Daughter

Title: Cleopatra’s Daughter – Egyptian Princess, Roman Prisoner, African Queen
Author: Jane Draycott
Publisher: Head of Zeus, 2023 (First published 2022)
ISBN: 9781800244825
Pages: 328

Mark Antony of Rome and Queen Cleopatra of Egypt are two historical characters in a crucial chapter of ancient history that ended in tragedy. Though Antony could outsmart the coup leaders who assassinated Julius Caesar and prevent the empire going back to a republic, his constant friction with his ally Octavian led to the Battle of Actium in 31 BCE where the allied forces of Antony and Cleopatra were routed in a naval battle. The winner took the throne as Augustus Caesar and established the Julio-Claudian dynasty in power while the losers committed suicide. The couple is an attractive subject for poets and dramatists across the world. This book tells the story of Cleopatra Selene, the daughter born to Queen Cleopatra of Egypt in her relationship with Mark Antony. The references to the daughter who was an Egyptian princess, then a prisoner in Rome and finally the queen of Mauretania in North Africa are scant in historical records, but the author sifts through all the available material with a fine sieve and comes out with a delightful work of historical narrative. Jane Draycott is a Roman historian and archaeologist with a special interest in Graeco-Roman Egypt. She has degrees in archaeology, ancient history and classics. She is currently lecturer in Ancient History at the University of Glasgow.

The core of the story is astonishingly small. The Egyptian queen which we commonly know as Cleopatra was in fact Cleopatra VII in her regnal name. Julius Caesar helped her overcome dissidence to her rule and later entered into an amorous relationship with her. A prince named Caesarion was born to them. After Caesar’s assassination she entered into another similar relationship with Mark Antony who was assigned the eastern part of the empire as his realm. She bore three children to him – Cleopatra Selene, Alexander Helios and Ptolemy Philadelphos. Rome was leaving its republican phase to the consolidation of Augustan Principate. Octavian, or Augustus Caesar, was fed up with Antony because of his poor governance, fickle command over the legions and over-socialization with the Egyptians. The Roman fleet met the combined naval forces of Antony and Cleopatra at Actium. Octavian won, forcing the vanquished to flee back to Alexandria and commit suicide there. Octavian executed Caesarion, but let the other children live as hostages with his family in Rome. After a few years, he married Cleopatra Selene off to Juba, who was assigned the kingdom of Mauretania (part of today’s Algeria and Morocco). It is believed that she died in 5 BCE at the age of 35. So, in short, this is the story of an extraordinarily willed woman, who was born a princess in one of the most ancient kingdoms, lost her entire family, birth right and rank to become a Roman prisoner. In the end, she was crowned queen of a brand new kingdom and ruled for two decades. The book includes a discussion on Cleopatra VII’s ethnicity where some scholars believe her to be black. Hence the author hopes that Cleopatra Selene should be much better known to women of colour in particular, with whom they can personally identify and engage with in the historical record. The cause of her death is not exactly known and it is guessed that she might have died in childbirth. The danger in pregnancy and labour to both mother and the baby was a fate no amount of power or prestige could alleviate in the ancient world.

Since the storyline is very lean, the book also covers many facets of the polities of Egypt and Rome and has made a quick review of how life had been in Alexandria and Rome. Readers get an interesting account of the Great Library of Alexandria, the largest in the ancient world. Attached to a temple, it contained up to 70,000 titles. Early Ptolemies were great bibliophiles. Ptolemy II Philadelphos purchased substantial personal libraries of notable book collectors in his kingdom. Ptolemy III Euergetes borrowed manuscripts from other cities and refused to return them. He instituted a policy to search ships docking in Alexandria. If there were any exotic books on board, copies were made and these copies were given back to the owner while the original was added to the Library’s collection. In 48 BCE, a part of the library was damaged by fire which was later repaired by Antony by gifting 200,000 books which were looted from the library of Pergamum that was the Alexandrian library’s foremost rival. The author does not say anything about the library’s eventual destruction by Islamic forces. In 642 CE, Alexandria was captured by the army of Caliph Omar. He ordered the destruction of the library with the infamous outburst that “if these books are in agreement with the Quran, we have no need of them; and if these are opposed to the Quran, destroy them”.

Since the characters on and back of the stage in this book are women, it is only natural that we get a glimpse of the position and status of women in the ancient world. Their position appears to be much better than in the Middle Ages and in at least some places of the same geography even in the modern age. In the latter half of the first century BCE, Rome was full of strong women. Julius Caesar’s wife and Octavian’s sister wielded considerable influence. They were well educated, sometimes even in rhetoric and oratory. A noble lady named Hortensia put her studies to good use in 42 BCE to argue against a tax imposed on Rome’s wealthiest 1400 women. She marched into the Forum and argued her case against the Triumvirate of Octavian, Antony and Lepidus. Although the men were outraged at being upbraided by a woman, the tax was relaxed to apply only to 400 most wealthy women. However, Ptolemaic women of Egypt were more independent and assertive while Roman women were generally dependent and submissive to their menfolk. The status of women outside the ‘civilizing aura’ of the Roman Empire was not bad. Egypt’s southern neighbour kingdom of Kush was ruled by Queen Amanirenas. This is yet more proof that women could handle immense power in their own right than as ‘ornamental appendages of men’. This was true in Israel too. Berenice, the daughter of the Jewish king Herod Agrippa I was in love with Roman Emperor Titus and stayed in the imperial palace. She heavily intervened in the government of the empire and in the judicial system. At home, she had entreated her brother, Herod Agrippa II, to commute all death sentences to life imprisonment. But she was disliked at Rome and was heckled by philosophers at the theatre. This forced Titus to send her back home.

We get a nice picture of Roman polity and religion from the several anecdotes lying scattered in this narrative. Roman empire acquired foreign territories by military conquests and political manoeuvring. It comprised of provinces which were overseen by provincial governors appointed by the Roman Senate. In addition to this, the empire had interests in territories that were not technically part of it. These were client kingdoms whose kings and queens recognized the suzerainty of Rome and had patrons situated within the Roman aristocracy. This political structure is broadly similar to that of the British colonial empire in India. In the case of serious problems in the kingdoms, Rome militarily intervened to restore the authority of the client king. If the situation was unsalvageable, the ruler was replaced or the kingdom annexed outright as a province. A laudable feature of Roman religion was its toleration for other religions such as Egyptian even though it belonged to the conquered people. Destruction of places of religious worship or converting them for the use of victor’s devotees still lay in the future, awaiting the birth of monotheistic religions that claimed monopoly of the one true god. Julius Caesar built a temple to the Egyptian goddess Isis in the centre of Rome where Octavian too had his own quarters. This glow would flicker out in a few centuries and some of the regions would witness the most brutal and sanguinary wars for religion in the form of crusades and resistance to it.

The book also sports an investigation into the descendants of Cleopatra Selene in historical and archaeological records which becomes hazier with the decline of Roman empire. A photograph of the marble bust of Gaius Julius Bessianus is included who served as the chief priest of Elagabalus during 187 – 217 CE. This solar deity was housed in the temple of the sun at Emesa – modern Homs in Syria. It shows a distinctive feature of the top knot hairstyle known as the ushnisha in Sanskrit. This is a clear Buddhist feature which represents supernormal knowledge and consciousness of the Enlightened One in Buddhist iconography. It is curious to see evidence of Indian influence as far west as Syria in the early centuries of the Common Era.

This book is an excellent source for uncomplicated reading which combines the flexibility of fiction with strong roots on historical and archaeological references. With some refining touches, this can be transformed into historical fiction and provides enough material to produce a mega Hollywood movie. The author herself suggests such a possibility and it is quite possible that we may sooner or later hear more of Draycott in a non-historical domain. What this narrative provides is a history of Rome, Egypt, the Levant and North Africa in the second half of the first century BCE. In addition to literary, documentary, archaeological and bio-archaeological evidence, the author uses contextual information sourced from other significant Hellenistic, Roman and Egyptian women’s lives to produce a qualified reconstruction of Cleopatra Selene’s life. The author has filled in many blanks which are quite logical and highly probable that adds value to the work. The book also includes pictures of several breathtakingly detailed and beautiful sculptures and mosaics excavated from Italy and other prominent places like Pompeii which faithfully depict the sophistication of presumably aristocratic life in that era. Colour plates of coins, sculptures and inscriptions are also added to the book. Written in an easy and uncluttered style, the book is a page-turner.

The book is highly recommended.

 

Rating: 4 Star

Academic Hinduphobia

Title: Academic Hinduphobia – A Critique of Wendy Doniger’s Erotic School of Indology
Author: Rajiv Malhotra
Publisher: Voice of India, 2017 (First published 2016)
ISBN: 9789385485015
Pages: 426

Rajiv Malhotra is a lone knight fighting for the honour of everything Indian – our culture, language, religion and way of life – in the western world. If gullible Indians can be metaphorically thought of as an old man with poor eyesight and Western scholarship on India as a book with a very fine print, Malhotra is the magnifying glass which sharpens the vision of the naive and also exposes what is written between the lines which one cannot see otherwise. This book explains about the secret agenda of woke scholars of Sanskrit and how they deconstruct India’s religion and philosophy to make it appear exploitative and repressive. Another deviant trait observed in Western scholars such as Wendy Doniger is the excessively overt and bordering on the vulgar sexual vocabulary which permeates their work but which does not faithfully describe the original. Such pathetic exposition of Hinduism and Sanskrit is a clever strategy of these neo-colonial academicians to drive away new initiates and to create revulsion among practicing Hindus about their religion which would make them ashamed of it as a first step to further long-term targets like conversion on a massive scale. No other major world faith is studied by outsiders with the same authority, power and negative perspective as Hinduism is. All academic conferences and seminars are dominated by Western ‘experts’ rather than practicing Hindus. The distortion caused by these influences are identified by the author and presented in a clear and easily understandable form. This is a collection of various essays and articles written by the author against specific books and authors as a part of argument and counter-argument. The period of activity is generally the first decade of this century.

Malhotra identifies the fundamental problem of Indological studies as compared to other cultures. Even though Indians routinely occupy high positions in science, technology, business and other professions, Indology remains the last stronghold of colonialism. It is only a layer of elites from within the colonised culture who are groomed to become proxies for the tradition. They often consider biases against Indic traditions as a great compliment to their own sense of modernity and also as a great Western gift to the Indians. When this mental colonialism is pointed out to them, it evokes severe anger and defensiveness. This engenders a peculiar situation in which a culture is being represented by people who are mentally alien to it. In the West, neo-colonial scholars and their Indian proxies have created a playground which is unfairly tilted against India. To have a genuine dialog of civilizations, the ‘other’ side must be present as itself and not in proxy. It must be able to use its own framework to represent itself and must be free to criticize the dominant culture without fear of undue censorship or academic reprisals. But in the West, especially the US, leading professors of Sanskrit wield tremendous power over the students in controlling their career both pre- and post-college such as withholding research grants or denying the chance to participate in academic conferences which are handsomely financed. This makes all the students to toe their guide’s line. This is analogous to the sepoys and coolies trained and employed by the English East India Company in colonial times to do their dirty work.

It is essential to understand the origins of this estrangement of Indian elite with Sanskrit and the ritualistic practises of Hinduism. This developed in the colonial period when the British faced an urgent necessity to understand Sanskrit scriptures. However, these texts were detached from the realm of secular scholars who were immersed in the prevailing court language of Persian in all the Muslim states. This left only a few priests or religiously-minded people who had mastered the Sanskrit texts available to the British. The British stepped into the shoes of the secular scholar, mastered the ancient rule books and statutes and reinterpreted them to suit their immediate need to administer the country without upsetting the delicate socio-religious pivot. Due to reasons of presumed racial superiority or evangelism, they continued to harbour a clear disdain to the philosophy at the same time. This was in turn taken up by secular Indian scholars after independence. On the political front, the British managed the native states and facilities for the Indian princes. Likewise, they also became trustees of scholarship and thereby to control the intellectual representation systems of India. The technique was to master Sanskrit texts first, then to translate Indic texts while reinterpreting them using the Western narrative. It ensured to maintain the aura of authenticity by using enough Sanskrit verses. Even now, Indians show great respect and favour to Westerners who read or chant Sanskrit hymns and assume them to be masters in a language which they have neglected to learn. This is the primary source of exploitation for agenda-driven scholars such as Wendy Doniger.

The author also tries to understand why such a discriminatory sheen was applied to religious studies in India, whereas in science and technology the country aspired for the best in the world. This deficit came about in post-independent India where religious studies were looked down upon on the basis of the ideal of secularism. The hallmark of a good education in an American liberal arts college involves the study of ancient Greek and Semitic thought, classical Roman, modern European and finally, American thought. This intellectual foundation is deemed essential regardless of one’s religious beliefs. The justification given for the study of Greek classics is not that they are perfectly correct in their worldview or that advancement in thought has not superseded them. These are rightly considered to be essential to understand the history of the Western mind. But Indian classics are equated with religion and hence shunned. Academics won’t touch them even with a very long pole. In the name of modernity and political correctness, Indian classics are virtually banished from India’s higher education. Malhotra comments that this policy would have made Macaulay – the British administrator who formulated the empire’s education system in India to create a set of zombies who would be ‘Indian in blood and colour but British in taste, opinions and morals’ – proud. This produced a strange circumstance in which one has to go to a British, American or German university to get an internationally competitive Ph.D in Sanskrit, Indian classics, Hinduism or Buddhism.

The book then goes on to dissect the works of some Western scholars who had made a mockery of their scholarly credentials by churning out outrageous assessments on their objects of study. The foremost in this group is Wendy Doniger whose book, ‘Hindus – An Alternative History’ created much indignation in India due to its salacious remarks about innocuous matters narrated in Indian sacred literature (reviewed earlier here). The author uses the epithet ‘Wendy’s Children’ to denote other scholars who follow her line. Doniger’s predilection for street language in Vedic translations/interpretations is widely criticized. She merely adds a Freudian coating to bring in a sleazy narrative. She is always obsessed with only one meaning for a Sanskrit term which would be the most sexual imaginable, obtained by stretching the imagery, overruling all other interpretations and varied aspects of meaning. Doniger’s books are fast-food like publications designed to attract attention, readership and sales but are devoid of meticulous scholarship or authenticity (one of her books which exhibit this point, ‘The Ring of Truth’ which purports to examine myths of sex and jewellery, was reviewed earlier. The areas of her real interest can also be gleaned from her book, ‘On Hinduism’ which was also reviewed earlier). Malhotra exposes the academic weaknesses of other scholars of Wendy’s genre such as Jeffrey Kripal, Sarah Caldwell, Paul Cortright and others. Kripal’s work, ‘Kali’s Child’ which portrays Ramakrishna Paramhamsa as a homosexual, works up only filth. Kripal doesn’t know Bengali and the author cites several fundamental errors.

Rajiv Malhotra postulates that the intentions of at least some of the Western scholars on attacking Indian belief systems and attendant philosophy are not so benign after all. He traces the parentage and source of funds of two prominent academicians to Western missionaries who worked in India or to Christian evangelical missions in the US. The Christian conditioning received as part of their religious education as a young student might have moulded their outlook of other religions. He points out a fundamental divergence in a critical aspect between Christianity and Indian religions. The Biblical myths subconsciously drive scholars’ behaviour. In the West, every human being is born sinner because of the original sin committed by Adam and Eve. Similarly, the cosmology of God vs Satan divides everything into Good/Evil essences that play out on earth. By contrast, the Self is the original divinity in Hinduism and so there is no external enemy. In the Mahabharata, the enemies are not evil but had only violated the dharma. Christianity glorified victimhood. Most Christian saints were martyrs who were killed by evil ‘others’. This also is a corollary of the good vs evil narrative. A good victim is glorified and becomes a role model. Jesus is history’s most famous victim. This archetype has played out in Western society in the form of praising victimhood as a sign of being good. These scholars’ denigration of sacred Indian symbols serves to embarrass impressionable Indians so that they feel pressured to dilute their Hindu identity. This does not mean that Indian society didn’t have its share of abuses or oppression like any other society does. The problem is when Western scholars point out Hinduism alone as the cause of this.

I had first thought this book to be a critique on Indian academia which is an unfettered theatre of Left-Islamist activists masquerading as professors but exhibiting an equally strong, if not harsher, Hinduphobia than their American counterparts. But this volume is concerned only with Western universities and the prejudices being nurtured in their precincts. This work is a little dated too, as the action and events referred in the text happened in the years straddling the new millennium. Some ideas, which we take for granted because it is so common, are analysed by Malhotra which convince the reader how much leeway is being granted to scholars who want to wreck the Indian culture from within. These people refer to Hinduism as Brahmanism. The author points this out as a pejorative name because by the same token, Christianity should be referred as ‘Popeism’ or ‘bishopism’. A major part of the book is concerned with the author’s arguments and correspondence against or with anti-Hindu scholars and his defence against their attacks. Some of the articles are unfortunately directed at a personal level. Harping on the Roma (gypsy) ethnicity of Jeffrey Kripal and the sexually abused past of Sarah Caldwell are two cases in point. Besides, the author’s defence of New Age Hindu gurus in the US over their sexual abuse of devotees are not warranted just because they are also targeted by the anti-Hindu academia. This is more fitting for anonymous social media chatter than for serious discourse. The book also includes several caricatures and cartoon depictions of the points detailed in the book which is very enlightening.

The book is highly recommended.

Rating: 4 Star

Farzana

Title: Farzana – The Tempestuous Life and Times of Begum Sumru
Author: Julia Keay
Publisher: HarperCollins India, 2013 (First)
ISBN: 9789350297094
Pages: 338

The British emerged as the foremost territorial power in India in the latter half of the eighteenth century. This was facilitated by the disintegration and fractionalization of the Mughal Empire. Provinces like Bengal and Awadh came into prominence which accepted Mughal sovereignty only in name. The British also decimated French colonial ambitions in the Deccan peninsula around this time. At this point, the French bowed out of the race and settled contentedly with whatever little possessions they enjoyed. A lot of Frenchmen and other Europeans had fought in the French army in India when they battled against the British. The French fiasco dashed their career prospects but they were not willing to go back home empty-handed. Many drifted to interior kingdoms and took up employment with Indian princes and the Mughals who were also eager to take them on to train their forces in European drill and discipline. These jobs were lucrative and these foreigners were not averse to mix with local people. Many of them married Indian women and even practised polygamy. Living in the style of local aristocrats, these mercenary troops was a passing phase of India’s march to modernity. We see a fusion of civilizations in this era. The Muslim empire had fallen and the British one not yet reached ascendancy. The ancient spirit of India to absorb everyone and everything once again shone through. May be this was how the Sakas got interwoven in Indian society around the beginning of the Common Era. This book is the story of a Muslim nautch-girl who came into the possession of a European military commander. She steadfastly stood by him and his troops to gain leadership of the brigade and administration of his estates after his death. Her exploits around Delhi in giving protection to the weak Mughal emperor Shah Alam II is recorded in history. As the British tightened their hold on Delhi, she transferred her allegiance to them and was allowed to keep her estates till her death. She is known by her Mughal title Farzand-i-Azizi (beloved daughter of the state), shortened to Farzana. This story is refreshingly told by Julia Keay, wife of the famous historian John Keay, and herself the author of many historical books. The text of this book was completed just before her death in 2011.

Our heroine was the daughter of an Arab father and a Kashmiri dancing girl. The father died when she was only six and the mother and child were thrown out of the establishment by the senior wife. Being a courtesan once, her mother returned to that profession and settled in Delhi. But a young daughter is jetsam for a mother trying to swim for her life in the turbulence of Delhi. Under the doleful eye of the Mughal ruler, a thriving trade on child virgins was being conducted. Mothers did deeds on the virginity of their daughters, sometimes three or four years before they reached puberty. When the time came, they delivered their children to the purchaser to fulfil the terms of the deal (p.18). It was the time when the Jats of Bharatpur made an incursion on Delhi under their leader Jawahar Singh and the little dancing girl caught the eye of Walter Balthazar Reinhardt, a European mercenary described as a morose, ill-conditioned ruffian. It’s not known how exactly Farzana came into his possession, but slowly she became his consort. Because of his unusual mood, he was often called General Sombre which was Indianized to Sumru and so our lady came to be called Begum Sumru. A mercenary was always ready to change sides and cheated on their masters without batting an eyelid. When a reinforced Delhi attacked the Jats back, Reinhardt defected to the Mughal side and became a servant of the emperor Shah Alam II. He entrusted the jagir of Sardhana on him. Farzana had meanwhile charmed the emperor himself with her demeanour and became indispensable to her troops by riding and fighting with them. As a result, when her master died, Shah Alam conferred the jagir on her and allowed her to remain as the leader of the military brigade. In 1781, after Reinhardt’s demise, she converted to Christianity and assumed the name of Joanna at the age of thirty.

The role of European mercenary soldiers in Indian history is not generally discussed and remains unknown to most people. Their interactions with native sepoys were much more cordial than in the English East India Company’s army. In the armed forces of native principalities, a Christian contingent of European descent was always available. The nawabs and rajas realized the superiority of European tactics and discipline in firing drill in the unsettled political conditions of north India. Keay provides a very good overview of the state of various armies. Fifty odd warring factions had regular units and mercenaries who possessed a professional dedication to fight for whoever would pay them with a further recompense in victory – a euphemism for loot. But they were notoriously unreliable for changing sides in the thick of battle or retreating to save their skin. Poor state of transportation technology was what tied these vagrants to India. However, with the rise of smoother and faster sailings, better domestic sanitation, the strictures of evangelical missionaries and a heightened sense of moral purpose and racial superiority, prevented liaison with native women in the nineteenth century. When white memsahibs took over the residences, native bibis were banished.

Though the Mughals had ruled roughshod over India for close to two centuries, their end was very pathetic and evoking sympathy. Keay gives a detailed but gruesome account of the conquest of Delhi by Ghulam Qadir in 1788 and the blinding of the emperor. Qadir was a Rohilla Afghan and of course, the Mughals were Chaghtai Turkish. The Afghan-Turkish rivalry was itself centuries old. Babur writes in his journal about how he made Afghan nobles who surrendered after a battle to approach him on all fours with grass held in their mouths as if to signify they are his humble cows. It was another Afghan – Sher Shah Suri – who had defeated Humayun to bring about a brief interlude of Afghan supremacy. With Ahmed Shah Abdali’s raid in 1761, Afghans again claimed prominence, but the Mughals managed to side-line them soon. Ghulam Qadir was determined to humiliate Shah Alam II. At a time when the Marathas – who protected the emperor – were away, Qadir occupied the Red Fort and took Shah Alam prisoner. He used to sit down by the emperor’s side on the throne, pass his arm familiarly round his neck and blow tobacco smoke into his sovereign’s face (p.169). Qadir asked the venerable old man to hand over the hidden treasure. Either there were none or Shah Alam didn’t want to part with them, so he refused. Qadir thoroughly searched the palace and the zenana and took away personal treasures and family jewels. Ladies of the harem were dishonoured and degraded by the brutal Rohillas. Asking to disclose the hidden wealth, Qadir flogged the emperor. When this failed to elicit any information, Shah Alam’s daughters were brought out of their private apartments and made to dance naked in front of their father for the entertainment of the leering Afghans. Eternally disgraced, many women threw themselves over the ramparts and drowned in the Yamuna river. After his daughters, it was the turn of his sons. They were brought from prison and made to dance to the merriment of the Afghans. When they protested that dancing was for women, noses of some were cut off. Still finding no treasure, Shah Alam was again brought to the palace and made to kneel before Qadir. He drove two red-hot needles into the unfortunate emperor’s eyes. Writhing in agony, the old man was then taken away. By the evening, he was brought back and Qadir had arranged a court painter to depict the scene which was to follow. The Afghan then knelt on the lying Mughal emperor’s chest and with his dagger scooped out one of his seared eyeballs. He then handed the dagger over to one of his lieutenants to repeat the procedure on the other eye. The light of the Timurid royal house went out that day in India forever. The dynasty groped their way in the darkness for seven more decades to their eventual doom at the hands of the British.

Farzana’s service to the Mughal emperor reached its peak after his blinding at which time she was not present in the capital. Her brigade did faithful service to the emperor till he died. She also assumed responsibility of Reinhardt’s jagir after his death. However, her martial and administrative talents withered after some time and she entered into many amorous liaisons with European officers in her brigade. She also swayed with the wind and served the Marathas and the British who established their ascendancy over the Mughals. She married a stubborn officer in her army who was resented by others. They rose in rebellion against both of them. It was by pure luck that she could escape with her life. As years went by, she faded into irrelevance, but kept her estates till she lived. Her adopted son dissipated the inherited wealth and died penniless in London.

The book is adorned with an excellent foreword by William Dalrymple both because of his physical presence in Delhi and also due to his own interest in eighteenth century India. His book ‘The Anarchy’ (reviewed earlier in this blog) also covers the period in question. There is an afterword by the author’s husband John Keay as she died in 2011, immediately after the first draft of the book was completed. Just like Dalrymple does in his works, Julia Keay also keeps the native powers at arm’s length with a touch of contempt and disdain. The desperate efforts of the Marathas, Jats, Sikhs and Rajputs to assert their power in their own homeland is portrayed as aggression and transgression on rightful authority. Even though with a disapproving heart, she grudgingly accepts their military might and de facto supremacy on the land. The book displays a remarkably masterful use of language full of aphorisms that condense the character of the protagonists aptly in a few words. Delightful word play is also seen in many places. Eventually, the author has done her duty in full to present a historical personality in rich colours and sharp focus. To readers who find travel close to their heart, I would suggest to take a day’s trip to Sardhana when they are in Delhi to visit the church which is still intact and the palaces built by Farzana around 230 years ago.

The book is highly recommended.

Rating: 4 Star

The Political Evolution of Muslims in Tamilnadu and Madras 1930-1947

Title: The Political Evolution of Muslims in Tamilnadu and Madras 1930-1947
Author: J B P More
Publisher: Orient Longman, 1997 (First)
ISBN: 8125010114
Pages: 272

When Muslims demanded creation of a new Islamic state of Pakistan in the 1940s by dividing India, it evoked a range of emotions on Indians. For some, even the idea of vivisecting the motherland – Akhand Bharat – was anathema. Some others evaluated the Muslim demand on the basis of two-nation theory and looked at the scenario in a dispassionate way. The question was whether the two largest religious communities in India formed two separate nations. Eminent statesmen like Dr. Ambedkar studied the problem in detail and confirmed that there are no common historical antecedents which Hindus and Muslims shared together as matters of either pride or shame. In fact, one party’s episode of shame was the other party’s moment of pride. The invasions of Muhammad ibn al-Qasim, Mahmud of Ghazni, Muhammad Ghori, Timur, Babur, Nadir Shah and Ahmed Shah Abdali and the ensuing devastation are matters of glory for the Muslims as these helped to implant the religion firmly on this ground. In the absence of a common feeling, Ambedkar rejected the Hindu view that the two communities formed one nation. The focus of the studies on the radicalization of Muslim politics and the accentuation of Muslim separatism during the 1930s and 40s were mostly north Indian Muslims. This book supplies that deficiency and is an analysis of the political evolution of the Muslims in the Tamil districts of the Madras Presidency under British rule. J B P More – Jean-Baptiste Prashant More – Is a French historian of Indian origin. He was born in Pondicherry and stays in Paris. His specialization is south Indian history. He has authored many books.

More introduces the historical background of the Muslim community from very early on and how they influenced politics in the region. Apart from brief incursions during the Sultanate period and in the Mughal era, the land was comparatively peaceful. On account of this short duration of Muslim political domination and the small Muslim population of 7 per cent of the total, division between Hindus and Muslims on the basis of religion did not appear to be very glaring. Two different streams of Tamil-speaking and Urdu-speaking people together formed the community of Muslims in Tamil Nadu. The cultural and social milieu of the Muslims was dominated by the Urdu-speaking aristocrats like the Nawab of Arcot while the Tamil-speaking faction was mainly traders or merchants, often very rich. The Nawab of Arcot owed his throne to the British and moved his seat to Madras in 1767 where the British were headquartered. However, the British abolished the Nawabship in 1855 and reduced him to the degree of a mere pensioner with a grand title of the Prince of Arcot. He was the president of the Madras unit of the Muslim League. The shortage in numbers was sought to be made up with conversions from Hindus which frequently caused social tension. The community was backward by the end of the nineteenth century as the Muslims did not opt for modern secular education introduced by the British, but resented the Hindus taking part in it and occupying positions in government. The Urdu-speaking Muslims were nostalgic about their past glory and regarded the British as usurpers. Times were changing however. English, Tamil and Telugu assumed more importance at the expense of Arabic, Persian, Urdu and the study of the Muslim religion.

In the description of the development of political awareness among Muslims, lack of meticulous depth is seen. Whatever he has included is provided in other books on this subject and nothing new is found. As an example, the continuous defeats and side-lining of Turkey in European politics which earned it the sobriquet of the ‘Sick man of Europe’ in the mid-1860s elicited anger and unrest in Indian Muslims, but this episode which is a harbinger of the Khilafat movement half a century later, is not at all considered for discussion. Even though Muslims constituted only 7 per cent of the population, communal riots occurred intermittently though not on the scale and severity of north Indian riots – except perhaps the 1921 Malabar riots which reached genocidal proportions. The Muslim League was formed in Madras as a sequel to the parent organization’s birth at Dhaka and it was led by Urdu-speaking aristocratic-merchant elite. They were part of the Deccan and north Indian Muslim tradition. The Urdu press of Madras tried their polarizing campaign by describing the Congress as a Hindu gathering, working in the interests of the Hindus. The Tamil- and Malayalam-speaking Muslims were said to be impervious to pan-Islamic sentiment and usually kept a low profile in politics until the launching of the Khilafat movement. Their behaviour underwent a sea change thereafter and became more conscious of their Islamic identity. This was the state of affairs when Indian politics was entering an explosive phase in the 1940s.

The development of the anti-Brahmin movement in the Presidency and its steadfast alliance to British interests and the Muslim League are clearly explained in this book. This was the precursor of the Dravidian movement which is still flourishing in Tamil Nadu today. A political set up known as the Justice Party contested elections from 1919 under British rule and formed ministries in Madras. This was while the Congress was boycotting these powerless legislatures. The Justice Party always sided with the British, but their government did not satisfy Muslim aspirations. Even though the Justice Party constituents were non-Brahmin but higher caste Hindus, their hatred towards Sanskrit and the Hindu religion was legendary. E V Ramasamy, the leader of the Self-Respect Movement, asked the untouchables to convert to Islam in 1919. Large scale conversions from lower castes to Islam began to take place in the 1930s. Muslim leaders made it a practice to celebrate such events in villages (p.91). This spawned a lot of communal unrest. An interesting thing to observe is that when communal disturbances occurred, the Muslims treated the entire Hindu community as one in inflicting damages. Several instances are recorded in this book involving Muslims fighting the Brahmins, intermediate castes and Dalits separately.

External observers of Islamic societies are usually reluctant to countenance the level of bigotry and fundamentalism that dictate those societies’ actions. Instead of examining whether a particular act was caused by any specific religious injunction or not, they assume economic/political factors behind it and arrive at very wrong conclusions. Instead of studying the target society comprehensively, they attempt to define those societies based on what they have learned as part of a western liberal education. This timidity bordering on fear of consequences is a characteristic of the scholars who try their best to avoid offending Muslim hardliners who are easily enraged by the slightest of provocations, however benign they might be. This author is also not different. However, he points out that the idea of secularism directly threatened Muslims’ historical conditioning where Islam occupied the central place which sought to control the actions of the believers individually as well as in groups. The author also makes a crucial observation that the population factor played an important role in communal riots. In all places where Muslims were concentrated or in sufficient numbers to form a compact block, there were systematic instances of riots (p.98). The book also includes a survey of the growth of educational institutions in the Presidency with special focus on how the Muslims utilized them in the twentieth century. The government went out of its way to establish separate schools for Muslims in addition to admitting them in common schools. Muslims, as a community, was lagging behind only the Brahmins but was far ahead of other Hindu communities. Further yielding to Muslim pressure, the government provided religious instruction for Muslims in common schools at taxpayers’ expense. The Hindus or Christians did not demand any such facilities and instead, high castes like Brahmins readily partook in modern education (p.86).

The Khilafat Movement viciously roused the communal sentiment among Muslims. Their political consciousness was again revived with the Civil Disobedience Movement of the 1930s. When Congress changed its strategy to demand complete independence instead of dominion status, the true colour of nationalist Muslims came out. Yakub Hasan Sait severed his connection with Congress because he feared that Muslims won’t have the commanding position in an independent country the Congress was contemplating. Muslim leaders collectively condemned the Gandhian movement to be inimical to Muslim interests. Jamal Muhammad opposed the boycott call of foreign goods as they were sold in the shops owned by Muslims. In the 1937 elections, Muslim League won 6 out of 8 Muslim seats it contested in Madras. Jamal Muhammad, the leader of the Muslim League, contested from the general constituency of commerce and was soundly defeated by T T Krishnamachari, an independent candidate. The author then claims that Congress’ assuming office in 1937 without a coalition with the Muslim League was a blunder which contributed to radical Islamization of Muslim politics that led finally to the religious assertiveness of Muslims (p.151). This is plainly wrong and a stout refusal to see the elephant of Muslim fanaticism in the room. It won’t be mollified by anything other than total control of the society of believers and submission of unbelievers to it. Muslims then objected to singing Vande Mataram in the assembly and opposed the ban on cow slaughter proposed by the Congress. The party meekly yielded to Muslim demands and stopped singing of the patriotic song after a few weeks. Even the usually stubborn Dravidian leaders were also willing to bend over backwards to satisfy Muslim claims. When P. Khalifullah chided the Self-Respect Movement for being atheistic, E V Ramasamy capitulated and submitted that atheism was not part of the official program of the movement which in fact was garlanding Hindu idols with strings of footwear.

The author elucidates the bitter tale of how the South Indian Muslims eagerly supported the call for the division of India and creation of Pakistan. During World War II, the Madras Muslim League joined the pan-Indian struggle for Pakistan and extended support to the British war effort which the Congress boycotted. The Leaguers wasted no opportunity to seed discord among Hindus by carping on caste differences. They joined the Dravidian campaign against Brahmins and also against the ‘Aryan’ influence in Congress. Finding the time ripe for extracting his pound of flesh, E V Ramasamy came out with an outrageous demand for a new nation called Dravidastan roughly coterminous with South India to which Jinnah expressed his tacit backing. The entire Muslim community in Madras voted for Pakistan in 1946 as the Muslim League won all 29 Muslim seats in the assembly, securing 99 per cent of the votes in most constituencies. But it soon became apparent that the newly created Pakistan is intangible for Madras Muslims as they would not migrate to it. The Muslim leaders then put up a bold face and declared their unflinching loyalty to their religion. Mohammed Ismail, the President of the Madras Muslim League, boasted that ‘a Muslim is always a Muslim, a Muslim first and a Muslim last’ and that he was proud of being part of creating Pakistan (p.203). Ramasamy added fuel to the fire by observing India’s Independence Day as a day of mourning, but Muslims cleverly dissociated from him after 1947. The Muslims in Malabar was also wholeheartedly in favour of Pakistan. When it was clear that they will not be a constituent part of it, they demanded a separate state of Moplastan. The campaign included observing May 23, 1947 as Moplastan Day.

The depth of research in this book is quite shallow and never goes much lower than skin-deep. The author sidesteps the issue of fanaticism and believes that the Muslim community responded in ways put forward by European social theorists without any basis in fact. He claims that after 1930, general economic decline of Urdu-speaking Muslims led to their influence dwindling and economic prosperity of Tamil-speaking Muslims increasing. This assertion remains pure speculation and never substantiated. This might also be a feeble attempt to introduce an economic factor in the transformation of a Muslim society. More seems to be unaware of the people he was handling in this book. On page 215, he states that ‘if low caste Hindus were a majority in the border areas like the Muslims, they too would have demanded partition’. The stupidity of this comment is mind-boggling because the low-caste Hindus are indeed the majority not only in border states but in other provinces as well, except perhaps Uttarakhand. On the other hand, this is a wily argument to weigh in a geographical ballast into the Pakistan demand rather than the purely religious which it was. The author mentions the many ways in which conversion to Islam was being continuously taking place in the Presidency. The duplicitous nature of Sufis comes out in the open. They outwardly preached eclectic values but strictly maintained their Islamic identity and indulged in conversions on the sly. The copy of the book which I had used had 16 pages (p. 113-128) missing. Instead, a duplicate copy of pages 129-144 was found inserted.

The book is recommended.

Rating: 2 Star