The People Next Door

Title: The People Next Door – The Curious History of India’s Relations with Pakistan
Author: T C A Raghavan
Publisher: HarperCollins India, 2017 (First)
ISBN: 9789352770908
Pages: 348

 ‘The Adventure of Silver Blaze’ is a very famous and thrilling Sherlock Holmes story for the insights the detective infers from the scene of a crime. There is a passage in it that goes like this:

Gregory (Scotland Yard detective): "Is there any other point to which you would wish to draw my attention?"

Holmes: "To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time."

Gregory: "The dog did nothing in the night-time."

Holmes: "That was the curious incident."

The story involves deceit, avarice, crime and punishment. Likewise, India-Pakistan relations also involve most of these attributes and the curious incident is that bilateral relations have not improved a bit in spite of laborious measures undertaken by both sides. As far as India is concerned, Pakistan was always a pain on the western frontier. The nations had fought two large-scale and two small-scale wars over the issue of disputed territory. After realizing the futility of its desire to humble India on the battlefield, Pakistan turned to sponsoring terrorism as state policy to ‘bleed India through a thousand cuts’. The one thing that stands out from this exercise is India’s surprising resilience which always stood one step ahead of its troublesome neighbour. This book is a nice recap of India-Pakistan relations written with the authority of knowledge and experience. T C A Raghavan is a former Indian envoy to Pakistan. He also served in the Pakistan desk in India’s external affairs ministry and as director in the office of India’s foreign minister. Even though no personal anecdotes are mentioned in the book, the author has encapsulated the entire gamut of the relations between the two countries and presented his deductions with a commendable sense of justice and richness with every nuance carefully inserted at the right moment. The typical behaviour of the so called liberal intellectuals in India is to regret the partition that had occurred in 1947 and their wistful longing for Pakistan to come back to India and undo the partition. A useful takeaway from the book is the warning about the irritation such a desire would evoke in Pakistanis. Raghavan enunciates the point that Partition cannot be undone and what is doable is peaceful coexistence at least as non-meddling neighbours if not as friends.

The book narrates several incidents of India-Pakistan relations that vitiated the atmosphere but still are not widely known. Pakistan continues to harbour persons who are fugitives from Indian law such as Dawood Ibrahim, Hafiz Sayeed and Masood Azhar. This one fact amply demonstrates its enmity and hatred to India’s wellbeing. In fact, this is nothing new and was followed right from its existence. The peculiar episode of Bhupat daku is a case in point. Bhupat was a Hindu dacoit from Junagadh in Gujarat who was wanted in the context of 82 murders and several robberies. He escaped to Pakistan to evade Indian law. He was detained there for a year for illegal entry and thereafter it refused to deport him to stand trial for his crimes in India. This was sheer spite as Pakistan had no claim on him. Bhupat then converted to Islam and posed as a freedom fighter from Junagadh who opposed India’s takeover of that state in 1947. Pakistan never extradited him and he died in 2006. This policy is continued in the case of others too. However, with the recently rising trend of ‘unidentified gunmen’ disposing summary justice to some people wanted by India, the continued efficacy of this policy is in doubt.

Even though Afghanistan plays only a marginal role in India-Pakistan strategic reviews, its potential to seriously influence the regional balance is mentioned in the book. This perspective is very rarely seen in books of this genre. The British had unilaterally imposed the Durand Line of border demarcation between undivided India and Afghanistan thereby separating the Pashtun homeland into two. When the British left, the Pashtuns wanted to reunite with Afghanistan but there was no provision to revisit the frontiers on the northwest of Pakistan. Consequently, Afghanistan was the sole member state opposing Pakistan’s entry to the United Nations. Then came the invasion of Kashmir by Pakistani irregular troops in 1947. The UN ordered a ceasefire to which Pakistan proposed a conditional offer. They claimed the invasion to be on security grounds which included preventing India establishing a link for the movement of Pathanistan and to preclude the possibility of a pincer attack by India and Afghanistan. The Soviet occupation beginning in 1979 and the post-Taliban regime were eras in which Pakistan experienced a hostile neighbour on both the east and the west.

The people had to make a hard choice at the time of Partition in the provinces which were bifurcated. Hindus and Sikhs chose India while the Muslims selected Pakistan. The book lists out some Muslims who opted for India even though their native places were within Pakistan and their subsequent actions as it reflected on the relationship between the two countries. Most of these Muslims occupied high positions of power in the bureaucracy. Badruddin Tyabji was one of them working as secretary in the external affairs ministry. He advised Nehru to consider Pakistan as his ‘constituency’ in which he has to get elected. He also suggested treating the government of Pakistan as the opposition and that his reactions to Pakistan should be entirely those of one who was standing for election from there (p.50). In other words, this man was advising Nehru to offer maximum concessions to Pakistan! Nehru fully accepted the counsel was proved by his gifting of 80 per cent of the Indus waters in a treaty also co-signed by the World Bank. A very useful book on the Indus Waters Treaty named 'Indus Divided: India, Pakistan and the River Basin Dispute’ by Daniel Haines was reviewed earlier here. Nehru also agreed to conduct a plebiscite in Kashmir but barely wriggled out of the deal citing US-Pakistan military alliance concluded in the meanwhile. Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, India’s first education minister, asked Afzal Iqbal, a Pakistani diplomat, regarding the military treaty: “Why did you do this? Kashmir was falling on your lap like a ripe fruit” (p.52). The Urdu poetry in India was also a fit case of doubtful loyalty. The author narrates some differences in mutual perception taking the case of Urdu poetry in the aftermath of the 1965 war. Indian Urdu poets deliberately introduced a line of separation between the people and rulers of Pakistan with the implied suggestion that the Pakistani society is not to blame even though the country was at war with India. This demarcation was purely fictional. On the other hand, the Pakistani Urdu poets had no hesitation at all in branding the whole of India – people and rulers alike – as enemy and called for a jihad. Ali Sardar Jafri extolled the Pakistani poet Faiz Ahmed Faiz and argued that Indian poets should have friendship and sympathy for the people of Pakistan. This was when Faiz was actively supporting the Pakistani war machine and vigorously participating in war mushairas (p.92).

Raghavan includes a pointed analysis of the history of mutual dialog between the two neighbours. Nehru was damagingly generous (as far as India is concerned) but Indira Gandhi was curt most of the time, giving Pakistan no quarter. Pakistan was summarily defeated and split apart doing her tenure as prime minister in 1971. But the Janata party regime that followed (1977-79) was not firm enough with Pakistan. The 1971 victory had changed the Pakistani perspective on India’s fighting spirit. Disparaging rebukes like one Pakistani Muslim is equivalent to ten Hindus in the battlefield had given way to cold and rational estimates of military potential of both countries. Mani Sankar Aiyer, who was the Consul General in Karachi during this time, says that as compared to 1971, the prospect of a conflict with India generated not excitement and conviction of victory but fear and apprehension at the certainty of defeat. This, coupled with the change of guard in Pakistan in the form of General Zia ul Haq, ensured friendly terms for the Janata government. As the painful memory of Bangladesh gradually receded to the background, Pakistan again turned belligerent. Unusually meek overtures from India elicited only contemptuous response from the other side of the border. In June 1996 when Prime Minister Deve Gowda and foreign minister Gujral wrote to their counterparts seeking resumption of foreign secretary-level talks, not even a reply was received. The Gujral doctrine postulated India making unilateral and non-reciprocal concessions to its neighbours (p.221). A B Vajpayee at first stole the show with the explosion of nuclear devices, but then yielded to Pakistan even in the face of growing terrorist attacks in the country and hijacking of a commercial airliner. The secret incursion in Kargil fully exposed Pakistani duplicity. It also illustrated the futility of waiting for international diplomatic pressure to mount on Pakistan for effecting a withdrawal of its troops from Kargil. It was the might of the Indian army and its weaponry that drove Pakistani invaders scurrying to their lair. This was also a classic instance of Pakistan misjudging Indian will and ability to fight back. Of course, the author strictly maintains a tone of balance and an air of equanimity in the narrative exercising special care not to exhibit partisanship, but the message readers get is what is mentioned above.

The book shows a peculiar trait of early Indian envoys to Pakistan as of being under the illusion that partition was a temporary affair and they were working in a region not different from their homeland. Their familiarity with Pakistani officials and a shared common language of Urdu was instrumental in creating a superficial and illusive bonhomie. India’s envoy Kewal Singh attended the wedding of Pakistan foreign minister’s son in Rawalpindi while the 1965 war was raging in Kashmir. The reception was hostile, but he still found some excuse to praise the ‘grace and courtesy’ of some who behaved politely with him. Besides, he had gifted a Benarsi saree to the bride. This was auctioned by the family and the raised money deposited in the Pakistan defence fund (p.86). The author also notes the lengths to which India would go to prevent foreign agencies intervening in Kashmir often at great loss and inconvenience to itself. In the case of the Salal hydroelectric project on the river allotted to Pakistan in the Indus Waters Treaty, India agreed to significantly reduce the height of the check dam and unilaterally cut short the power generation capability in a bid to avoid seeking international arbitration as per the treaty. Raghavan does not propose any magic formula to settle the issues between the two countries. The implication between the lines is that the serious differences are not to be ironed out in any length of time or in any number of meetings. The issues remain exactly as it were before to create an impression that nothing has changed for the better since 1947. But the author notes that ‘clearly enough has changed to make sure that older solutions will not work’. This also puts former foreign minister Natwar Singh’s prescient remark that ‘the future in Indo-Pakistan relations lie in the past’ in bright focus.

The crucial role played by Pakistan army in shaping public opinion in that country is not fully addressed in this book. The irrelevance of elected representatives in deciding long term policy of Pakistan is notorious but not elaborated here. Instead, Raghavan observes that adulation and exasperation with the army controls Pakistan’s response to India. If the army has overplayed its card, the civilians show good regard to India, but once the army retakes its lost ground in domestic politics, this is reversed. In short, Pakistan is forever waiting for an unguarded moment from India to pounce on her. However, with the rising economic heft of India after 2000, they are finding it slightly difficult to keep pace with India. With financial and military gap further widening between the two countries with each passing year, Pakistan is likely to resort once again to unconventional warfare such as terrorism in future. The book’s narrative ends by 2004. Even though coverage is extended to 2015 by means of an epilogue, it misses the most exciting episodes such as the surgical strikes and the Balakot operation.

The book is highly recommended.

Rating: 4 Star

Separatism among Indian Muslims

Title: Separatism among Indian Muslims – The Politics of the United Provinces Muslims 1860-1923
Author: Francis Robinson
Publisher: Oxford University Press, 1997 (First published 1993)
ISBN: 9780195631265
Pages: 469

The plain fact that India was partitioned in 1947 on the basis of religion requires researchers to analyse the reasons for fissure among the major communities of Hindus and Muslims and the growth of separatism among the Muslims. Several attempts have been made, emphasizing on the political, social, religious, economic and every conceivable parameter on which you can classify human societies. This book sets out to explain the emergence of Muslim separatism largely in terms of the interactions between colonial elites and the colonial state, set against the broader contexts of Hindu and Muslim revivalism. It narrates the communal story between two important failures of Indian political life – the 1857 Rebellion and the Khilafat agitation of the 1920s. These six decades – it seems obvious now – shaped the destiny of the later political frontiers of the subcontinent. It’s a mixture of governmental patronage favouring a community first and then transferring it to its rival. A major theme of the work is the Muslim petulance at permanently losing the privileges they had enjoyed unopposed over a millennium in India. They had initially hoped that when the British left Indian shores at last, power would be handed back to the Muslim dynasties from whom the British had gained control over India. The 1857 Uprising was in fact staged to hoist the Mughal emperor as the nominal sovereign of the country. However, with constitutional reforms getting progressively wider and more inclusive, it dawned on them that the British wanted to devolve more power to the people and eventually to leave the power in full in their hands in a distant future. In such a scenario, the Hindus who constituted a majority would naturally be able to handle more power. The Muslim reluctance to share power with the Hindus lay at the root of separatism and this book spells out how it grew in the sixty years after the 1857 Rebellion. Francis Robinson is a British historian and academic who specialize in the history of South Asia and Islam. He has been twice the president of the Royal Asiatic Society.

It may seem strange to us now why the author had chosen a province whose post-partition position was never in doubt and which had a large Hindu majority all along. Robinson clears this up with an explainer on why he had selected UP as his field of study. The Muslims in UP (then called United Provinces of Agra and Oudh) were at the heart of Muslim separatism unlike Punjab or Bengal. Except Jinnah, they led the Muslim organizations in Indian politics. The secretaries of the All India Muslim League were from UP in the first two decades of its existence. They also dominated the Central Khilafat Committee that played a supra-provincial role in whipping up communal frenzy that ended up in gruesome communal riots. The region of UP was the traditional centre of Muslim rule and civilization in India. For eight centuries before the British dislodged the Mughals, Muslims had been the dominant group though a minority in numbers. They were not at all backward, as being suggested by some of the Left-Islamist cabal of historians. They were a major landholding group occupying approximately one-fifth of the land in the province. They possessed many of the largest estates running into thousands of acres of prime fertile land. They were able to elect 40 per cent of the members in Oudh district boards. The Muslims constituted 35 per cent of all government jobs while in the judicial services, they formed the majority share of 56 per cent. 54 per cent of the tahsildars were Muslims as also most of the kotwals (town police chiefs). This was while their ratio in population was only 12 per cent!

Consider for an instant the imaginary case of Hindu upper castes who predominated the British-Indian bureaucracy opposing the program of providing reservation for lower castes in government jobs and education. How vociferously would modern society have called their hypocrisy out? A similar situation prevailed in nineteenth century UP when the Muslims who dominated the provincial establishment of Mohammedan rulers grudged the increased participation the British were offering to Hindus. The Muslims demurred to send their children to government schools for fear of ‘mingling with students far below them in social rank’. Their religious obligations compelled them to make their boys learn the Koran before they learned anything else, and by the time they had done this, it was usually too late to learn anything else. Their religious leaders believed western learning to be incompatible with Islam. Robinson also describes the major issues that fused the Muslim elite together. In the 1840s, the policy of teaching Persian was stopped and the government switched over to Urdu (not English, as it is widely believed). This concession was to mollify the Muslims as the Urdu language was to be written in the Persian script only. The Urdu-speaking elite identified four threats to their continued domination: education policy, bureaucratic reforms, elective government and Hindu revivalism. In 1900, the sole use of Persian script was modified by allowing the Nagri script as well. This decision which was in the interest of 90 per cent of the population was deeply resented by the Muslims who dreamed to continue their iron-fisted hegemony till the end of days.

This book strongly rejects ‘Divide and Rule’ as a policy deliberately adopted by the British. The real problem confronting Britain was ‘not how to divide and rule India, but how to rule a divided India’ (p.164). If British policy exacerbated Indian social disharmony, it was ‘more out of ignorance or innocence than malice’. Besides, British public opinion was strongly pro-Muslim. The Times, which really informed and led the mass of newspapers about Indian matters, was a great Muslim partisan (p.169). Robinson identifies fear of Muslims that really formed the bedrock of British policy towards them. To deal with them, government adopted special measures and made special concessions, which was not to set them against Hindus that was only a side effect (p.131-2). What the colonialists feared was fanaticism of a terrible order which British administrators clearly feared. UP Lieutenant Governor Anthony MacDonnell objectively spotted it in Muslim government servants. He was sure that ‘in times of Muslim agitation, they did not pull their weight. This was a danger to security of the establishment and their strong position in government service had to be redressed’. However, the author finds this prudent official to be ‘prejudicial’ (p.43). Robinson again remarks that British policy to Muslims was influenced by ‘the publicists’ pen and the assassin’s dagger’. The Chief Justice of Bengal was killed on the steps of the High Court and Viceroy Mayo himself was stabbed to death by a Muslim convict. A little time before his death, Mayo had advised his subordinates that being constantly on the lookout for disturbances within Muslims was one of the most important duties of every officer, civil or military in India (p.100). The provocation could be anything, even as mild as criticising their religion. Pandit Lekh Ram criticized Islam and appealed them to become Aryas. The author then makes the Muslim attack that followed somewhat respectable with the strange remark that ‘eventually, one Muslim was provoked enough to kill him’ (p.68 footnote).

This book takes a detailed look at the factors that prompted Muslims to demand unreasonable constitutional guarantees for themselves. This is a reflection on the collapse of Muslim power in north India that exercised a suffocating dominance over the Hindus who were not allowed to exercise any position of meaningful power or the free practice of their religion. By the nineteenth century, the Hindus saw their chance and began to use them. The divisional commander of Agra observed: The Hindus here, as elsewhere, have begun to assert themselves, and will not now willingly acquiesce, as they appear formerly to have done, in the superiority of the Mohammedans (p.80). This, in a nutshell, is the real and true cause of Muslim separatism in India. An oppressed majority boldly claiming their just share from the hands of a tyrannical minority elite would be glorified as a victory of social justice a century later but this apt epithet is used in India only after carefully asserting which party is the oppressor. With the progressive widening of self-rule and the flicker of democracy gaining traction in the country, the Muslims feared that their claims would be ignored and discriminated against. They opposed elections and representative government as totally unsuited to India. In fact, Muslim elite opposed competitive exams in the civil service too. The principal of Aligarh college told the government that competitive exams would flood the service with men from lower provinces dispossessing Muslims and upper classes in general, such as the Rajput aristocracy (p.118). Syed Ahmed was even more vociferous who tried to provoke regional animosities among Hindus and commented that ‘Bengalis who crawl under his chair at the sight of a table knife would be placed over Rajputs who have not forgotten the swords of their ancestors’ (p.119). Hindus also showed signs of highhandedness. Municipal authorities dominated by elected Hindu councillors tried to shut down meat shops selling beef. Other than this, no religious discrimination is mentioned in the book. In return, cows were openly killed after Muslims regained power in some municipalities.

Robinson evaluates in detail the contributions of Syed Ahmed Khan and the thrust he had imported to the education and political activity of Muslims. Even with the above disparaging remarks about Bengalis, the Muslims of Bengal continued to support him as they knew in their heart that the comment was only intended to create rift among the majority community. The demand was to get enhanced representation in provincial councils, district boards and municipal bodies on account of their past ‘historical importance’ (p.123). This was a euphemism for demanding a quantum of seats unreasonable to and in far excess of their numerical position. It may also be kept in mind that when Pakistan was actually formed, the minorities in that country were not allowed any of the rights the Muslims enjoyed in undivided India. The Muslim educational conference instituted by Khan covertly played politics and opposed Congress. In 1906 this led to the creation of the Muslim League. The Aligarh college – later university – was the base from which a UP Muslim elite group led a Muslim political party in the province and in India as a whole. The British propped up Syed Ahmed and Aligarh college and indirectly assisted in the birth of Muslim political doctrine and separatism. On the level of the divisive sentiment he generated, Syed Ahmed Khan may be termed the Jinnah of the nineteenth century.

The author correctly identifies the concession of separate electorates as tipping point that vindicated the Muslim sense of exclusiveness and belligerence whose natural conclusion was the division of the country. The British tried at first to deny demands for separate electorates as this very concept was alien to the fundamental principles of democracy. The scheme envisaged two votes for Muslims – one in the separate constituency and the other in the general category – while the Hindus had only one. This was so even in East Bengal where Muslims comprised 53 per cent of the population where this high share ensured that a candidate not favoured by Muslims cannot win even the general seat. Persistent pressure forced the government to allocate double the number of seats earlier promised to Muslims as separate electorates. This was in the face of open threats of the Muslim League that their ‘good behaviour could not be guaranteed if the government did not concede this’ (p.158). After attaining this goal, the UP Muslim party was separated into two groups referred to as ‘Old’ and ‘Young’ parties. The ‘Old’ consisted mainly of aristocrats and landowners while the ‘Young’ included professionals and journalists. The ‘Young’ was fiercely bigoted with a pan-Islamic outlook. Issues of Turkey and other Islamic states were foremost in their concern. The Lucknow Pact with Congress was an attempt by the ‘Young’ to come out in the political mainstream and to restrain the gradual ascent of the ulema in the party. It gained them a lot of other concessions from Congress and again increased the Muslim seats as part of the 1919 Montford reforms.

The most important contribution of this book is a concise narrative on the rise of pan-Islamic sentiment among Muslims and the Khilafat agitation it led to. Pan-Islamic outlook is a basic requirement demanded by the religion and almost all the leaders cherished it in their bosom. Mahomed Ali, who grew to be the tallest leader of that time, was a willing proponent from the early years of public life. He set up an Indo-Ottoman colonization society with the aim of starting an Islamic settlement at Adana in Turkey composed of Indian and Turkish Muslims. However, his taste for modernity and refinement can be gauged from his pithy remark on political adjustments: “Constitutions, like pretty women, are meant to be violated” (p.362). The World War I and related developments in Ottoman Empire radicalised Indian Muslims in an extraordinary way. Even women were agitated to an extent that Harcourt Butler, the lieutenant governor of UP, reported that his priority was to keep Muslim women right as they can force their husbands to do something for Islam and that no government in India can control a combination of Muslim priests and women (p.294). The ulema saw their chance for taking a plunge into mainstream politics. The Young party men provided a guiding hand to them. This alliance of the ulema with secular politicians was marked by the contrast between their ultimate objectives. The secular group wanted a slice of power for themselves, but the ulema wanted nothing less than the eventual enforcement of the sharia in India like what the Taliban practises at present in Afghanistan. Their interest was in protecting traditional Islam and their position in it. The ulema were most active in Khilafat which was an agitation for restoring the territory and title of the Turkish sultan who was defeated in World War I. They had the most to gain from non-cooperation. They made donations to non-cooperation movement a form of zakat making it obligatory for believers. Going a step further, the Muttafiqa fatwa signed by 500 ulema made non-cooperation itself a religious duty. They were very particular that Hindus join them in this struggle and was instrumental in persuading Gandhi to put the final shape to the agitation. The book also includes some curious examples of firebrand ulema developing feet of clay at a mere raid on their premises by law enforcement. Abdul Bari was unnerved by CID men poking around Firangi Mahal. He rushed to Nainital where the lieutenant governor was staying, professed his innocence, declared his loyalty and at the end of the interview broke down completely (p.294).

Robinson illustrates the fanatic spirit that enveloped the Khilafat movement which turned against Hindus who were in fact supporting it. Abdul Bari declared that they are determined to ‘fight the enemy of Islam whether he be in Anatolia or Arabia or Agra or Benares’. The Jamiat ul-Ulema supported the Moplahs who converted Hindus by force in Malabar in 1921 (p.338). The Central Khilafat Committee even offered them financial support. When pressure was applied by indignant Congress leaders, they grudgingly offered a small amount of money for the Hindu victims too. A peculiar feature of Muslim politics was evident then. When the hard-line fanatics took over the reins, the so called ‘secular’ Muslim politicians acted as broker between the Congress and the hardliners instead of opposing the latter on ideological lines. Many Muslims rose to high leadership positions at the central and provincial levels. The Congress itself had only four Muslim presidents from its inception in 1885 to 1920. But between 1921 and 1923, three out of its four presidents were Muslims.

As with other liberal scholars, Robinson also dusts off the old and convenient delusion that Muslim politicians were driven by selfish self-interest rather than religious bigotry. Hard-core Muslims had prepared a migration plan to Afghanistan forsaking the British empire to protest against its cavalier treatment of the Turkish Caliph. This important incident which involved the deaths of thousands of people is not mentioned in the book. The author finally concludes that the Muslims in UP were not a nation by the standards applied to modern Europe as they had no racial homogeneity, little common history and many conflicting interests. The book is noted for its detached perspective and helps to bring in some objectivity when the events considered are still capable of arousing much passion on both sides of the border between India and Pakistan. The author has thoroughly researched population and job data community-wise and has included many informative tables categorizing relevant information. It also incorporates the concise biographies of 61 prominent leaders of the Young Party, 44 from Old Party, 12 ulema and 21 other men of importance. Raja Sivaprasad is the only Hindu who had the good fortune to enter this list. Bibliography of the book is impressively comprehensive.

The book is highly recommended.

Rating: 4 Star

Nationalism without a Nation in India

Title: Nationalism without a Nation in India
Author: G. Aloysius
Publisher: Oxford University Press, 1998 (First published 1997)
ISBN: 9780195641042
Pages: 265

When the British established their colonial supremacy in India, they brought into being the political unification of the country the scale of which it had not witnessed in several centuries. When the time came to say goodbye to the empire, they were apprehensive about the future of this political unity. Amazingly for them and other Eurocentric doomsayers, India exhibited a remarkable coherence and integrity. There were Western observers who wondered how Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu remained part of the same nation while comparable entities in Europe such as France and England are articulated into mutually hostile nation-states. The prime reason for this harmonious existence is the cultural unity of India that binds varied ethnicities, religions, languages and customs to fuse together. Liberal – especially of the Left-leaning type – scholars find this difficult to swallow and come up with theories which speculate about an impending fall of the Indian nation because of the incongruence of its subject parts. This book is one among this genre that attempts ‘a sociological study of nationalism using the two central theories of social structure and social change as a framework for investigating different spheres of nationalism’. It then concludes that instead of giving birth to one national society, nationalism seems to have delivered a whole litter of communities divided from one another in terms of language, religion, region or caste. G. Aloysius studied at the Jawaharlal Nehru University and is widely known for sociological studies on Indian society and research on social and tribal movements of India.

Aloysius starts with a rhetorical observation that pan-Indian nationalism is elitist, false and insensitive to regional variations. Caste system and its ideology permeated the entire region as the clearest form of hierarchical structuring of society. Brahmins and other upper castes dominated all others and maintained hegemony in the unchanging rural landscape. This was upheld by the political power, both native as well as imperialist. Despite the rise and fall of dynasties and change in political boundaries, the social order remained stable as a ‘universalized norm of custom and tradition’. Resistance to this order was also part and parcel of the tradition from the beginning. The Brahminic system was resisted by heterodox sects like ajivikas and shramanas in the ancient period and sects such as Vira Shaivism, Sikhism and Kabirpanth in medieval times. Contrary to the nationalist claim that the British occupation messed up the natural societal order, Aloysius absolves the imperialists of any such responsibility. The British did not and could not effect any serious change in Indian society and the old order won in the end (p.34).

The book then makes some serious audit of the British Raj in the nineteenth century. It claims that the British only wanted to ensure sufficient revenue for themselves and enjoined the upper castes to be a part of the governing structure. Colonial rule only strengthened the existing caste hierarchy by channelling it into the newly created power machinery. Entering the bureaucracy was through modern education which was monopolized by upper castes. There was no change in agrarian relations too as the government chose not to intervene in social issues. Lower caste movements took part in nation-making at this point by fighting for the concepts of equal social rights leading to citizenship, mass literacy and social-spatial mobility as a new principle of social life. Jotiba Phule elaborated the ideology of Dravidian origin to counter the prevalent Aryan theory of race among Brahmins (p.61). Here the author forgets to mention that the Aryan invasion hypothesis was invented by the British and not the Brahmins. By pushing in the concept of race with this false statement, Aloysius makes an outrageous assessment that the birth and growth of Indian nationalist movement was tinged with racist sentiments and overtones (p.94) thereby making it palatable to his European audience. The 1857 rebellion is said to be based on antagonism with the British largely based on race, religion and colour. In fact, this trope is first introduced in the preface itself which claims that discussions of nationalism in India ranged between sheer xenophobia and ‘sacred patriotism’. This is totally wrong and against the Indian spirit of toleration and assimilation which was never xenophobic. Aloysius seems to be confusing xenophobia with self-defence against foreign invaders.

The book makes a critical study of the religions in India and identifies Hinduism as the root and sole cause of the nation’s backwardness and social oppression. However, in order to appear objective, he cleverly calls it Brahminism when it suits him and goes all out in criticising it. He vacuously asserts that other religions such as Christianity, Islam and Buddhism are egalitarian but Brahminism alone was exploitative. He enthusiastically lauds the missionaries and evangelists since “the evangelists were ferocious in their attack on the inegalitarian nature of social Hinduism” (p.47). Aloysius suggests religious conversion as a way to gain strength and respect for the lower castes. As an illustration, he claims that “Shanar movement [in Kerala and Tamil Nadu] gained additional strength through mass conversions to Christianity in their civil disabilities” (p.56). If the Shanars turned en masse to Christianity, they were no longer Shanars as per caste custom. The author drops an unintended hint that these people continued to be looked upon with their previous caste identity even after conversion. Aloysius then proudly lists conversion to Christianity as a good alternative to ‘caste slavery’ and fumes at those who call the converts ‘rice Christians’ (p.70).

The burning issue in the years leading to independence in 1947 was whether Hindus and Muslims constituted two distinct nations who cannot cohabit together. A lot of heated discourse and human blood flowed to finally settle this issue by partitioning the country. In this context, it is astonishing that Aloysius has totally ignored this point in this work on ‘creating the Indian nation’. Apart from some half-hearted comments on the Muslim elite creating a constituency of their own, this book skirts this crucial subject. The reason is only too obvious. Like all Leftist scholars, he doesn’t want to invite the ire of Islamists and thereby forego their patronage. Instead, he clubs Muslims along with Dalits and other lower castes and depicts them as equally suffering from the atrocities of the upper castes. This leads him to suggest harmony and alliance between them and the lower castes which forces him to invent excuses when such camaraderie was not actually seen anywhere in practice. The Nama Shudras and Muslims were said to be allies in East Bengal against the higher castes. However, in communal riots which frequently occurred, the Nama Shudras were at the receiving end of the violence along with the upper castes in equal measure. Aloysius lightens this contradiction with the remark that it was only the result of ‘near-equal communities competing for the same set of opportunities’ (p.65). But when Kshatriya landlords attacked Noniyas who were their tenants, it was not a local landlord-tenant issue, but an example of caste oppression (p.66). The author also narrates some lofty daydreams on Muslim political awakening. The deprivation caused by the new dispensation of power in favour of upper caste Hindus led to the birth of Muslim nationalism. This author never suspects Muslim exclusivism or plain religious fanaticism behind it. In fact, the alliance between Muslims and the lower castes was only a temporarily prudent strategy to dent the numerical superiority of Hindus and to divide and weaken them further. The so-called upper caste ideology talked about the nation and not about religion, but the author castigates it to be communal. On the other hand, the Muslim demand for Pakistan was openly based on religion but Aloysius finds true national spirit there which was antagonized by Hindu separatism. The Moplah riot of 1921 in Malabar which was an ethnic cleansing of Hindus is presented as an agrarian rebellion in which ‘the polluted castes were spared as a rule while murderous attacks were against oppressive upper castes’ (p.88). Apart from the moral question of justifying violence directed against a community on ideological grounds for being ‘oppressors’, this statement is totally false. There were numerous instances in the riots in which lower castes were also targeted (see my review of Beyond Rampage: West Asian Contacts of Malabar and Khilafat here for more details on this).

Aloysius’ theory of the birth of Indian nationalism can be condensed in a nutshell: the upper castes devised it to maintain their monopoly on state power when the ‘benign’ British gradually began to accommodate the interests of the lower castes. When the share of land revenue in national income dwindled in the 1870s, the British extended protective measures, education and employment to lower castes. Resentment on this count caused the germination of nationalism. Aloysius wastes no opportunity to drive a wedge between the upper and lower castes of Hinduism and to destroy the very fabric of Indian society in the resultant conflagration he thirsts to witness. In response to the British challenge on upper caste monopoly of power, they introduced reforms and revival of the Brahminical ideology. This helped it to settle on reincarnating itself as pan-Indian political-national Hinduism. This provided a context for the politico-economic interests of the same social forces to transform itself as nationalism. By the term ‘they’, the author means Brahmins and a small circle of upper castes centred around them. Moreover, cultural nationalism was constructed in India by the deep commitment and contribution of imperialist and orientalist scholarship (p.135). With this statement, Aloysius transfers the credit for creating nationalism back to the British and alleges that India’s national leaders were afraid of the masses they were supposed to be leading. Due to this mortal fright of the masses, they sought British protection from them (p.117). This set of conclusions is natural as most of the sources and references of this book’s research are colonial scholars. It is true that there was reaction from Orthodox sections against the concept of equality extended to oppressed castes. This does not include the core group of nationalism. But Aloysius maliciously club them together to claim that all of them worked to sabotage the concept of equal rights to subaltern people.

Gandhi’s devotees would cringe with unease at the level of criticism this book levels against him. Aloysius acknowledges that the Gandhian era (1920-1947) of the national movement was multi-class and mass-based. It gained politico-moral legitimacy and achieved enormous power. The author proposes five factors that elevated the image of Gandhi as an ‘event’ or phenomenon, which are a) Congress which was symbiotically related to Gandhi b) the colonial rulers who magnified the Gandhi image c) the support of Gujarati and Marwari communities d) private army of ashram members and volunteers who provided a spiritualist aura to what Gandhi said and did and e) multiplicity of local interpretations of the Gandhian national message. Gandhi functioned as an intra-party dictator and demanded absolute loyalty from other members. His constructive programs, such as eradication of untouchability, were cul-de-sacs that diverted the attention of lower caste reformers and channelled their energy away from the national movement. This is alleged to have helped ensure upper caste monopoly of the new power structure that was emerging with the British exit. Gandhi offered religion to the lower caste masses and politics for the upper caste nationalists. Aloysius never stops to answer the obvious question of why then, did a Brahmin shot him dead. By adopting khilafat and anti-untouchability programs as separate effort for the communities, the author claims that Gandhi destroyed the unity that was developing between the lower castes and Muslims.

Though the purpose of this book is to destroy or prevent whatever unity exists among Hindu communities. He attempts this by harping on the refrain that upper castes still continue to wreak any social improvements. The author considers the lower caste leaders to be not worthy enough to fight the upper castes on their own strength. Incompetence of lower castes is a recurring theme in this work that crops up at several places in the narrative. In fact, it is the narrative. His temerity to downgrade luminaries such as Jotiba Phule, Sri Narayana Guru, E V Ramaswamy Naicker and B R Ambedkar is galling. He does so with the comment that ‘though these people articulated against the cultural nationalism of dominant castes, since ideological articulation was not the forte of subaltern people, the writings and speeches of their spokesmen are not to be taken as the sole source from which to interpret the subaltern weltanschauung’ (p.146). In short, this is like saying “you are good for nothing; but don’t worry, we’ll do your work for you”. This author seems not to have encountered even one of Ambedkar’s works which are brilliantly argued with logic and backed by facts. It was not for nothing that he was trained in constitutional law! Aloysius’ subtle hint to the subaltern people is to wait for a messiah to arise from among the liberals. Probably he fancies himself for this role? Otherwise, they will forever by branded with the oppressed identity and myopic view which can’t see past their communal framework. Aloysius’ evil intent is discernible at another place in which he declares that the ‘golden age of Paraiahs was the eighteenth century when Brahmins and respectable people were murdered in their beds and chased by marauding armies’ (p.32). This does not mean that the Paraiahs did it, but suggests that since the Brahmins suffered, the lower castes enjoyed it. This is nothing short of an evil attempt to perpetuate caste rivalry. Rajiv Malhotra’s comments in ‘Breaking India’ (reviewed earlier here) are noteworthy in this context. Malhotra proves that Leftists and neo-colonial scholars strike at every fault line in Hindu society in an attempt to forestall unity of purpose among the various communities comprising it.

This book by G. Aloysius is nothing but an unalloyed long polemic not only against Indian cultural nationalism but against our entire politico-social norms as well. This brings to mind Macaulay’s quote that the real purpose of colonial education in India is to ‘create a people Indian in blood and colour, but English in taste, opinions, morals and intellect’. Reading this book of unabashed eurocentrism, readers wonder not that the author is Macaulay’s child, but his clone! Recently, a British financial journalist remarked that ‘it can often seem a triumph that India exists at all’. It is indeed so, if you pause to observe that spiteful scholars such as this one are continuously chipping away at the foundations of the Indian nation and society with their classist falsehoods. What the author accepts as reliable are quotes from Marx and missionaries only. Some of the corrosive remarks found in the book may be listed below. This list is not comprehensive.

a)    India’s centralizing state is armed to the teeth against its own people (p.2)
b)    Pan-Indian polity no longer attracts the allegiance of the majority of the masses (p.2)
c)    The cleavage within the hierarchical, pre-modern Indian society are at least as important a contradiction as the cleavage between the Indian and the British (p.18)
d)    India’s nationalism is merely a tactical cover up for individual and group pursuit of power, position and profit (p.96)

The book is full of heavy academic jargon and is a burden to read. The author’s condescending attitude to the subaltern people and the air of being their all-knowing guide who knows their things better than them is irritating as well as illogical. Altogether, the reading experience was a waste of time.

The book is not recommended.

Rating: 1 Star

Cleopatra’s Daughter

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The book is highly recommended.

 

Rating: 4 Star

Academic Hinduphobia

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The book is highly recommended.

Rating: 4 Star

Farzana

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The book is highly recommended.

Rating: 4 Star

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The book is recommended.

Rating: 2 Star