Mein Kampf

Title: Mein Kampf
Author: Adolf Hitler
Publisher: Jainco Publishers (First published 1926)
ISBN: 9788189474065
Pages: 581

First of all, let me confess that this is not a review of the title mentioned above, but of Mein Kampf itself, because Goodreads does not allow me to add that title nor a review of it. The need for this illogical censoring is hard to comprehend because only by the interchange of ideas can a regressive system could be kept in check. So, let's get back to Adolf Hitler and his book. This man, who found Germany lying prostrated after the defeat in World War I, found a scapegoat in the Jewish community for the defeat and then tried to exterminate them, in the process wrecking Germany in toto in another world war. Six million Jews were killed in the Holocaust. I sought in this book the answer to the question that was in my mind for a long time – what made this man go after a miniscule community that had been living in Germany for centuries? Unfortunately, the answer could not be found. Even with the rabid anti-Semitic rant running from cover to cover, hints of a drastic measure such as the Holocaust is not to be seen. What Hitler repeatedly asserts in the text is that while the written word is for the intellectuals, the masses need the spoken word to get mobilized. Hence it is likely that he had chosen a sanitized version of his real thought in the book. Moreover, he started writing this book in 1924 while serving a prison sentence in the fortress of Landsberg am Lech when there was no prospect for him to ever achieve absolute power in Germany. This is organized in two volumes. The first covers Hitler's life, his migration from Austria to Germany and the foundation of the National Socialist Labour party. Volume 2 covers the ideals of the movement and was published in 1926, long before the party had any serious chance of assuming power. 

The first part, or volume 1, of the book covers the life of Hitler only in the broadest outline. There's no mention about his mother or siblings. Even the problems he faced in education and employment are utilized for buttressing the arguments of the Nazi movement. He makes some general observations in this volume. One is that every great movement on this earth owes its growth to great speakers and not to great writers. Obviously, he has only the demagogues in mind. The tactical object of a fight of the party was the winning over of the child in school. So, the first rallying cry should be addressed to the child. Hitler wants the study of history to be a search for and discover the forces that are the causes of those results which appear before our eyes as historical events. He also ascertains that people should be aware of the political situation in a country. Those who have no understanding of the political world around them have no right to criticize or complain. The importance of the politician is a concept that is frequently stressed in this book. Only in rare cases are kings found to be models of wisdom and understanding and integrity of character, though we might like to think otherwise. 

Hitler makes a survey of political systems that allegedly strived to keep Germany vanquished and identifies Marxism and Judaism as the culprits. He denies the religious nature of the latter and asserts that since the ideal of the Jew is world domination, it must be regarded as a political system and not religious. His antagonism with social democrats is evident in its equalisation with communism. He then makes a tirade on them, dripping with contempt in every sentence. He alleges that everything that was considered worthy are disparaged by the Marxists. The nation was deemed to be an invention of the capitalist class and the fatherland was an instrument of the bourgeoisie for the exploitation of the working masses. Rule of law, according to them, was a means of holding down the proletariat, religion a means to dope the people and morality a badge of stupid and sheepish docility. There was nothing that they did not drag in the mud. He takes on the employers who refuse to listen to the changing times and claims that there are employers who lack social understanding and have wrong ideas of justice and fair play. Against such people, it is not only the right but the duty of their employees to protect their interests by forming a trade union. Freedom of the press is alleged to be a euphemism under which journalists escape legal punishment for deceiving the public and poisoning the public mind. 

Hitler had strong likes and dislikes not just to people or races but also to places. He loved Munich, to which city he migrated from Vienna in 1912. He abhorred Vienna which was thought to be a 'Babylon of races'. Being an artist himself, Hitler states that one must know Munich if one wants to know Germany because Munich is called the metropolis of German art. What is striking in Hitler's narrative is the shockingly low regard he displays towards the masses whom he treats as nothing more than asses. He asserts that the broad masses possess 'a very short measure of thinking power'. A large section of them is claimed to believe that a person who is incomprehensible must be profoundly wise. Not only that, the masses are first set in motion along a definite direction by men of superior talents, but once in motion, they are like a flywheel to sustain the momentum. A politician who follows policies of value and significance for the future, Hitler says, is not understood by the mass of the people who find 'beer and milk' a more persuasive index of political values than far-sighted plans for the future. Hitler exhibits an underlying trust in the necessity of God to manage the society. He is never against the church nor does he belong to it. He believed that he is doing work to make the society conform to what god had willed. Often he refers to the eternal entity as 'Creator'. The concept of councils or parliament to act as a check on the power of a single individual was anathema to him. He stresses again and again that the majority can never replace the man. The majority is said to represent only ignorance and cowardice. A majority of ignorant and incompetent pass judgment on profound issues affecting the nation. Discussions are alleged to be conducted in an atmosphere befitting a card table which seems to be a much more fitting occupation for most of the deputies. Hitler opposed birth control. He envisaged a trouble-free expansion of population and competition between individuals for survival. In such a case, only healthy and strong individuals will survive. On the other hand, birth control brings to life fewer individuals and the drive to save feeble and diseased creatures will become strong. A worthless generation of human progeny will result. Here, direct traces of eugenics can be seen. He also puts forward early marriages as an alternative to prostitution and the venereal diseases it brings about. He intends that the only meaning of marriage is the increasing and maintaining the human species and the race. 

As we know, Hitler's downfall was directly caused by his rabid ideas on racial superiority and anti-Semitism. He describes about his early experiences with Jews in a way he interacted with an animal. In school, he knew a Jewish boy but all were 'on their guard in their relations with him'. In a disgusting narrative, Hitler evaluates the Jewish community in his home town of Linz. He finds that over the centuries the Jews 'had become Europeanized in external appearance and were so much like other human beings'. He reminisces that in Vienna, he looked at anti-Semitic newspapers with disgust. Then he changes track and blurts out that they 'do not wash and the odour of these people would make him sick'. He accuses them of dominating the press and theatre and vilifying the German nation while praising the virtues of the racially mixed French nation. Marxism is claimed to be a handiwork of the Jews that would bring only disaster to people who follow it. Again, he blames the Jews of lacking any sense of working for ideals and to sacrifice one's life for the society. The absence of a Jewish state in the world (at that time!) is construed as proof of this accusation. According to Hitler, the highest aim of human existence is not the maintenance of a state or government but the conservation of the race. The world is not there to be possessed by faint-hearted, inferior races. Results of inter-racial breeding are said to be that the level of the superior race becomes lowered and physical and mental degeneration sets in in the offspring. In order to preserve a certain culture, the type of manhood that creates such a culture must be preserved. 

In the second part of the narrative, Hitler expounds on the core philosophy of the National Socialist movement and the required changes in German foreign policy if his party came to power. He proposes colonization and exploitation of other nations to enrich his. He argues that vast, uncultivated open spaces all around the globe are not to be held unutilized in reserve for the future. Such land awaits people who have the strength to acquire it. Instead of looking for colonies in Africa and Asia and thereby antagonizing England, he advocates colonization of exploitable farm land in Russia in alliance with England. He is willing to sacrifice German navy if that would please England to remain in league with them. Hitler believes Nordic whites to constitute the Aryan race and imagines it to be superior to all others in the world. He postulates that every manifestation of human culture, every product of art, science and technical skill was almost exclusively the product of the Aryan creative power. He then finds the culturally rich Asian communities contradicting his hypothesis and retorts that the culture that is seen in Asian societies was created by Aryans who intermingled with them and got degenerated. The other races serve the purpose of the horse, to bring mechanical power to the creative enterprise of the Aryans. Whenever he talks about race, he brings in the Jew and claims that as long as a people remain racially pure and are conscious of the treasure of their blood, they can never be overcome by the Jew. A state is not an end; it is only a means to preserve the human race which has the potential to build a culture through the innate qualities pertaining to that race and bitterly complain that the then existing German state was not based on a uniform racial type. The Swastika in the Nazi flag signified the mission to struggle for the victory of the Aryan race.

Hitler often stresses on the Weltanschauung of the Nazi movement which can loosely be approximated as 'worldview'. It recognizes the significance of race and personal worth rather than collective work. It is interesting to have a glance at his future targets. The parliamentarian principle will be expurgated and personal responsibility will be substituted in its stead. For this to happen, the best brains (Aryans) should reach a position of dominant importance and influence in the community. Parliament can still be accommodated by restricting its role to an advisory council instead of decision making. The responsibility can and must be borne by one individual, who alone will be vested with authority and the right to command. Hitler seems to be exasperated with the presence of intellectuals in political movements and wants workers who blindly follow the leader. He suggests that a political movement will not be very effective in fighting if it were made up exclusively of intellectuals. He diligently balances the Protestant and Catholic elements in German society and admonishes each from attacking the other. In a chilling evocation of the eugenic spirit, Hitler advocates forced sterilizing of syphilitics, those suffering from tuberculosis or hereditary diseases, cripples and imbeciles. His advice for such people is to adopt healthy children and raise them as worthy of the 'race'. Hitler is full of ideas on how to change the school curriculum to reflect his party's goals. Science subjects need not be given special focus but emphasis must be made on subjects such as ancient history in such a way that the concept of 'race' is clearly brought out. Physical training should be made mandatory for all children. It should extend to a minimum of two hours per day with special encouragement for practising boxing. People who have a beautiful physique should be brought into the foreground, so that they might encourage the development of a beautiful bodily form among the people in general. The book also exposes Hitler's real opinion on the freedom movements then going in European colonies in Asia and Africa, India being a prominent case. Several leaders had gone to Germany to seek and enlist its assistance because Germany was the biggest rival to Britain. An organization called the 'League of Oppressed Nations' came into being, which requested the German intelligentsia for support. Hitler describes such people as charlatans who had no backing at home and not authorized by anybody. He advises not to waste time meeting such people and goes on to predict that England will never lose India unless it admits racial disruption in her administrative machinery in India or if it was overcome by some other nation in a war. He further adds that as a German, he'd prefer to see India under British domination than under that of any other country. 

The narrative is so impersonal as to feel like it was written by a propaganda machine. The party and its wicked ideology are the only two motivating factors as far as Hitler was concerned. He quotes from classical works occasionally to prove a point but these are few and far between. The text overflows with ideas and the entire book can be thought of as a long speech with an adoring audience in front of the orator. He puts forward several theories as if they are well-accepted principles but are in fact nothing more than Hitler's half-baked whims. No evidence from history is cited for any of the arguments. It seems that he enjoyed his military service in World War I and cherished his frontline experience on the battlefield, by providing glowing and nostalgic memories of the fighting. The book includes several rare photographs of Hitler depicting various episodes in his life. The book is mediocre and the expressed ideas stand unproven. It is nothing better than 581 pages of hallucinating rant.

The book is recommended.

Rating: 3 Star

Ten Days That Shook the World

Title: Ten Days That Shook the World
Author: John Reed
Publisher: Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1987 (First published 1919)
ISBN: Nil
Pages: 336

The Socialist Revolution in Russia in 1917 actually consists of two phases - in February and October, as per the old Russian calendar and in March and November as per the reformed one. The first part of the revolution, which forced Tsar Nicholas II to step down was staged under the leadership of socialist allies, of which Lenin’s Bolsheviks of the far left variety played only a minor part. A provisional government headed by Alexander Kerensky assumed office but faced immense challenges right from day one. Russia was fighting in World War I against Germany but the battlefront lengthened interminably without any definite results while at the same time bleeding Russia in resources and manpower. Kerensky’s government became unpopular and it employed repressive measures to clamp down on the protests. Bolsheviks called the March revolution a democratic revolution and also bourgeois. Peace at the German border, land for peasants and control of factories to workers were the rallying cry of the revolution. The provisional regime, most importantly, failed to control the Bolsheviks who formed governing councils (soviets) in every sphere of political and economic activity. After ensuring support from soldiers, the Bolsheviks struck on Nov 7, wresting the control of Petrograd (now Saint Petersburg) from the socialists. Kerensky fled and the ten days in which the second revolution began paved the way for the communist takeover of Russia. After a civil war that lasted until 1923-24, the Soviet Union was established. John Reed was an American journalist, poet and socialist labour activist who stayed in Russia during the heady days of revolution and reported on it. This book is a first-hand experience of Reed of the first ten days of the revolution. Not content at being a passive spectator, he took up arms in 1918 for the Bolsheviks. Reed died in 1920 in Russia, at the age of 33, of typhus and was buried in Red Square, beneath the Kremlin Wall.

A crucial thing to remember is that there was strong opposition to the Bolshevik line among the revolutionaries and workers and peasants of Russia. The major rivals were Mensheviks who included socialists who believed that society must progress by natural evolution toward socialism and that the working class must conquer political power first. The Bolsheviks wanted immediate proletarian insurrection and seizure of the reins of government in order to hasten the coming of socialism by forcibly taking over industry, land, natural resources and financial institutions. Both sides denounced the other as counterrevolutionaries. Even after the arrest of some members of the provisional government on Nov 7, the bourgeoisie were complacent, thinking that the Bolsheviks would not remain in power for more than three days. This was a costly blunder. Instead of three days, they clung on to power for 74 long years, till 1991. The peasants were not supportive of the Bolsheviks because even though the land was confiscated from the rich landowners, they had no intention to pass it on to the ownership of peasants because they abolished all private property. Lenin remarked that ‘if socialism can only be realized when the intellectual development of all the people permit it, then we shall not see socialism for at least 500 years’ (p.240). The Bolsheviks took a great risk by plunging headlong into armed combat as extorted by Lenin. The Bolsheviks had firepower in the form of a section of loyal soldiers, but the economic life and labour force in the government, railways and communications were with the socialists. Power was quickly usurped by the Military Revolutionary Committee and the Petrograd soviet of workers’ and soldiers’ deputies by deposing the provisional regime and arresting serving ministers. The Bolsheviks were accused to be German agents by their opponents throughout the struggle which was a time of intense political activity. People eagerly listened to speeches on street corners with great interest and either condemned or praised the speakers based on their arguments. Newspapers were eagerly sought for and whatever little money they had was spent on them so as to become aware of the latest goings on. Bolsheviks, who included the author, claimed that the ‘reactionaries’ preferred military defeat at the hands of Germany than to cooperate with Bolshevik soviets. Coal mine owners in Kharkov fired and flooded their own mines and engineers in the textile factories of Moscow put the machinery out of order.

Reed provides an eyewitness account of the revolutionary takeover of Russia and that’s why this book still motivates communists. I first came to know of this book as referred in a social media post of a left politician in Kerala who praised it profusely. But the situation in Russia in those ten days was really grim and it requires not a small bit of ruthlessness to still be able to feel proud of it. Week by week food became scarcer that eventually bread completely went missing. Robberies and house-breakings increased. Unions of all types of workers developed a truculent stance. Waiters and hotel-servants refused to take tips feeling that the customers were insulting them by doing so. The Petrograd garrison was ordered to the front lines, partly to rid them off the city, but they declined. The soviet of soldiers defied the provisional regime and openly sided with the Bolsheviks which turned out to be a shot in the arm for the latter. The military revolutionary committee quickly seized the arsenal of Petrograd. Reed also describes how the civilian populace lived oblivious to the fighting that went on in a part of the city. While gun fight was going on in the Winter Palace which housed the administration, life was going on as usual in streets a few blocks away. Reed comments that all the theatres were open, but it was more exciting outdoors. Trams were moving, crowds were milling around and electric signs of moving picture shops glittered brilliantly. The author witnessed the discipline of the revolutionary soldiers and Red Guards who were just starting to loot material from the Winter Palace. People shouted at them to put everything back as it was the property of the people. The things were crammed back in their places and self-appointed sentinels stood guard. This is to be taken with a pinch of salt. Bolsheviks’ victory was also aided by the tactless antics of Kerensky. When he reached Tsarskoye Selo near Petrograd, he commanded the army unit stationed there to surrender. The soldiers replied that they’d remain neutral, but would not disarm. This was true, since the soldiers were governing themselves by committees for eight months after the March revolution. Kerensky was annoyed at this insubordination and gave them ten minutes in which to obey. This smacked of the old regime. A few minutes later, the artillery opened fire on the barracks and all neutral troops went over to the Bolsheviks.

The communist regime in the Soviet Union was notorious for silencing voices of opposition and abusing human rights. Even though Stalin is often portrayed to be at the pinnacle of repression, all leaders were complicit in this crime against humanity to some degree. We find in this book that Lenin was also of this mould. Signs of authoritarianism were evident right from the first day of the revolution, after the Bolsheviks captured power. One delegate dared to oppose Lenin’s motion to issue an offer of peace. The author notes smugly that ‘the sudden, sharp outburst around him brought the hand swiftly down’ (p. 121). The peasants’ soviet was initially not on board, supporting the socialists led by Kerensky, but they were brought on line by coercion. Bolsheviks immediately shut down opposing newspapers on the ground that the capitalists who run them would poison the minds of the people. Freedom of opinion thus went down the drain. Advertisements were made the monopoly of the official, state-run newspapers, thereby restraining the income of private newspapers. The municipal council, called Duma, was forcibly dissolved. A new election was called in a week which most parties boycotted. The result was a foregone conclusion and expectedly, the Bolsheviks bagged a big majority. The class disparagingly called bourgeoisie was treated as sub-human. A questionnaire was issued to them in which they had to declare their incomes and apparel, down to the number of underwear they possessed (p. 305). The bloodlust which was lying dormant in some leaders came out in the open once they started to rule the land. There was a bitter civil war raging and a lot of fraternal killing occurred. In retaliation Trotsky demanded to kill five opponents for each Bolshevik killed in battle.

Readers get a glimpse of some of the peculiar features of Bolshevik as well as Russian administrations in general. One is the privilege and awe in which bureaucracy was held which can be judged from the status and entitlement one obtained by possessing a piece of paper duly stamped and endorsed by a seat of authority. Getting a pass assuring entry to restricted places was a great thing. Reed proudly reproduces many photos of such passes he possessed, but getting in without having to show the pass at the gate was greater still. In fact, that was the privilege flaunted by party bosses. The author remarks it to be a characteristic of the country and coins it as ‘Russian respect for documents’. The sentimental importance of the city of Moscow to Russian values is emphasized in the book. Petrograd was the seat of the government for over a century, but it still was an artificial city. The author argues that Moscow was, is and will be Russia and the true feeling of the Russian people can only be had there. The communist regime was noted for its contempt to religion and its institutions as evidenced by instances of transforming places of worship to other uses such as wine storage in later times. Reed ascribes a lack of religious sentiment to the working classes in toto. This is because he didn’t see any priest attending the funeral of the revolutionaries killed in street battles. He then claims that the Russian people no longer needed priests to ‘pray them into heaven’, because ‘they were building a kingdom on earth more bright than any heaven had to offer and for which it was a glory to die’.

The book is graced with an introduction penned by Lenin himself. He certifies that it was a truthful exposition of the revolution and recommends it wholeheartedly to the international labour movement. It is likely that rather than the content, it is this endorsement that makes this book dear to leftists all over the world. Many of the fine details, such as the outcomes of meetings, standings of prominent persons in the hierarchy and analysis of local press reports are either wrong or not aligning with the official party narrative. The publisher frequently clarifies the points through footnotes on the appropriate pages. The book is a piece of communist propaganda and this fact comes out plainly on each page in the book. Still, as a mirror of the tumultuous period which changed the destiny of the world's largest nation, this book should be read by all readers.

The book is recommended.

Rating: 3 Star

The Shoemaker and His Daughter

Title: The Shoemaker and His Daughter – One Ordinary Family’s Remarkable Journey from Stalin’s Soviet Union to Putin’s Russia
Author: Conor O’Clery
Publisher: Doubleday Ireland, 2018 (First)
ISBN: 9781781620434
Pages: 357

The socialist empire in the Soviet Union threatened capitalism in the post-World War II period when even the US apprehended that the communists might take over most of the globe. But the concern was a bit premature. Margaret Thatcher once famously said, "the problem with socialism is that eventually, you run out of other people's money". It did exactly that in the Soviet Union. Decades of mismanagement and ridiculous economic logic shattered the economy whose coup de grace came in the form of the oil price slump in the early 1980s. Three general secretaries died in quick succession in 3 years and a reformer named Mikhail Gorbachev took the chair. His structural changes got out of hand and ended up in the collapse and dismemberment of the Soviet Union in 1991. It took hardly 6 years to dismantle the communist regimes in eastern Europe. This book follows the life story of a master shoe-designer-cum-maker who weathered the storms of living in a strictly controlled society and still flourished. His daughter studied hard and earned high academic credentials. Incidentally, she is the author's wife and he tells the story of his in-laws in this book which is actually a mirror to the scourge of communism in the Soviet Union and proves that the communist system was founded on lies and monstrous crimes. Conor O'Clery is an Irish journalist and writer. He worked for the Irish Times for 30 years and represented them in many countries including the Soviet Union where he met his wife. He has authored many books.

Stanislav Suvorov was a shoemaker who led a prosperous life in Grozny, Chechnya by making bespoke shoes which were highly prized. He was sent to prison for a charge that was a crime only in a communist polity. The prison term had a devastating effect on the family’s prestige. It migrated to Krasnoyarsk, Siberia to start a new life where too Stanislav led a good life. His wife Marietta hailed from Nagorno-Karabakh which was beset with ethnic tensions between Armenians — to which our family belonged — and neighbouring Azeris. His daughter Zhanna studied diligently and conformed to the norms of a socialist society. She joined the communist party’s youth wing and eventually joined the party itself. She represented a district in the legislative body of Krasnoyarsk. But she still harboured resentment about how her father suffered at the hands of communist officialdom. She married a friend, but gradually drifted apart from him. During her absence from home for her PhD program at Moscow, her husband gets killed in a drunken brawl over an illicit relationship. She meets O’Clery in Moscow as a Russian tutor and the relationship grew. O’Clery was a divorcee with five children but they marry and he adopts her daughter. This occurred during the critical time of USSR’s disintegration. The author and Zhanna relocated to other countries following his transfers to various places and they used to visit her parents occasionally. On the rich tapestry of the family’s story, the author carefully crafts the history of the Soviet Union and how the system affected the life of the family in unexpected ways.

Readers wonder at how inefficient the Soviet system was managed according to the politico-economic theories of communism. With private enterprise curtailed, shops relied on deliveries from central warehouses that were far distant. Provisions were snapped up as soon as they appeared, so it was advantageous to be at the head of the queue or be friendly enough with the manager to buy goods at the back door. A party membership usually helped in such situations. Usually, articles were rare and queues very long that people joined a queue and only later asked what it was for! Scarcity moulded the Soviet people in grotesque ways. The Ukrainian peasant soldiers who invaded Romania which was capitalist in 1944 are reported to have wept when they saw the pretty houses, the fattened cattle and the well-stocked barns. They wept for a way of life and a prosperity that could’ve been theirs if not for communism. The party crushed religion, but even with its suppression, it was rare for an Armenian child who has not been secretly christened, even in communist households. A form of consumer apartheid prevailed. Special shops called Beryozka which stocked food unavailable elsewhere which was open only to holders of hard foreign currency. There were shops reserved for party functionaries that were not accessible to common people. Strict obedience to authority was drilled into the people. People witnessing a state-sponsored unjust act did so in silence, avoiding eye contact with other people. In Stalin’s Russia, no one spoke to strangers about matters that did not concern them.

Communism shunned any kind of enterprise — however small — coming from the people who were meant only to toil hard as per the commands of authority figures. It was essential that they should not think for themselves, or more practicably, not have time to think. As a result, private enterprise was not only discouraged, but penalized too. After seven decades of this madness, party bosses wondered why their economy was in shambles. Even the modest shoe and boot business of Stanislav (the author's father-in-law) was forced to run low-key because it thwarted the state's aspiration to own and control all the means of production. He restricted services to only the customers he knew. He was detained one day for selling his used car at a higher rate than the approved one which amounted to speculation that was a punishable offence. Article 154 of the criminal code made punishable any act such as 'buying up and reselling of goods or any other articles for the purpose of making a profit'. Punishments were very harsh. Stanislav was arrested and sentenced to seven years in jail. His new car was confiscated and re-assigned to a party functionary. The judiciary was subject to directives from the Kremlin on penal policy. Judges served 5-year terms and their continued careers depended on the party's assessment of their conformity.

Not content with nipping private initiative in the bud, communism sought to wipe out individuality as well, encouraging conformity to a goal set from on high. All kinds of creative literature wilted as a result. Central planning did not allow for individual architectural expression whose spin off was the almost identical cities and towns across the country. All residential blocks looked the same. Each city had its statue of Lenin and streets named after Lenin and Marx. The shops were all the same, carrying numbers rather than names. Dissimulation was the norm when portraying 'achievements' of the Soviet system to outsiders and quite ironically, to its own citizens as well. In speeches cataloguing the milestones, the word 'and' was never put before the last item so as to give the impression that the list can go on and on. Legislature was a total mockery of that democratic function. The role of deputies in legislative forums was to endorse the decisions of the hierarchy. As a rule, discussion was minimal and endorsements unanimous. Every time a vote was required, a voice called out, "those for" and all hands went up; 'Those against', no reaction; 'Those abstaining', no reaction; 'Motion passed' and the exercise ended. Foreign travel was a state-controlled privilege and only certain categories of citizens with proven party loyalty were allowed. The state didn't even allow people to talk to international contacts and telephone calls could be made only through an operator. Direct international dialling was introduced in Moscow for the Olympics in 1980 for the convenience of foreign athletes, but was discontinued immediately afterwards. The academia was constantly reminded of their place in the socialist system. Even in the 1980s, students and faculty of academic institutions were forced to help with the harvesting on state farms. They would toil on distant stretches of muddy fields with no facilities and primitive sleeping arrangements.

The interval in which communism crumbled was miraculously short as to be unbelievable. The fleeting nature of its collapse was telling on the flimsy foundations and the rot to the core. Brezhnev managed a consumer spending boom due to the high price of oil which brought in hard currency. Gorbachev introduced glasnost (openness) and perestroika (reconstruction). He granted Soviet writers unprecedented freedom because he wanted the Intelligentsia on his side to discomfit the hard-line conservatives who were obstructing his reforms. Reassessment of historical figures, past events and revelations became ever more frank. This openness was genuinely believed to be capable of reforming the party and the existing system. Even in 1989, the party believed that perestroika was designed to fully use the potential of socialism and that only with a renewed and revitalized party in the vanguard can the Soviet Union move to a renewal of socialism and a bright future. Unfortunately for the party, Gorbachev was unlucky. It was his misfortune that oil prices had fallen but consumer expectation couldn't be lowered. He allowed constituent republics to get in touch with foreign partners and thereby unknowingly pushed them on the road to independence. With Khrushchev's thaw and Brezhnev's consumer society, people became less afraid to speak openly than the previous generation which had a memory of Stalin's arbitrary and cruel punishments for even a hint of dissidence.

O'Clery makes an analysis of the Soviet system's transformation to a market economy for which it suffered enormously. As Solshenitsyn said, 'whatever the communists told about their socialist system was false, but unfortunately, whatever they told about the capitalist system turned out to be true'. Hyper-inflation which followed the fall of the Soviet Union wiped out entire life's savings, turning millions of Russians into paupers. It was a humiliation for the generation that defeated Hitler to learn that war widows were getting Red Cross parcels from Germany. Russia entered the modern consumer era in the 1990s, with everything available in the stores, but it became a dangerous place with increased crime, financial chaos and no respite for the poor while a few powerful Russians syphoned off national wealth and the former captains of communism transformed themselves into oligarchs of capitalism. The book also provides an overview of the Russian society. Family ties were intense and close, which almost feels like India, in the importance it accorded to the extended family. Fathers were typically not appreciative of their daughters' boyfriends and we read about Zhanna's father breaking the finger bone of one when he gives the poor lad a 'firm' handshake after he caught them kissing! Parents offered financial help to their children to buy homes and donated furniture. Whatever the Soviet society lacked in some material comforts, they compensated for it in intangible things. Zhanna was accustomed to the discipline and respect shown to teachers in Soviet schools and she was taken aback to find her American pupils taking chewing gum in class and putting their feet up on the desks.

The book shares chilling details of how Islamic fundamentalism took hold in Chechnya once the central hold weakened that eventually made the non-Muslims flee from the province. It's true that Russia established itself there by resorting to brutal policies and stubborn suppression, but it does not justify the Chechen attempt to establish an exclusive religious state. When the author and wife visited Grozny in 1991, the Russians were living in fear that 'if incited, hitherto peaceful Muslim neighbours might turn against them overnight' (p. 279). Street graffiti threatening Russians came up quickly which warned them with dire messages such as 'RUSSIANS DON'T LEAVE — WE WANT SLAVES' and 'DON'T BUY THE APARTMENT FROM MISHA (meaning any Russian) — HE WILL BE GONE SOON ANYWAY'. This looks exactly similar to what the Kashmiri Pandits underwent in Kashmir at around the same time. The script was the same and universal with slight, local variations. Non-Russians were not exempt as seen in another slogan: 'RUSSIANS BACK TO RYZAN, ARMENIANS TO YEREVAN'. This exposed the true colour of the Chechen pogrom that it was not against Russians alone, but against all Christians. The book is structured in an engaging way where two stories unfold at the same time — that of the Suvorov family and that of Soviet Union itself. The writing style produces an intimacy to the characters among the readers. Family photographs are interspersed throughout the narrative. The story is presented in a charming present tense that appear contemporaneous to readers and attracts tremendous interest.

The book is highly recommended.

Rating: 4 Star

A Cabinet Secretary Looks Back

Title: A Cabinet Secretary Looks Back – From Poona to the Prime Minister’s Office
Author: B. G. Deshmukh
Publisher: HarperCollins India, 2004 (First)
ISBN: 9788172234744
Pages: 392

Bhalchandra Gopal Deshmukh was a 1951-batch IAS officer from Maharashtra who had served in his home state and Gujarat in the junior cadres and got promoted as Chief Secretary of Maharashtra. In the meantime, he was intermittently deputed to central government where he took up various assignments. He was posted as Cabinet Secretary in 1986 and appointed as Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister in 1989. He served three prime ministers in his career – Rajiv Gandhi and those who followed him, such as V P Singh and Chandrashekhar – until he retired from service in 1990. Deshmukh has written several books on his tenure in the government and this book is one of them. The parts which attract the readers’ attention is from his assuming the post of Cabinet Secretary. The period 1986-90 was noted for tremendous political upheavals in India and abroad, such as the Bofors scandal, Ram Janmabhumi issue, insurrection in Sri Lanka, heightened militancy in Punjab and the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe. The book presents a closer picture on some of these issues but unfortunately, it does not further clarify any of them.

Deshmukh declares at the outset that it is not his intention or objective to expose any sensational facts or to expose skeletons in the cupboard. If you get discouraged at this and decide not to read any further, you’ll not be much mistaken. The narrative is so lacklustre and neutered. His only aim is to motivate the young generation to join the civil service because the experience is ‘fascinating and self-satisfying’. The author seems to be a status-quo man with not much innovative ideas to transform or improve. He openly confesses that ‘it is impossible to remove corruption but people are happy if it is controlled and reduced’ (p.135). However, the book uncovers the pettiness of a few personalities, the most notable being V K Krishna Menon, who was the defence minister in Nehru’s cabinet. Our author was due for promotion as deputy secretary and his name was sent to the defence ministry of which Menon was the head. At that time, he was pissed with the finance minister C D Deshmukh who had raked up the jeep corruption scandal against Menon. He stoutly refused to accept the author declaring ‘I don’t want a Deshmukh in my ministry’ (p.52), referring to his namesake who was Menon’s bete noire. There are glimpses of the miserable license raj in the book which was introduced by Nehru and Indira and was stifling India’s industrial growth. We read about a chief minister finalizing the list of who should get cars. Remember that all of them had paid the full price out of their pockets but could not get delivery of the vehicle because the government was determining the number of vehicles to be produced in a given month. There were restrictions on private industrialists to set up plants with their own money. Government sometimes refused to grant licenses, according to the claims of their competitors on the plea that they’d lose market share if the new plant came through! Altogether, the system was planned to work in a way as to maximise corruption. 

Having served in the highest echelons of Indian bureaucracy including the home department, the hollowness and obvious duplicity in his assessment of the communal situation in some trouble spots in North India are to be attributed to political correctness rather than naivety. He believes economic parameters to be the cause of communal unrest in Moradabad and Aligarh. He says that Muslim workers did not earn fair wages while Hindu financiers and traders reaped the real profits. See the deceitful comparison? He does not say whether Hindu workers earned fair wages or Muslim financiers reaped profits. All this sophistry is to avoid pointing out the real cause of communal clashes – fanaticism. Further, he opines that Muslim youth were not properly educated and faced unemployment which led them to antisocial activities that ultimately turned into communal trouble (p.106). He does not stop to think for a moment whether it was one of the causes that drove Muslims into a sordid orgy of violence in 1985 following the Supreme Court’s verdict forcing a little-known man named Mohammed Ahmed Khan to pay alimony to his divorced ex-wife Shah Bano Begum. That’s why readers reach the conclusion that duplicity and selective amnesia are prerequisites to secularism of the Indian variety. Quite naturally, Deshmukh justifies the 1975-77 Emergency with the remark that ‘if some progress had to be made, gentle force is required to enforce discipline among staff and make citizens accept their responsibility’ (p.84). He has a very low opinion of the military top brass, especially General Sundarji who is accused of canvassing for the post of field marshal for himself. Exposing an unrealistic and fanciful mindset, the author advocates for a cut in defence spending through effective foreign policy which can develop friendship with our enemies that would substitute for the shortage of funds to buy arms (p.167). This is a strange comment from a Cabinet Secretary and it is fortunate that the government was sane enough to consign this idea to the dustbin. There is a section in the book that exposes the blatant intervention the executive made on the prerogative of the Election Commission of India. Rajiv Gandhi decided in October 1989 that national elections should be held on 22nd, 24th and 26th of the following month. The author himself conveyed this information to Peri Shastri, the election commissioner, who was very agitated at first at this shameless appropriation of the Commission’s authority, but later fell in line (p.213).

The author had a close official relationship with Rajiv Gandhi and he closely watched how Indira Gandhi functioned as the prime minister. As a result, this book provides some shocking revelations about the administrative tenures of the mother-son duo. Indira handled her state chief ministers like puppets. Vasant Rao Naik in Maharashtra was asked to step down after she promoted his rivals in the party to create trouble. The reason for this disgraceful act was that he was getting popular with good agricultural reforms. Naik resigned in February 1975. Under Indira’s tenure, corruption became more rampant and refined. The system of the party claiming a good cut in all major contracts, especially with foreign supplies, was well established (p.174). This was claimed to be proved in the HDW submarine case where the German company paid 10 per cent commission to Indian agents in buying submarines for the Indian navy. The author was informed that Indira was very annoyed with the agent as he did not pass on the promised amount from the commission to the Congress party and she refused to meet him on her next visit to the UK (p.203). This leads him to lament that ‘as cabinet secretary, I was aware of the widespread corruption in the central bureaucracy, but I could not do much in the atmosphere then prevailing when political corruption was overwhelming’ (p.153). Rajiv Gandhi had far more integrity in this regard, but he faltered in other areas. Rajiv’s inexperience and immaturity in administration and political matters created acute problems. He reshuffled the council of ministers 22 times in a space of 39 months and there was a virtual merry-go-round in some of the ministries. He was more inclined towards suave advisors and officials who came from public schools, could speak and write good English and had a gloss both in appearance and presentation. He was impressed with short-term results and impatient when an officer tried to explain a long-term strategy that was bound to be slower. There was another face of Rajiv than the gentle and calm one he wished to project. He had little respect for some opposition chief ministers such as NTR, Karunanidhi and Devilal and used to fight with them in NDC meetings. He did not show necessary respect and consideration in parliamentary proceedings. He was unwilling to attend parliamentary sessions unless absolutely necessary (p.175).

In the final section of the book, Deshmukh reminisces about his time with V. P. Singh and Chandrashekhar as the principal secretary to the prime minister. Regarding Singh, he observes that he implemented Mandal Commission recommendations to split Hindu votes and crush the BJP whose support he loathed to accept and with whom he did not share a public platform in the election campaign. This same frame of mind regarding assuming power at any cost afflicted Chandrashekhar too. His overarching ambition to become the prime minister made him cast away his scruples and morality and take the help of Rajiv Gandhi whom he heartily disliked, if not detested. As a private person, he was a gem of a man, but his ambition turned him into a typical Indian politician. The author also handled the Kashmir issue and bemoans the pathetic situation created by Article 370 of the Indian Constitution – which conferred special rights to Jammu and Kashmir – without identifying the root cause which was the article itself that was finally scrapped in 2019. He notes that refugees from Pakistan who arrived in Kashmir during Partition could not be granted citizenship due to the special status of the state and displays impotent rage at the government’s helplessness!

The author led a clean career without any adverse reflection or irregularity. In fact, he boasts about this in a contented way that the only conviction he faced was for a traffic violation of sounding the horn in an area where it was banned. The book contains an account of what the author knows about the Bofors scam and concludes that neither Rajiv Gandhi nor any member of his family received any portion of the kickbacks. There are no private or personal anecdotes in the book. His marital status would have remained an enigma had a photo of the author and his wife with the chief minister’s family been not included. There are separate chapters on Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Jammu and Kashmir and Punjab. Reading the dull passages, readers feel that the author never took up any challenging job, always bowing to senior bureaucrats or politicians and feeling contented for even minor accomplishments. His career remained shuttling between the central and state administrations in New Delhi and Mumbai respectively. The book is designed with a bit too much bureaucratic perspective. Transfers and postings of secretaries after a change in administration are given undue prominence.

The book is highly recommended.

Rating: 3 Star

Faith and Freedom – Gandhi in History

Title: Faith and Freedom – Gandhi in History

Author: Mushirul Hasan
Publisher: Niyogi Books, 2013 (First)
ISBN: 9789381523315
Pages: 555

Gandhi wrote prodigiously in many formats such as letters, articles, telegrams, comments to friends and general audience alike. And there are no shortages of books on the father of the nation even after seven decades after his death. This book comes right at a time when discussions are on to examine whether Gandhi is still relevant after the social, economic and political landscape had undergone much change in the last quarter century. This book’s intention is to link Gandhi’s moments of greatness with his dependence on all his co-workers who facilitated his task in India and South Africa and who made it easy for him to spiritually transform into some kind of semi-divine personality. All events described in this book are suffused with a personal touch in the sense that the subjective factor seems to override all other considerations – even ideological – on some occasions. This book also attempts to connect with and discuss Gandhi’s ‘big moment’ through the lens of his relations with many people of diverse backgrounds who were around him and in different kinds of relations with him along these events. This throws light on emotions that drove events or that were at their background and helps to better understand what affected and shaped Gandhi’s politics and the role these relations played in it. Mushirul Hasan is an historian, author and former vice chancellor of Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi. He was the director-general of the National Archives of India. He was awarded Padma Shri by the Congress government in 2007.

Hasan enumerates the external influences that went into Gandhi’s metamorphosis into a nonviolent satyagrahi with rural roots, while residing in South Africa. Ruskin’s ‘Unto This Last’ transferred Gandhi from a city-dwelling lawyer into a rustic far away from Durban in a farm. Tolstoy furnished a basis for nonviolence and ideas of the moral value of physical labour and of natural diet. Kallenbach introduced elements of the Kibbutz movement and Kropotkin the idea of a country of village communes. In the final analysis, he shaped the country for his causes. Needless to say, this was highly subjective. He read treatises on religion which encouraged him to put into practice whatever appealed to him. One of them was to amalgamate ideas of quite different religions and cultural practices into a hybrid model. Gandhi’s choice of words and images inspired others because it contained ‘the rhythm of restrained emotions, self-abnegation, moral fervour and concern for the downtrodden’. He felt that politics bereft of religion kills the soul. He spoke freely in short, incisive sentences and listened as he spoke. The conversation with him took the form of question and answer and the interchange of opinions rather than rapid give and take. Mira behn – an English lady named Madeleine Slade – captured Gandhi’s engagement with the masses. The people were excited just to set their eyes on him as a holy man, a saviour on whom they had pinned all their hopes. They had no other thought than to obtain a darshan of him.

Gandhi’s total dedication to what he deemed to be true and just was legendary. He was willing to lay down his life rather than do something that negated what he regarded as supreme. Satyagraha symbolized the triumph of moral right over arbitrary power. The nonviolence creed revealed the possibilities of a new type of warfare to the millions. Even when Congress accepted office under the 1935 Constitution, Gandhi espoused utmost value to hand-spun khadi, Hindu-Muslim unity, rural education, decentralization of production and distribution rather than play with the instruments concomitant to power. His assertions or intellectual apprehensions on the goals and objectives of an industrial civilization require extensive research to prove or disprove them. However, their beauty lies in looking at life through the eyes of childhood with all its power of illusion and hope (p.80). That’s how the author weakly rationalizes what appears to be a crucial input in formulating national policy. Does such a critical thing can find traction on the flimsy bases of illusion and childish hope? Hasan prefers to leave the answer for the reader to find out himself. Gandhi was sometimes brutal in moral force to the others who argued for compromise on the issue of violence. He refused to approve the Karachi AICC resolution urging the government to commute the death sentence to Bhagat Singh (p.144). Motilal Nehru, who was always in thrall of Gandhi, went one step further and refused to allow even a motion of sympathy for Bhagat Singh and Batukeshwar Dutt, who threw bombs in the Central Legislature hall, at the July 1931 meeting of the AICC. This was glossed over on the excuse that it contravened Gandhi’s nonviolent creed. Gandhi endorsed this with his remark in Harijan that ‘Bhagat Singh worship’ had done incalculable harm to the country. Gandhi’s candidate for Congress presidency lost by 203 votes in the Tripuri session. Gandhi described it as his own loss which deepened intra-party factionalism. He eventually managed to eject Subhas Chandra Bose from the party. However, the author plays down the opposition to Gandhi in the Congress party.

The book’s prime focus is in describing Gandhi’s engagement with and developing attitudes towards Muslim nationalism, Islam, various Muslim leaders, politicians and intellectuals going back to his days in South Africa. Khilafat was the only issue in which Muslims sided with Gandhi. After he withdrew from non-cooperation under the pretext of Chauri Chaura violence, they turned enemies. Muslim theologians then regarded abstinence or self-denial as a form of ingratitude to Allah, unless there were compelling reasons for it (p.379). Deoband ulema was also friendly at first but their enthusiasm waned over time. They found his views on conversion, inter-community dining and purdah as unwarranted intrusion. They resented coupling the name of ‘Ram’ with ‘Rahim’ and of ‘Krishna’ with ‘Allah’. Gandhi’s opposition to religious conversion and affinity to Hindi language over Urdu further alienated the Muslims. But this did not mean that he was dear to the nationalists who addressed him as ‘Mahmud Gandhi’. The Mahatma engaged mainly with traditional Muslim theologians because he thought the liberal and modernist narratives in Islam were weak and not deserving of much political support.

Hasan provides a sanitized review of the teachings of Islam in this book along with how Gandhi understood them. Readers feel that Gandhi relied solely on hagiographies of the Prophet and his religion because he could not read Arabic. Hence, he saw only the noble facets. He looked up to the Prophet and remarked that his tenets are compatible with ahimsa (p.325)! Ali ibn-i Abu Talib, the fourth caliph, was presented as an exemplar of satyagrahis. In spite of this, many of Gandhi’s Muslim associates were first-rate bigots. His bosom ally, Muhammad Ali, professed in 1923 that he subscribed to the creed that “even a fallen and degraded Muslim is entitled to a higher place than that of any other non-Muslim, irrespective of his high character, even if the person in question were Gandhi himself” (p.345). In several places like Masimpur and Noakhali, Muslim audience walked out of his prayer meetings when Ramdhun was sung (p.376). May be it was due to all these incidents heaping one over the other in his mind that he remarked the Muslims a bully and Hindus as docile to the point of cowardice.

Mushirul Hasan rightly touches on some of the inconsistencies and contradictions in Gandhi’s ideology and character. The Mahatma disregarded the inequities of village life. He was interested only in the general picture which was idealized and mostly imaginary. Specifics did not figure in his expositions. He believed that the wealth of Indian cities was extracted from the blood of the poorest. This erroneous notion came from the fallacious socialist idea that wealth-creation was a zero-sum game or a see-saw. Meanwhile, Gandhi was feasted and accommodated by rich businessmen. He did not want to usurp zamindari and taluqdari tracts but asked only to regulate the relations between landlords and peasants because he did not want to kill the goose that laid golden eggs (p.236). His pursuit of goals was in alliance with the capitalists, big business and captains of industry. It was a combination of both dependence for resources and personal friendships. It’s curious how Jawaharlal Nehru coped with this open frolicking with capitalists. This book includes a section on the special relationship between the two. We feel that Nehru depended totally on Gandhi for furthering his career prospects. The Mahatma was the trunk on which the Nehru creeper clung and grew. Some of Nehru’s letters to his patron are included which are full of praise and flattery, even while appearing opposed to his action plans. The letter on page 227 contains wholesome praise of Gandhi such as ‘may I congratulate you’, ‘your magic touch’, ‘epic greatness’, ‘wonderful efficacy of nonviolence’ and ‘country has stuck to [nonviolence] wonderfully’. Each line is literally rolling in with fulsome praise! As a quid pro quo, Gandhi eased Nehru’s opponents out of the Working Committee of the party. Again, the author simply reproduces the original text and leaves the readers with the burden of joining the dots.

This book makes a short survey of the two-nation theory put forward by Muslim League which was the cornerstone for the creation of Pakistan. It also gives a polished view of Pakistan’s heroes, Jinnah and Iqbal the poet. Even though both were zealots at heart and caused much bloodshed, the author confines his research only to their milder political utterances. Even then, Hasan is forced to concede that Iqbal had a pronounced Islamic vision, but bails him out by the claim that much of what he said in his 1930 presidential address to the League should be discounted. However, he does not mention what Iqbal actually said and hence the readers reach the conclusion that he is sugar-coating poison. Some of Iqbal’s poems are also said to pass into the realm of fantasy and betray his emotional immaturity (p.408). Strangely, this book lists out only the atrocities committed against Muslims in Punjab during the early days after Partition. Hasan’s one-sided eloquence appears all the more galling when compared to his total silence on the horrible crimes perpetrated against Hindus and Sikhs in the same region. The ideological core of the demand for Pakistan was moulded in those provinces which stayed on in India. UP and Bihar were the regions where the cream of Muslim intelligentsia repeated the Pakistan demand vociferously. But when the country was actually partitioned, most of them stayed back in India. One Islamic scholar remarked them as ‘a sword of Islam resting on a secular scabbard’ (p.418). The Muslim League’s arsenal was formed of landowners of Sind and Punjab, the Awadh taluqdars, the zamindars of Bihar and the Aligarh students. In the end, the author comments presciently on Pakistan that ‘seldom in history did so few err so monumentally in using religion for the purpose of creating a nation’.

Prima facie, the book attempts to maintain an impartial perspective on the politics of the day which was marred by sectarianism into two distinct streams for Hindus and Muslims. In spite of this facade, the author masks the real causes of historical incidents if it sullies the Muslim cause. Lord Curzon is reported to have partitioned Bengal because of his disdain of the Bhadralok whose material interests were tied to land in East Bengal. This narrative is silent on the Muslim demand for a split. However, in the very next page, Hasan concedes that its revocation in 1911 worsened Hindu-Muslim relations in Bengal (p.59). If the partition was not effected according to Muslim wishes, why should its withdrawal create problems between the two communities? In many places, the author stresses on the reform measures urgently needed in the society. It is curious to observe that Mushirul Hasan’s craving for social reforms is limited to the Hindu community. Regarding the Muslims, he would settle for half-hearted measures and proclaim them as path-breaking. In 1937, NWFP ministry passed a significant law on women’s inheritance under which the daughter inherited a share equivalent to half of that of her brother (p.162)! It’s amazing that the author – writing in 2013 – has the nerve to pronounce this as revolutionary. This is nothing but what is ordained in Sharia law and had changed nothing. At the same time, the author also notes that Bombay enacted a law to remove disabilities on Harijan temple worship. Hasan’s sympathies extend to Muslim politicians of the last two centuries and even to medieval Muslim invaders as well. He falsely comments that Mahmud Ghazni’s saga of plundering raids to Somnath temple was in great part apocryphal (p.306).

This book includes some rare pictures of Gandhi. The accounts of many people on what brought them to the leader are narrated, the most prominent among them being Mira behn. Gandhi was not a member of the Congress in the formal sense, but he controlled the party as its vital force. The Congress placed him on a pedestal, listened to him respectfully, but bypassed him on serious policy matters. Even though the book runs to more than 500 pages, it has not done enough justice to its grandiloquent title. Gandhi’s unstinted loyalty to Hindu faith is prominently described, and this steadfast relationship is alleged to be the reason behind his allegiance to many of the religion’s outdated practices such as the caste system. Being a religious man himself, he allowed rival faiths to also enjoy the unquestioned loyalty from their adherents. A good part of the book examines his relations with Muslims, which appear to be non-committal in nature regarding expressing an opinion on its nature. The author seems to belong to the progressive section among the community; Gandhi always sided with the traditionalists and kept the progressives at an arm’s length. The progressives returned the favour. However, this inner tension is not covered in this book which should have been its prime reason for existence. The author also informs on some of the quirks of the great man. His experiments to test his ‘brahmacharya’ were notorious, but Gandhi stuck to it with a clear conscience. It is noted that Mira behn decorated Gandhi’s room to which he retired after a hectic day in Wardha ashram. Kasturba’s room was next to Gandhi’s (p.122). It is odd to observe that one who tried experiments by sleeping with other women to test his will and power of abstinence did not try it with one’s own wife!

The book is recommended even though it is very tiring for most readers.

Rating: 2 Star

City on Fire

Title: City on Fire – A Boyhood in Aligarh
Author: Zeyad Masroor Khan
Publisher: HarperCollins India, 2023 (First)
ISBN: 9789356998247
Pages: 294

In 2017, Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman vowed to make Saudi Arabia ‘a bastion of moderate Islam’. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan retorted that ‘Islam cannot be either moderate or non-moderate. Islam can only be one thing’. Of course, he didn’t specify which one. When a terrorist attack takes place, or more commonly when jihadist propaganda is loosened on social media, we wonder why the ‘moderate’ Muslims are silent or inactive in the face of effervescence on the extremists’ part. Instead of addressing the social evils associated with the community such as polygamy, arbitrary termination of marriages at the husband’s whim, discriminatory treatment of women in distribution of family property and a host of other such issues, the so-called moderates blame others for offending the hardliners through any real or imagined action. The true fact is that notions of religious supremacy and the desire to dominate over the other religions are what make the hardliners restless, but the moderates adroitly obfuscate it and loudly play the victim card to find justifications for the physical or ideological violence exerted by the jihadists. This leads us to conclude that Erdogan is, after all, quite right in what he said. This book from Zeyad Masroor Khan is about his life in Aligarh which is marked by frequent skirmishes and riots between the Hindu and Muslim communities. Khan finds the conditions repeated in Delhi as well where he worked as a journalist. The author is a journalist, writer and documentary film-maker based in New Delhi. He has worked with national and international media companies like Reuters, Vice, Brut and Deccan Herald. This is his first book.

Surprisingly for a native, Khan is unusually circumspect and subdued in extolling the legacy of Aligarh in deciding the destiny of the subcontinent. Aligarh was the epicentre of the Pakistan Movement and the nerve centre of the seditious campaign that ended up in the partition of the country. Jinnah and Liaquat Ali Khan were carried on the shoulders of students whenever they visited the Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) which was their intellectual headquarters. Yasmin Khan notes in her book ‘The Great Partition’ that there were student leaders in AMU who openly boasted to have killed Hindus in riots (read my review of ‘The Great Partition’ here). Aligarh Muslims voted en masse for the Muslim League and thronged in support to its policies. The polling data leaves no doubt on the total support the League enjoyed. But when Partition actually came, they chose to happily stay back in India. The author says that after Partition, his grandfather ‘believed in Gandhi and wanted to stay in a secular India’. The author also comments on the violent methods used by the Pakistan supporters: ‘riots were taking place, people were butchered on the streets, trains were robbed and houses set on fire’ (p.21). With this truculent past behind their back, Zeyad Khan is acting astonished that the Hindus were not on friendly terms with them after partition. Communal riots were very common in Aligarh. The book talks about secret electric switches wired in Muslim areas for sounding emergency alarms to quickly gather people for fighting the Hindus.

This book is thoroughly hostile to Hindus and contains unmitigated hatred towards them. All Hindus are straitjacketed to be antagonistic towards Muslims. Some quotes from the book would help to uncover the fangs of venom concealed in the text: “Even the Hindus respected Ishrat Bhai for his honesty” (p.31), “Even the Hindus here are nicer than those from other neighbourhoods” (p.12, speaking about Uparkot), “During riots, Rasool’s house was attacked first, even if they acted all friendly with their Hindu neighbours” (p.32), “In my dreams, I’d see Hindus entering my home and setting it ablaze” (p.247). Muslims living among Hindus on very friendly terms were said to be mercilessly and treacherously assaulted during riots. The constant refrain of the book is that Hindus cheat. If the word ‘Hindu’ was replaced by ‘Jew’, this book would’ve been proscribed as a classic case of anti-Semitism. Beneath all these charades, the author’s real intention to play the victim card on Muslims comes out in the open. Khan is also careful to distinguish Hindus into upper caste and rich businessmen, lower caste labourers who are as poor as Muslims and Dalits (p.14). This newfound sympathy for the oppressed is just another masquerade for cutting down the tall poppy rather than upliftment of the downtrodden. Whenever a riot occurs, it is the Hindu who is on the other side, without any subtle caste demarcations.

The extraordinary effort exerted by Khan in appearing temperamentally indistinguishable from a boy who grew up in the 1990s elsewhere would’ve been appreciable had it not been used for giving respectability to his sinister and vicious narrative. His interest in comic books as a child helped to foster his faculty in handling languages. But the places to access these books were in Hindu areas and Khan narrates going about these places in trepidation that the Hindus may attack him. On the other hand, comic books were considered ‘the pinnacle of wise’ in his family. Drawing or seeing pictures is frowned upon in Islam. Practising music also infuriated some of his family members. Muslim children dutifully attended local madrassas while the author enjoyed reading comic books in Hindu areas. The comics told the story of a detective duo Ram and Rahim who intervened to save the country from aggression. Even though these books thus carried the rudiments of secularism and living in a pluralistic society, the author is anguished that “Muslims were never the central characters in any comic books. They were only the sidekicks and villains, a trend that continued in almost all the ones I read” (p.66). That’s simply because most of the Muslim children didn’t read them! In the books they actually read at madrassas, infidels were the villains. You get heroes in books who appeal to the bulk of its readers. As years go by, Khan tries his best to look and sound like a regular, mainstream school-going boy interested in Cartoon channel and video games. His discusses about a lot of cartoon characters he found attractive on TV. At times, he appeals to reason, ridiculing Muslims’ belief in djinns and spirits. He even pretends to be rational, but beneath this thin veil lurks his poisonous divisive agenda of being victimized in spite of holding all these ‘modern’ habits and tastes. He even feigns that he didn’t know how to offer namaz though he joined the hard-line Tablighi Jamaat a few years later. Khan also confesses that Osama bin Laden was a hero for him after 9/11 and dreamed of the Arab terrorist defeating the US in Afghanistan and then taking over Pakistan and India. He also dreamed that it would lead to Islam’s domination over the whole world. All this is written in a half-humorous way designed to disarm sceptics who might not read the whole book and to wriggle himself free of allegations of vituperation. A careful scrutiny will expose the vicious payload of communal hatred cloaked under the blanket of superficial humour.

Khan’s reproduction of communal unrest in Aligarh is deviously and shamelessly partisan. It serves only to bolster the Left/Islamist propaganda that Muslims are scared to live in India. Such an argument strengthens only the anti-national narrative. Mindless exaggeration oozes out of assertions like “all people in Muslim neighbourhoods lived in anticipation of the bad times that were always round the corner”. Communal tension is said to be a part of existence for Muslims around which the lives of everyone were moulded. This book narrates fine details of violence in which Muslims got killed or injured. These are so one-sided and quoting abuses verbatim that they appear to be insinuations for taking revenge. Aligarh has a history of communal rioting going back several centuries but for the author it mysteriously starts only in 1984 following the build-up of the Ayodhya temple movement. The narrative maliciously and cleverly omits the Rushdie ‘Satanic Verses’ and Shah Bano agitations in which Muslims went on the rampage. At one point, the author is forced to admit that Hindus also were killed in the riots but he rues that they were “fewer in numbers than the Muslims” and makes a sneering comment that “these were small sacrifices to achieve larger goals” (p.172). All the violent scenes portrayed in the book appear to be concocted fantasies and they always take place ‘a few feet away from a police station’ where the policemen ignored appeals for help. On the other hand, he proudly describes how BJP leaders were killed in retaliation (p.180) who were suspected to be behind attacks on Muslims. Khan notes some curious characteristics of AMU professors. Most of them have an ancestral connection to nawabs, zamindars or rich families. Only a few have risen from underprivileged backgrounds. Most are anti-student and part of regional lobbies. Occasionally, there were professors who became goons themselves and carried country-made guns in their pockets (p.188). This confirms Yasmin Khan’s observations referred to in Para 2 above.

It is astonishing that the author maintains his sentiment of hate for most of the narrative. He has packed that much malice in this book. Many a times the readers vainly hope that the verbs and adjectives are being used in half-jest, but it’s not so. Like a guided missile evading and going around obstacles to home in on the target, Khan is very focussed and totally dedicated to deliver his communal payload even though sometimes he acts like a rationalist or a leftist. Any Muslim reading this book will naturally feel pain and get offended. This is quite expected as the story is carefully crafted to produce this effect. Only the last five pages of the book are free from spite. In fact, this portion which tells about the author’s long walks in Aligarh after abandoning his job in Delhi in the aftermath of Covid, is the only saving grace. Then the author observes Hindus living alongside Muslims – as if for the first time – and realizes that they too belong to the Homo sapiens species. Like a flash of lightning suddenly illuminating a dark landscape, his bigoted mind escapes its shackles for a brief moment to realize that ‘forgiveness, coexistence, compassion, empathy and respect’ are the characters which are required to be instilled in every person for a harmonious communal life in India. At this instant, the author acknowledges workers everywhere in the world for giving him hope through their resilience and courage. This looks like a weak strategic ploy to appear leftist rather than borne from any genuine conviction or empathy.

In the beginning of the book, Khan records that ‘slight exaggeration is an inextricable part of Aligarh’s culture. If somebody from Aligarh tells you a story, take it with a grain of salt’ (p.4). Readers are advised to keep this confession in mind while reading through the author’s communally prejudiced rant. However, the exaggeration in this book is not at all slight and you require a full chest of salt to make it palatable. The author has a western audience in mind, possibly of the NGO variety, while telling his story. Usual tropes of foreign authors in India such as pot-holed roads, open drains, nightly power outages, stench from drains and garbage accumulated in streets are mentioned many times for effect even though not exactly suited or even relevant in the context.

This book is a piece of Islamist propaganda and it’s astonishing why HarperCollins chose to publish it. The book is not at all recommended.

Some other books which features Aligarh in a prominent way and were reviewed earlier here are

a)    Aligarh’s First Generation by David Lelyveld (read review here)
b)    Separatism among Indian Muslims by Francis Robinson (read review here)
c)    The Great Partition by Yasmin Khan (read review here)

Rating: 1 Star

History Liberated

Title: History Liberated – The Sree Chithra Saga
Author: Princess Aswathi Thirunal Gouri Lakshmi Bayi
Publisher: Konark Publishers, 2021 (First)
ISBN: 9788194201892
Pages: 450

The 565 native states which formed a part of British India were in varying degrees of social and material progress. Travancore was the foremost among them, adorned by a long line of enlightened monarchs crowned by the jewel among them – Maharaja Sree Chithira Thirunal Balarama Varma. He acceded to India in 1947 and functioned as the Raj Pramukh of the united Travancore-Cochin state till 1956. After stepping down, he graciously lived on as an ordinary citizen of India, eliciting deep respect from the people around him. He passed away in 1991 at the age of 79. Unfortunately, an effort was seen thereafter to belittle him and his lineage through reminiscences which the victims could not effectively refute owing to the great time that elapsed in between. Chithira Thirunal was the son of the younger of the two cousins adopted into the Travancore royal family. When the reigning monarch Sree Moolam Thirunal died, the elder cousin assumed regency powers. Unfortunately for her, she didn’t have male offspring and the crown was transferred to the younger cousin’s lineage. In 1995, one of the granddaughters of the regent rani came out with a book titled ‘At the Turn of the Tide: The Life and Times of Maharani Sethu Lakshmi Bayi’ which contained some adverse remarks. Noted author Manu S. Pillai’s 2016 book ‘The Ivory Throne: Chronicles of the House of Travancore’ also repeated this trait (this book was reviewed earlier here). The present book is a rejoinder to these two strikes on a simple, progressive and visionary Maharaja. It is also for salvaging Sethu Parvathi Bayi – the junior rani – as she was the target of ‘calculated cruelty’ from some quarters. She is claimed to be victimized for nothing more than being strong-willed and the hardships and sufferings faced by her remains unknown. Princess Aswathi Thirunal Gouri Lakshmi Bayi is a member of the royal family and the niece of Chithira Thirunal. She is an economics graduate and an accomplished poetess. She was awarded the Padma Shree recently. This book seeks to liberate Chithira Thirunal’s history and legacy from the eclipse his rivals had planned.

The narrative begins with the adoption of two young girl cousins to the royal family named Sethu Lakshmi Bayi (elder) and Sethu Parvathi Bayi (younger). This kind of adoption was required in a matrilineal family in which there was no natural-born girl child. The senior male offspring of the elder princess was assured of the throne. The relationship between the princesses and the palace atmosphere were vitiated by the senior Rani’s miscarriage in the eighth month of pregnancy and junior Rani’s safe delivery of a male child. This meant the new-born would be the future king and power would be taken out of the senior Rani’s line. Junior Rani feared assassination attempts on the little prince. She was apprehensive even to hand him over to temple priests for mandatory rituals at the Sri Padmanabhaswamy Temple. With the ruling king’s early death, senior Rani took over as Regent till the crown prince turned eighteen. She strictly controlled even the petty expenses of the junior’s household. There were times when money was not given to feed the entire household and the children had to obtain food from the kitchen of a loyal retainer. The junior’s mother and siblings were forbidden from staying with or visiting them at Kaudiyar Palace. When Chithira Thirunal was sent to Mysore for administrative training before assuming office, his mother was required to stay away from him. Unable to suffer this disgrace, she chose not to go to Mysore. All these were intentionally done to mentally harass her and the crown prince. Senior Rani’s household, especially her consort, was determined to prolong the regency by alleging grave falsehoods on the mind and character of the prince and his mother. Accusations of black magic involving an attempted human sacrifice of a baby were concocted and levelled against them. The author asserts that three assassination attempts were made on the life of the prince – one on the day of investiture itself and two in his minority. One such attempt was to torch the infant’s bed and to make it appear as originated from a toppled candlestick.

Some interesting features of the Regency rule are mentioned here. The paramountcy of the British was a principle that was displayed in full view of the public even in their most ordinary daily lives and its style and substance. The arrival of dignitaries in hierarchical order for state functions left no doubt unanswered on who’s the highest on the ladder. The Regent rani came first, followed five minutes later by the prince (who later became Maharaja) and the British resident came last. The sequence was reversed in dispersal. In the Investiture Declaration read out by the Resident, Viceroy Willingdon informed the public through his written order of how he was ‘convinced’ of the prince’s suitability for kingship after having an interview and interactions with him. The Maharaja responded in similar vein by profusely thanking the British and conceding that he has taken charge according to usage and recognition of the British government. The author has used every weapon in her resources to strike back at the senior Rani’s household. She is alleged to be partial to Christians and granted them prime land to build churches and ecclesiastical institutions. This was said to be in a bid to impress Viceroy Irwin who was a pious Christian. When charges of unsound mind came up against Chithira Thirunal, some bishops of Travancore sent petitions to the viceroy suggesting the prince’s incompetence to succeed to the throne (p.88). In the same way, the author arraigns some of the peculiarities of the senior Rani’s household. A comparison of the consorts is also made with the senior guy said to be more English than the English, mostly suited and booted and enjoyed hunting. The moral turpitude of injuring a living being for sport is played up and we are informed that though Chithira Thirunal was a sharp shooter who could smash a matchstick from a distance, he never fired to kill.

The Temple Entry Proclamation was the greatest achievement of Sree Chithira Thirunal. At the stroke of a pen, he castigated disgrace and discrimination that lasted many centuries to the dustbin of history and restored the self-respect of the lower castes. This was the first such action in India. Kochi and Malabar followed suit rather late in this respect and their titular rulers forever stopped going to temples when they had to finally permit entry of the untouchables. There is a line of thought that credits Diwan C. P. Ramaswamy Iyer as being instrumental for this crucial step. This book provides sufficient proof to dispel this view. The Maharaja constituted a nine-member committee in 1932 to study this issue, out of which seven were upper castes. In 1934, they recommended many reforms but stopped short of permitting entry. There was the threat of mass conversion of Ezhavas in the background. On Nov 3, 1936, a memorandum signed by 30,522 upper castes appealed for temple entry. A few days later on the Maharaja’s birthday, it was granted. The gates of Kaudiyar Palace were symbolically thrown open to all and a grateful multitude watched their rulers welcoming them from a balcony with open arms. Strangely, the senior Rani – earlier Regent – opposed temple entry and she never visited Sree Padmanabhaswamy Temple thereafter. The book gives a very plausible argument for why Chithira Thirunal waited five years for temple entry. This was answered by Sir C.P. He said he advised the Maharaja to go for this reform when a Hindu diwan ruled the state. Thomas Austin and M. Habibullah were the diwans in the early part of the Maharaja’s reign.

In the 1940s, Chithira Thirunal’s star faded in the face of violent and uncompromising agitation for more power to the people’s representatives. At Indian independence, Travancore initially opted not to accede to India and remain independent with a constitution modelled on the USA. The 1946 Punnapra-Vayalar rebellion erupted in which hundreds of communist fighters were killed. This was a case of labour unions adopting political objectives such as removal of the diwan. The author rightfully concludes that this was nothing but a brazen attempt to create martyrs and to strengthen the Communist party. She refers to Nandigram in 2007 as similar to Punnapra-Vayalar. In the Bengal hamlet, the police in the communist-ruled state of West Bengal fired upon farmers protesting against eviction from their homesteads to make way for a new car factory. Many were killed. There the Communist party took the stand that law and order had to be maintained at any cost. Gouri Lakshmi Bayi obliquely admits that the demand for an independent Travancore was Chithira Thirunal’s brainchild. It is claimed to be only a bargaining chip to gain special status for the state. The Maharaja was claimed to be apprehensive that the North-dominated Centre would steamroll the interests of the southern states. Coincidental it might be, but Travancore decided to accede to India just days after an assassination attempt on Diwan Sir C.P. The author however clarifies that the attempt had no role to play in swaying Travancore into the embrace of India. Another progressive step was to abolish the death penalty in Travancore. The book lists out a lot of work done by the Maharaja in bringing modern institutions to his kingdom. This becomes a drag on the readers after some time.

Part 2 of the book is fully reserved for reminiscences of close family members on the Maharaja and his mother, the junior Rani. A collage of photographs of the two enveloping the period from their childhood to old age is artistically conceived and excellently reproduced. Curiously, none of the family explains why Chithira Thirunal chose not to marry and this point remains unanswered. It is true that matriliny made it immaterial whether a king had children or not as the mantle invariably fell on his nephew. The narrative concludes with the scrapping of the post of Raj Pramukh when unified Kerala state was formed. The author hints at many places that the Indian government never kept its word on the promises made to royal houses when their kingdoms were annexed to a newly independent India. The Privy Purse was later repealed but nothing is mentioned about this. The author also indicates about a sequel to this volume, which might not be a good idea. Many incidents of the later period of the Maharaja are only glanced over in passing.

The book has a hard cover and fully printed in very fine and glossy pages which cause it to weigh nearly 2 kg. The author’s deep respect for her uncle, the Maharaja Sree Chithira Thirunal, as a living god is discernible in every page. Several couplets she had penned in his honour and memory are reproduced in the book. Padmanabhaswamy and his temple are the other two major protagonists in the text which put in an appearance every few pages. There are some personal anecdotes narrated, but not enough from a person who had close familiarity with the Maharaja from her birth to his passing away 46 years later. Many rare photographs from the palace albums are included. These photos make for a good excuse to purchase this book. The diction is slightly cumbersome at some points. The author being an established poetess, her choice of words may make a connoisseur of rhyme enthused, but not the ordinary reader in some pages. The Maharaja had confided many things to the author’s care and the readers would have cherished some remembrances about the meeting Chithira Thirunal had had with Viceroy Willingdon which confirmed his suitability to hold the crown. If the Viceroy had decided otherwise, Travancore’s history would have coursed through along a new channel. Nothing is mentioned about this episode.

The book is highly recommended.

Rating: 4 Star