Title: A Walk in the Woods
Author: Bill Bryson
Publisher: DoubleDay, 1997 (First)
ISBN: 9780385408165
Pages: 320
This book is an interesting addition to the Bill Bryson collection of an avid reader as he is one of the greatest travel writers of the world. He and his friend Stephen Katz hiked through portions of the Appalachian Trail in the US in the spring of 1996 and this book is a humorous account of that memorable trek through the wilderness. The Appalachian Trail (AT) is an iconic, 2200-mile public footpath spanning 14 US states between Springer Mountain in Georgia and Mount Katahdin in Maine. It is managed by a robust public-private partnership and is the longest continuous, hiking only footpath globally. It attracts three million visitors annually. There are three types of hikes in the trail: Thru-Hiking attempts to hike the entire trail in a single continuous journey; Section-Hiking attempts the trail in smaller, separate chunks over multiple years or decades; and Day-Hiking which explores short, easily accessible segments for a few hours or a single day. Bryson and his friend aspired for a Thru-Hike and started from Georgia on that note. The tough conditions on the trail and extreme weather due to a slowly-retreating winter prompted them to break the journey and attempt a sectional-hike near the end of the trail. Unfortunately, they stopped after two days probably because the hardships of the trek greatly outweighed their expectations of the possible benefits. In the meantime, Bryson did several Day-Hikes while the other was busy with work. In that sense, the duo attempted all three kinds of the trekking and in a single year. The book is eminently readable and a thoroughly enjoyable one. On the final count, the team walked 870 miles in total or just over a third of the entire trail.
A trekking route of this mind-boggling scale is a tribute to the vastness of the US since it could earmark such an expansive piece of real estate for a purely non-commercial activity. An expert hiker would take nearly five months to complete the entire trail. Bryson makes fun of similar trekking circuits in England for its shortness. It is possible to reach a comfortable inn at the end of each day's trek in England whereas the AT requires the enthusiasts to stay in the forest for many days at a stretch and even up to several weeks. The trail in the Appalachians was conceived in the 1920s by a visionary called Benton MacKaye as a hiking trail connecting a network of mountain camps where urban workers could come and refresh themselves. Myron Avery mapped it out and personally superintended the construction of hundreds of miles of path by voluntary labour. He extended its planned length from 1200 miles to well over 2000. The trail was formally completed in 1937. The path had no historical basis. It did not follow any Red Indian trails or colonial post roads and is a genuine product of twentieth century innovation. It's the largest volunteer-run undertaking on earth.
Bryson periodically snipes at the management of the trail and the surrounding woodlands by the government and there are elements which shock the readers. About 240 million acres of forests are owned by the government and its prime activity is to build roads through them! These are to allow private timber companies to get to previously inaccessible stands of trees. This was written in 1996 and the author mentions that 49 million acres are available for logging. Public infrastructure such as national parks are developed along the route, but these entities are severely deficient of funds even though visitor numbers soared. Camp sites and information centres have been shut, warden numbers slashed and essential maintenance is deferred to pitiable outcomes. Environmental hazards of the indirect, organic type also abound in the American wilderness. Extinction of tree and animal species is a grave concern. The widely prevalent American chestnut trees became a memory in a few decades due to an Asian fungus that made its way to the continent for which the tree was not evolutionarily prepared. The mortality rate was 100 percent. It infected a tree and spread its spores to nearby ones through breeze or woodpeckers. The trail is also infested with wild beasts such as the bear, moose or python. Bryson also suggests that microbes carrying a whole lot of infectious vectors such as the hantavirus are there, waiting for the trekkers. To cap it all, there are human murderers who attack the trekkers for no reason, often fatally.
Bryson's humorous take of his experience during travel is what makes his literary work a treasure for the readers. And there are lots and lots of it in this book. He observes that time loses its meaning during the trek which is expected to last several months. When it is dark, one goes to his sleeping bag and when it is light, he gets up and everything in between is just in between. You exist in a kind of mobile Zen mode, with your brain like a balloon tethered with string - accompanying, but not actually part of the body below. When a person is on the Appalachian Trail, the forest is his universe - infinite and entire. It is all he experiences day after day. Eventually it is about all he can imagine. He is aware, of course, that somewhere over the horizon there are mighty cities, busy factories, crowded freeways, but there in that part of the country, where woods drape the landscape for as far as the eye can see, the forest rules (p. 138). Even small pleasures away from the toil of hiking brings a flavour of paradise. The author quips that the greatest reason for being grateful to live in the twentieth century is the joy of stepping from outside on a really hot day into the crisp, clean, surgical chill of an air-conditioned establishment. This is a fact we Indians would readily acknowledge and agree to! Several people carry high-tech equipment to the trail to monitor the weather and all but Bryson admonishes this tendency by claiming that the mountains are not for them and they perhaps shouldn't have ventured to the trail. He also takes stock of what he and his fellow trekker gained for their arduous journey of several weeks. Though it didn't change their lives, he gained an appreciation and respect for woods and wilderness and the colossal scale of America. He lost a lot of weight as well and was remarkably fit for a time afterwards.
There are some interesting aspects related to the trail. Every 20 minutes on the AT, a trekker walked further than the average American walks in a week. The near-total dependence of American life on the automobile is seen here. Since the trek begins in early-spring, dangers of very cold weather predominates in the early phase whereas heat is the main concern towards the final stages. This book discusses about hypothermia (death due to low temperature). It tells the story of 16 Danish seamen who were rescued from the North Sea after only 90 minutes following a shipwreck, suddenly dropping dead on the rescue vessel due to earlier exposure to severe cold. This is just an urban myth and there are no official records of it. Bryson estimates in 1996 that about four million people visit the trail every year. But given its immense length it is never crowded, but the shelters sometimes are because they are few as compared to the number of hikers. The Appalachian is a geologically distinct feature in that these mountains are really very old, in fact one of the oldest landscape features on earth. When simple plants colonized the earth and first creatures crawled out of the sea, it was there at a height of three times its present figure. Most of it had withered away by erosion in the meantime. This is not so surprising. A typical mountain stream will carry away about 1000 cu.ft of mountain in a year in the form of sand granules and suspended particles. That's equivalent to the capacity of an oversized dump truck, but over millions of years, the mountain would grind down to a hill. Bryson cites several instances where the American authorities allows the degradation of its environment either by lack of resources or by wilful negligence. He remarks that the attitude of America to nature is peculiar. Either it is ruthlessly subjugated for commercial profit or is deified as something one drives to. Seldom it occurs to anyone that people and nature could coexist to their mutual benefit. The AT need not be all wilderness; it could be routed through rural villages with grazing cows and tilled fields.
Bryson did this trip with a friend whom he had not met for a long time. There were moments of friction, but he manages the situation without descending to ill feelings. The rest-shelters are unattended and in the middle of the forest. You can't reserve them for yourself as it is planned to be occupied on first-come-first-served basis. This necessitates meeting and cooperating with strangers every evening. There were all kinds of people and our duo both saw the heights of magnanimity and the depths of selfishness. Bryson had discontinued the trail a few days after the start and visited portions of it in his car. During this time, he generally substitutes his travel adventures with historical and geological snippets just to keep the readers amused.
The book is recommended.
Rating: 4 Star
Title: The Moplah Rebellion 1921
Author: C. Gopalan Nair
Publisher: Voice of India, 2020 (First published 1923)
ISBN: 9789385485220
Pages: 196
Several books on Moplah Rebellion have been reviewed earlier here. Now, why should I add one more to that fold so that we are yet again reminded of a brutal episode of Hindu genocide which occurred in 1921 in areas that constitute the present-day Malappuram district of Kerala? Unlike others, this was written by a well-known civil servant who had grass-roots knowledge of the society as well as how the government functioned. Diwan Bahadur C. Gopalan Nair served as a Deputy Collector in Kozhikode. This book was published in 1923 and remains a highly cited reference material on account of its accurate representation of facts and figures compiled from government records such as official communiques and also from newspaper reports from reputed publications. The communal riots in 1921 erupted in support of saving the Sultan of Turkey against the imperial ambitions of the British at the end of World War I, but it was the Hindus of Malabar who faced the worst. Every conceivable form of inhuman treatment, indignities and humiliation were meted out to them. This book is not lauded for its literary merit, but the exactness of the picture it presents as compared to the true nature of things compels the readers to appreciate the sincerity in the narrative and shudder at the thought of how a group of religiously fanatical people could commit such brutal atrocities on their neighbours.
Students of Indian history know that the 1857 war was the one and the only struggle Hindus and Muslims waged together against the British before 1920. But that was for the reinstatement of the Mughal emperor to his former glory and was really a Muslim cause. The 1920 unity was for the restoration of the Khilafat, which was again a Muslim cause. In fact, the Khilafat was conjured up by Gandhi to make the two communities paddle together towards 'Swaraj'. But, being nurtured on a separatist-communal and intolerant worldview and carried and strengthened by Wahhabi-Farazi movements, the Muslim community was aloof and sometimes hostile to the Congress. If we examine the case of Malabar, the author lists out 51 outbreaks from 1836 to 1919 in which Muslims committed atrocities on Hindus in Malabar in which the British interests were rarely harmed. The violence against Hindus, which was called 'Hal Ilakkam' (loosely translated as religious frenzy), consisted of murder, rape, destruction of temples and forcible conversion of Hindus to the Muslim faith. Was agrarian issues involved in this violence, as is claimed by modern Marxist historians? The facts prove otherwise. T. L. Strange, who studied the outrages deeply in 1852, ruled out agrarian grievances. He noted that the general character of the dealings of the landlords towards their tenants, whether Muslim or Hindu, was 'mild, equitable and forbearing'. He also
noted that the Moplah tenants were very open to evade their obligations and to resort to false and litigious pleas. Hindus lived in such fear of the Moplahs that the landlords were afraid of enforcing their legal rights such as evicting them even if the rent is not paid. Fanaticism is identified as the real cause of Moplah outrage. Today, we call it 'terrorism'.
Gopalan Nair remarks about the religious unity perceived at a reception of Khilafat leaders at
Kozhikode immediately prior to the outbreak and the contrasting picture of one community trying to exterminate the other only a few days later. He contends that the Hindus believed in
Hindu-Muslim unity and never dreamed of a day when the Muslim would turn against him while the other was ready for a general rising and patiently bided his time (p. 23). The display of affection on the part of Moplahs towards Hindus was artificial (p. 27). Their religious frenzy impelled them to convert and their plundering propensities impelled them to loot. There were isolated instances of Muslims helping the Hindus to escape, but these were exceptions. The book then refers to some of the prominent episodes of the outbreak. Ali Musaliar was installed as Ali Raja on Aug 22, 1921, but nine days later, he surrendered to the police. If he had dreamed of saving his skin, it was in vain. He was tried, sentenced and promptly hanged to death in Coimbatore prison six months later. Another such incident was the Pookkottur battle on 26 Aug which was the salvation of Hindus in Ernad and a bright spot for them. It had been arranged that after the Juma prayer, all the Hindus of Manjeri and the neighbouring villages were to be brought to the mosque and converted. Caps, dresses and jackets were all ready for distribution among the converts. As the Muslim side lost the battle with 400 dead while on the British only four were killed, the program had to be given up. The author gives the details of military operations from Aug 1921 to Jan 1922. By December, the riots were effectively crushed and reporting changes from a daily to a weekly basis. Almost all the top leaders of the Moplahs surrendered, who were either summarily shot or hanged after trial. In total, 2266 Moplahs were killed, 5688 were captured alive and 38,256 surrendered. Gopalan Nair also notes that after the backbone of the revolt was broken, there were instances of Hindus and Muslims combining to resist looting and to help in the capture of rebels still refusing to surrender.
There were accusations against the civil administration at the hasty nature in which they summoned the military and the declaration of martial law in the district. The author refutes these arguments as baseless. The cutting of telegraph lines, blocking of roads, destruction of railways and the murders, looting and rioting which took place at Tirurangadi and elsewhere constituted a situation which the civil authorities were powerless to control even with the help of available military force. Martial law was declared on Aug 29, 1921 and withdrawn on Feb 25, 1922. Damages inflicted on government buildings and properties are listed. 44 bridges and 27 culverts were destroyed to hinder troop movement. The number of temples destroyed were not ascertained because the government purposely refrained from attempting to collect accurate figures. The number is estimated to be above 100. The infamous wagon tragedy is referred to as ‘train tragedy’ in this book, in which 70 out of the 100 prisoners sent from Tirur to Coimbatore prison died due to overcrowding and asphyxiation. The dead included three Hindus also. The book includes a short history of the development of the police force in Malabar. It was systematically organised only after the assassination of district collector Connolly in 1855. Earlier, revenue officials like the Tahsildar and his deputies maintained law and order quite inefficiently. The ease with which Connolly was killed and how the murderers moved about without any fear even when the nominal police were on their look out persuaded the authorities to constitute a regular and professional police force. An interesting penal measure in place was collective fines in which a group of people or a village itself was fined if there was reason to believe that they abetted the crime by inaction or silence and thereby helping the culprits who were their co-religionists or neighbours. A sum of Rs. 38,331 was collected from villages implicated in the murder of Connolly and of this sum, Rs. 30,936 was paid to his widow.
The atrocities suffered by the Hindu community is summed up in the book in a matter of fact style. A sanitized version of the heinous acts is summarized in the petition submitted to Lady Reading by the Hindu women of Malabar. They tell about the many wells and tanks filled up with the mutilated who refused to convert, of pregnant women cut to pieces with the unborn babe protruding from the mangled corpse, of their children hacked to death before their eyes, of their husbands and fathers tortured, flayed and burnt alive, of women who were carried away and raped or taken as concubines, of destroyed homes and temples and of how the idols were desecrated by putting the entrails of slaughtered cows where flower garlands used to lie and of the formerly rich and prosperous who had to beg on the streets of Kozhikode for food (p. 64). The author remarks that the way to resist the evil consequences of Muslim fanaticism is for the Hindus to become assertive and present a united front against Moplah aggression (p.114). The book also points to a few pockets of Malabar where the riots did not take place. Kavalappara Nayar and Nambudiris of Pathinalu Desam had made a rule that no land would be given to Moplahs for farming or to settle. There was security for Hindus in these villages. The book also examines the things which motivated the rioters to go on an orgy of demonic violence. A war song composed in memory of the 47 martyrs of Malappuram is given. The song tells of the houris (celestial nymphs) the fighters could possess in heaven upon attaining martyrdom. There are distinct erotic undertones in the song. A comparatively decent allusion is that if the houris spit in the sea, the salt water would become as sweet as honey (p. 121). So it seems that the Moplahs were excited not by religious devotion alone!
Unlike other works of this genre, this book also focuses on the relief and reconversion measures undertaken for the benefit of the victims. Central relief camps were organized by associations like the Servants of India Society which provided shelter and food to Hindus who lost everything. 22 camps were organized, which housed 26,000 people who belonged to all castes. Reconversion efforts were also in place. People who were circumcised or cohabitated were to be returned to their old faith after taking Panchagavya for three days at a temple and repeating the chant 'Narayana' or 'Shiva' at least 12,000 times a day, for 12 days! These rules were not applicable to Brahmin converts who apparently lost their caste permanently. Arya Samaj stepped in at this moment and performed reconversion in a much simpler way. About 2500 people were reconverted. In spite of this, there was another threat from the Muslims for the reconverted. Of the 51 violent outbreaks that took place in Malabar, many were related to converts to Islam reverting to their old faith and usually involved the murder of the reconverted people and those who helped them do so. Such people were summarily hacked by Moplahs along with their families. But the author does not comment on any crimes of this nature in the years after 1921. Temple desecration was a regular feature in the outbreaks. The jihadis took shelter in a temple as the last stand and fought the troops from there. This led to the temples being destroyed in the crossfire as well as despoiled by the fanatics, who were anyhow besieged, answering to nature's calls and emptying their bowels inside the premises. The book includes an appendix on the atrocities heaped on Hindu victims which are classified into seven categories: a) brutally dishonouring women b) flaying people alive c) wholesale slaughter of men, women and children d) forcibly converting and murdering those who refused to be converted e) throwing half-dead people into wells and leaving the victims to die a slow and painful death f) burning and looting practically all Hindu and Christian houses in which Moplah women and children also took part in robbing the women of even the garments on their body and g) insulting the religious sentiments of Hindus and destroying or desecrating temples. An account of the inhuman cruelties carried out on Hindus, especially women, are chronicled along with the statements of victims. One person committed suicide after giving the statement.
The book is graced with an excellent foreword by Saradindu Mukherjee which should never be missed. He boils with moral outrage at the injustice done to the Hindu community by Gandhi and Nehru and puts them in the dock by arraying several well-argued charges against them. The author has compiled several macabre photos of the victims. I have not seen these in any other books on the subject, which includes one of a young man who received eighteen sword cuts but still managed to escape with his life, by jumping into a river; of a group of reconverted people staring into an uncertain future; of a group of forced converts in Muslim dress and of the rail wagon in which seventy rioters were killed. The book is a stark warning against tolerating religious intolerance and allowing the intolerant to prosper. It also indicates harsh punishments such as collective fines that can be used nowadays too, to fight fanaticism.
The book is highly recommended.
Rating: 4 Star
Title: Why We Get Fat – And What to Do About It
Author: Gary Taubes
Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf, 2011 (First)
ISBN: 9780307272706
Pages: 257
In India at least, a person who had recently constructed a new house is an expert 'architect' among his friends and relatives for a few years after the event. Likewise, one who successfully cut short his body weight has the moral authority to preach and pose as a dietary consultant. My body weight was 93 kg in January 2023, and I was tottering into obesity with no control on food intake. I took an exercise regime of walking 6-8 km daily, avoided snacks with evening tea and replaced rice at dinner with chapatti. Within three months, in April 2023, my weight came down to 76 kg, which is still maintained even though some additions in the food intake had taken place and walking is now reduced to 2 km a day. That was why I was interested in this book, especially at the author's assertion that 'the physicians have a flawed belief system that stipulates that the reason we get fat is that we eat too much and/or move too little. So, the cure is to do the opposite'. This got me intrigued, since I had done the same thing and got spectacular results as expected. Instead of eating less and exercising more, the author recommends a low-carbohydrate diet. This may help dietary fat to get burned for energy and keep the person's weight in control. I now think that this logic may have kept my body weight at the lower level in recent time even without much reducing food nor overindulging in physical activity. Gary Taubes is a correspondent for Science magazine. His articles about science, medicine and health have appeared in several magazines and is the author of many books on the same themes.
It is an established fact in modern medical science that the way to lose weight is to eat less and exercise more. However, Taubes' main argument in this book is that eating less and moving about more is not a remedy for weight gain. Prescribing low calorie diets for obese and overweight patients leads only to modest weight losses that are transient. Exercising more is no guarantee to lose weight. Poorer people do more physical work, but they are claimed to be fatter than affluent people. This is a contentious point, since this is definitely not valid in the case of India. Maybe the author is recounting his experience in the US. However, Taubes does not underrate the efficacy of physical exertion because he admits that 30 minutes of moderately vigorous physical activity five days a week is necessary to maintain and promote health, but there is no evidence to prove that doing so would make us lean. If we increase our physical activity, we will only work up an appetite. It will make us hungry and chances are that we will increase the calories we consume to compensate. The energy we consume and the energy we expend are claimed to be dependent on each other. Change one, and the other changes to compensate. The author underlines this main argument with the claim that the entire science of obesity got caught up in the circular logic of the calories-in/calories-out hypothesis and it has never been able to escape from this stranglehold.
This book also outlines the metabolic mechanism of its argument, along with experimental results. He describes an experiment in rats with its ovaries removed. This resulted in estrogen deficiency. If estrogen is not available, an enzyme called LPL draws fat out of the blood and stores it in cells, making the animal fatter. To compensate for the absence of this fat in other organs, it eats more. If food is then not available in sufficient quantity, it turns slothful to conserve energy. Fatness is thus caused by the better ability to absorb dietary fat. He concludes with the smart-sounding remark that 'we don't get fat because we overeat; we overeat because we are getting fat'. It was the Germans and Austrians who had founded and done meaningful research in the fields related to obesity. After World War II, the anti-German sentiment in the medical community deliberately neglected their work done in this area. The essential mechanism of weight regulation is that fat is continuously flowing out of fat cells and is circulating around the body to be used for fuel and returned to fat cells if it is not used. Fat is stored as a cluster of three types of fatty acids known as triglycerides. The cluster is too large to pass through the cell membrane. Anything that works to break down those triglycerides into their component fatty acids so that it escapes those cells works to make you leaner. There are dozens of hormones and enzymes that play a role in these processes. Insulin is the primary regulator of that metabolism. An enzyme called HSL breaks down triglycerides and release fatty acids to the blood stream. Insulin suppresses the operation of this enzyme, thereby making the animal fatter. The effect of insulin is to make us fatter.
The single most important advice a reader should take from this book is that one should minimize the amount of carbohydrate in order to remain lean. It's the carbohydrates that ultimately determine how much fat we accumulate because the secretion of insulin is linked to the presence of carbohydrate in the blood. Weight loss regimens succeed when they get rid of the fattening carbohydrates in the diet; they fail when they don't. Some people are predisposed to get fat, but this predisposition is triggered by the quantity and quality of carbohydrate we eat. Again, the fewer carbohydrates we take in, the leaner we will be. The book sounds a warning to those with a sweet tooth. Sugar is addictive to humans in the same way the psychedelic drugs are and for much the same biochemical reasons. In the 1960s, the focus was changed to avoid high-protein items like red meat as far as possible and to shift to carbohydrates. The medical community took this step apparently to ward off cardiac problems caused by the higher cholesterol content in red meat. The author opposes this established wisdom, but he quotes only anecdotal evidence in support of his claims. A science writer such as the author should know better than to rely on anecdotal stories which are no better than hearsay. Besides, research conducted around World Wars I and II and till 1980 are quoted throughout the narrative with no comments on whether later research has confirmed or repudiated any of these results. Readers should exercise a little bit of scepticism because he is taking on the entire medical community on his accusation that they are all wrong on this point. He adds that it was in the 1980s that the medical world adopted the fallacious calories-in/calories-out hypothesis. Another factor worth noting is that the author assumes that those foods which humans are adapted to in the long time when hunter-gatherers flourished would be good for us even now. Agriculture and the resultant carbohydrates were in our diet for only 0.1 per cent of our species' total existence. In the remaining period red meat obtained by hunting was the primary source of food. Hence, the author argues, that it will not be bad for our health.
It is to be accepted that Taubes has made a neat argument in favour of including more protein-rich substances like red meat and curtail intake of carbohydrates in our diet to keep our bodies slim. However, his substantiation of the arguments lacks rigour and readers get a distinct feeling that the narrative is not authentic as far as scientific facts are concerned. Some contentions like obesity is associated also with poverty and not with prosperity alone is not readily digestible as also his claim that poorer people are fatter. Another unfounded assumption is that cancer is prevalent in vegetarian societies like the Hindus of India (p. 171). As is common with many hoax theories in the medical field, he argues that big pharma companies intervene in discussions on health to suit their needs. Similar is his bold remark that health officials hesitate to discuss the concepts put forward in this book because it contradicts what they have been telling all along.
The book is recommended.
Rating: 2 Star
Title: The House of Jaipur – The Inside Story of India’s Most Glamorous Royal Family
Author: John Zubrzycki
Publisher: Juggernaut, 2023 (First published 2020)
ISBN: 9789393986863
Pages: 358
When the British left India in 1947, it was a hotchpotch of 565 princely states that comprised two-fifths of the nation’s geographical area. It was a gargantuan task to integrate them all to the newly formed republic, especially those royals who claimed descent from the sun and the moon. Perhaps this was a great wonder in modern statecraft, but Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel and his secretary V. P. Menon did this in a matter of months and that too, without shedding a drop of blood. Looking back with hindsight, the personal kingdoms had degraded to such alarming proportions that the edifice came crumbling down at the merest touch of Patel and Menon with recourse to nothing other than verbal sophistry. The Kachhwaha Rajput kingdom of Jaipur boasted a history lasting a millennium, but wisely decided to join India without any demur. This put a brake to their high-flying lifestyle who spent more than half of a year in the cool climes of Europe and spent the state's money like water on jewellery, polo, alcohol and women. The king of Jaipur in 1947, Maharaja Sawai Man Singh II, had three wives. Out of these, the most famous and glamourous was Gayatri Devi. This book is the story of this royal couple and their children and grandchildren through the numerous petty bickering among themselves and court cases initiated for appropriating more wealth for themselves. Those who had any reservations against scrapping of privy purses by Indira Gandhi would be forced to reconsider their stand, reading about the decadent and extravagant lifestyle of the royals, even after they were ousted from power. A lot had indeed changed as well. Rajput valour, once tested on the battlefield, is now being played out in the political domain, in corporate boardrooms, in courthouses and in the sporting field. John Zubrzycki is an award-winning journalist and acclaimed author specialising in South Asia. His book 'The Last Nizam' was reviewed earlier here.
The author notes the ease with which the native princes got inveigled into serving their British masters after the Mughal suzerainty collapsed. Especially after the 1857 Rebellion, the British also trod carefully. Court ritual was one area the British did not intervene in, but they controlled the administration of the state. British officers served as the state's chief ministers, headed the departments of revenue and public works, commanded its army, managed its railways and directed its educational and medical services. Even then, the princes followed an immensely extravagant lifestyle and shamelessly appropriated public resources for their jewels, hunts, polo matches, European travels and sexual escapades at home and abroad. These royal leeches sucked the blood up from poor subjects who were already half-starving. In India, the princes were bound by tradition-bound strictures that governed their behaviour but they lived on the wild side whenever they were in Europe. Sawai Man Singh II, affectionately called Jai, would leave for England in May every year and return in October. Their European friends visited their princely states in the remaining months, for more parties, more polo and more hunting and dating. The British did little to rein in the princes' extravagant routine or peculiar fetishes. Only the most debauched or corrupt feared dismissal. The rest were left to maintain their feudal traditions.
The book contains several sleazy episodes of Jai when he was in power and how he gracefully vacated the throne to the newly formed Indian republic. He was a philanderer at heart who thought marriage was a necessity and to produce children a duty to the state and to the House. He was so morally weak that his American actress-lover met his second wife in the palace at Jaipur and offered her tips on how to satisfy her husband so that he would visit her more often! Jai had a special rapport with Mountbatten and was the only Indian ruler who called the viceroy by his pet name 'Dickie'. So he signed the Instrument of Accession to India with little demur. Moreover, in March 1948, nine smaller states headed by Kota agreed to merge with the Indian dominion. Udaipur and Jaipur yielded thereafter. The author claims this was achieved by the 'diplomatic skills and subterfuge' by Patel and Menon. Jai relinquished his powers as maharaja in favour of the largely ceremonial office of Rajpramukh. His duties involved presiding over the state legislative assembly sessions and swearing in of ministers.
The royals' eviction from power was swift by comparison with similar events worldwide. With a vengeful Indira Gandhi close on their tail, even the symbols of power were gradually taken away from them. In 1956, Jai was removed as rajpramukh without being consulted or warned. He quickly rose to the occasion and ensured a steady and opulent source of income. The Rambagh Palace was leased out to operate as a hotel. In 1957, Jai considered entering politics. His ancestors had always forged alliances with whoever occupied the throne in Delhi whether it was the Mughals or the British. By going directly to Nehru, he was merely following Jaipur state tradition believing that a political alliance would protect him and his family. His wife Gayatri Devi, referred as Ayesha in the book, actually joined politics and won the 1962 election to Lok Sabha from Jaipur with a margin that found its way into the Guinness Book of World Records. They continued to live a high-profile life with VVIPs visiting them at home. Queen Elizabeth II and Jacqueline Kennedy visited them in the early 1960s, eclipsing government functions which snubbed Nehru. However, the entry into public service did not change the royals' mindset substantially. They always maintained their snobbish disregard to reformed concepts of egalitarianism. While posted as India's ambassador to Spain, Jai employed servants from Jaipur who would touch their foreheads to the ground when they went to receive their master at Madrid airport. Having three wives and numerous affairs served him well, but not for the women. Lonely and with no real role to play in Jai's life, both his surviving wives succumbed to alcoholism before they reached their mid-40s.
The author remarks on the infighting among Rajputs and the divergent political alliances among them. The Kachhwahas of Jaipur was subservient to the Mughals while the Sisodias of Mewar bravely stood their ground. When Aurangzeb took the hands of an 8-year old Jai Singh of Jaipur and playfully asked what he will do, the crafty boy replied that he'd do nothing because he was in secure hands. Impressed by his 'intelligence', the emperor granted him the title 'Sawai', meaning he was as good as 'one-and-a-quarter' men. Three centuries later, when Jai’s funeral procession in 1970 was led by a mahout on an elephant, it carried the Mah-e-Muratib, the ceremonial rod gifted by the Mughals as a token of distinction. This fickleness in pursuit of an ideal was carried into the political space as well. Even though the Congress was staunchly against the royals, they still tried to befriend them in order to gain a share of power. Many voters in Jaipur did not forgive Congress for incarcerating their rajmata and their maharaja during the Emergency. The maharaja in question, Bhawani Singh, stunned them by joining the same party in 1988. The author then wryly comments that the Jaipur rulers always secured their interests. The closing chapters of the book are dedicated to keep track of the innumerable legal disputes brought on by one family against another. The Rajputs continued their cursed internecine warfare, but no blood was being spilled and the arena of conflict had shifted to the law courts, but the same tropes of usurpation, betrayal and dishonour remained.
Apart from the story of the House of Jaipur, the author makes some overarching remarks about India’s judicial system and personality quirks of its top politicians. Indira Gandhi reportedly harboured a visceral contempt for India’s princes and especially despised Gayatri Devi. Noted journalist Khushwant Singh once said that Indira could not stomach a woman more good-looking than herself. Gayatri Devi was arrested a month into the Emergency for violating the draconian COFEPOSA act which was put into force to conserve foreign currency. A few months back, the sleuths had discovered 19 British pounds and a few coins during a raid at her home. This was nothing unusual for she visited England every year, but its possession fell afoul of the law. She was lodged in Tihar jail; in which it is said that an open drain passed through her cell. She bore the hardships stoically for some time, but after five months, wrote a grovelling letter to Indira promising to end political activity and she was subsequently released. Gayatri Devi was a devout anglophile. She donated a large collection of her jewellery to the British Museum in the mid-1990s. Commenting on the never-ending legal wrangles, the book notes that ‘there is no such thing as a closure in India’s labyrinthine court system.’ The House of Jaipur still remains a house divided. The royal family now employs a PR agency to ensure that any public appearances serve to enhance rather than detract from the aura they strive to maintain.
Gayatri Devi is throughout referred as Ayesha in the text which was her pet name given by her mother. This was due to a literary inspiration that caught her mother’s imagination and not at all related to its Islamic namesake. At the time of Gayatri Devi’s birth, her mother was reading the popular adventure novel ‘She: A History of Adventure’ by H. Rider Haggard. The protagonist of the novel is a powerful, eternally beautiful, and mysterious queen named Ayesha and the name stuck. The book follows a gossipy style of reporting. It dedicates several chapters for Gayatri Devi’s licentious mother Indira Devi, who is not related to the House of Jaipur by blood. Her frequent running after paramours and illicit child are given unwanted prominence. In 1929, she threw a party at Cannes in which the centre of attraction was a glittering fountain filled with fifty cases of expensive champagne. Zubrzycki appears to be paranoid about criticisms levelled against Muslim functionaries in princely states which he could have dismissed without comment or even ignored. Instead, he passes judgment on the complaints without going into the merits of each case. He portrays the opposition to officials such as Khusrau Jang and Sir Mirza Ismail as ‘opposition to a Muslim holding a high office in a predominantly Hindu state’. In fact, this finds mention in this review because he does this on three occasions with the exact same words. This may cement his stature as a liberal, but what he loses in the bargain is his credibility.
The book is recommended.
Rating: 3 Star
