Allahu Akbar

Title: Allahu Akbar – Understanding the Great Mughal in Today’s India
Author: Manimugdha S. Sharma
Publisher: Bloomsbury, 2019 (First)
ISBN: 9789386950536
Pages: 305

History is written by the winners. That’s the only certain truth as far as historiography is concerned. India was reeling under the yoke of Islamic imperialism for nearly eight centuries. They conquered us, destroyed our temples, killed millions, took many millions of both sexes as slaves, forcibly converted several millions and did one other thing that was more shattering and everlasting than the others. They tampered with our cultural DNA and created a class of people who actually believe that India benefitted from the above-mentioned bouts of extreme repression. In the present day, the Left-Islamist nexus bankrolls them and offer them plum positions in academia and pliant journalism. The Mughals was just another Muslim dynasty that produced two centuries of hell in India’s long history. But one thing must be admitted here. Of the six monarchs who are considered Great Mughals, Jalaluddin Muhammad Akbar’s rule was the most tolerant. If you scour Islamic history for tolerant kings, perhaps Salahuddin al-Ayyubi might be the only other person you’d find. This book is an effort to understand Emperor Akbar in today’s India. This is a highly censored version which is laudatory to Mughals and worthless as history. The book projects many medieval events onto modern sensibilities and raises political propaganda to claim that the present prime minister, Narendra Modi, is not fit to rule India which was once reigned by such greats as Akbar. Nehru and even Rahul Gandhi is favourably compared to Akbar in this book, but it claims that in view of the Gujarat riots of 2002, Modi broke India while Akbar united it. The book’s title signifies the Muslim battle cry which means that ‘God is Great’. By a clever twist, this also means that ‘Akbar is God’ which was used as a term of salutation by Akbar’s cronies. In that sense, the title is apt for the book because the author practically treats him as divine. Manimugdha S. Sharma is a Delhi-based journalist. He takes a keen interest in politics, military history, the Mughal and British empires and the two world wars. This is his first book in English.

The author confesses that this book was indebted to critical input from the Islamist historians Irfan Habib and Ali Nadeem Rezawi. This makes the author’s pitiable attempts to glorify the Mughals at least comprehensible. A crucial finding in the book is the intellectual and ‘rational’ bend of the Mughal mind. When Hamida Bano, Akbar’s mother, went into labour, court astrologers wanted to prolong it till a later propitious time. But the courtiers rebuffed them saying that ‘things would happen when God willed it’. This fatalistic remark is exalted as a ‘glimpse of the rational minded high society the Mughals had’. However, he notes that Akbar was born at the exact moment the astrologers predicted! Just a few pages later, he concedes that Humayun assigned commands and offices based on the star sign of officers (p.8). The irony is that on the same page he makes this observation, he cannot help remark that ‘Islam condemns soothsaying and endorses natural sciences’ (p.8). It’s a fair guess that it is in such innocuous-looking comments that we see the influence of Habib and Rezawi. The author disgraces himself by praising slavery which was rampant in Islam. He claims that a slave in an Islamic society could rise to become master one day and that slaves were often raised by their masters as their own children, giving them education, training, grooming and teaching them every skill required to rise high in society (p.256). Readers should keep in mind that he is simply sugar-coating the heinous institution of slavery! On the other hand, the author himself may be thought to signify how such a slave would look like in modern times – in the intellectual sense at least. There are several fabricated stories in the narrative such as Humayun recoiling in disgust from a dish of beef and Babur prohibiting cow-slaughter because he was a pragmatic king!

What makes this book not even worth the paper on which it is printed is the political and Islamist propaganda it carries against the present Narendra Modi government in India. You can of course criticize the government for whatever reason, but what does a history book on Mughals has to do with present-day party politics? This book seems to be part of a paid effort that works with political targets in mind written to coincide with the 2019 general elections in India. The author claims that BJP’s election campaigns since 2014 have hinged on Goebbelsian propaganda (p.20). Akbar’s birthday is not certain. He compares this to Modi and says, “Narendra Modi himself has been in the eye of the storm throughout his term for alleged discrepancies in his date of birth as well” (p.7). And, ‘Modi government has a medieval impulse on vilifying opposition’ (p.61). Babur and Akbar erected towers of skulls of enemies vanquished in battle. This is compared to the Modi government’s alleged tendency to seeing minorities as the ‘other’ (p.75). As you can see, the examples are not congruent with the argument but the author compulsively makes these deranged exercises like an obsession. Moreover, he cites several episodes from history and concludes that ‘Akbar was not doing anything that hadn’t been done before and wouldn’t be done again’ (p.78), probably meaning the erection of skull towers. Modi’s scrapping of the outdated and anachronous Planning Commission and putting in NITI Aayog in its place is compared to Akbar’s regent, Bairam Khan, assuming more powers to himself (p.87). Another allegation is that exaggeration is seen in Modi regime’s success stories (p.82). Modi issues ‘diktats to schoolchildren, bureaucrats or factory workers to show up at state or party events since 2014’ (p.14). Also, mass killings were not acceptable in Mughal times as it is now (p.111). Akbar captured Delhi defeating Hemu, who briefly held Delhi by ousting Humayun’s army. Hemu rose from humble origins and the author remarks that ‘one doesn’t get too many instances of someone rising through the ranks like this’ (p.51). However, he does not make the obvious comparison to Modi at this point, who had also risen from a very poor and socially backward family. Graciousness is not a virtue of this wily and partisan journalist who had written this book.

This book glorifies the invaders and slave-masters and vilifies the hapless natives who went down fighting these monstrously destructive powers. Sharma has no compunction to portray an act of blood-curdling cruelty as necessary for a monarch. He claims that Humayun fought his brothers without hating them (!); he loved all his brothers; he had a guilt complex in fighting them (p.28). But in reality, the incident of Humayun blinding his brother makes a terrible read. He pierced a sharp, hot needle through his own brother Kamran’s eyes after capturing him. Dirk Collier notes in his excellent book The Great Mughals and Their India that ‘the lancet was pierced into both eyes about fifty times to make the deed fool proof. The prince bravely withstood the torture, but at the end of it when a mixture of lemon juice and salt was sprinkled on the wound, he broke down and cried out loudly in pain’ (read review here). The author berates the Rajputs entirely as a class – those who fought the Mughals to the last man committing jauhar and saka and those who submitted to them and gave away their daughters to the Mughal harem. Sharma notes with contempt that Rajput ruling families managed to survive until modern times by bowing to every ascendant star on the political horizon, just like grass blades that weather every storm by bending. Some Rajputs fought on the Mughal side against fellow Rajputs. It is interesting to observe how the Mughal chroniclers viewed these fratricidal contests. Badaoni, the Mughal biographer of Akbar through his book Muntakhab ut-Tawarikh, claims that this was a ploy to get kaffirs (infidels) killed by their brethren and to save Muslims the trouble (p.207). But our journalist author chips in with a salvaging comment that Badauni’s remark ‘was not the Mughal state’s view’. How does he deduce this against the written word of a contemporary who knew things better?

Manimugdha Sharma quite literally imagines or wishes that the Mughals gave strict punishment for rape. This ruse is only to make them more appealing to modern sensibilities. He claims that Jahangir demoted Muqarrab Khan, the governor of Gujarat, because he raped a Hindu woman. He is not able to find a reference for this assertion on the period texts, but suggests that his patron, Prof. Ali Nadeem Rezawi of the Aligarh Muslim University, had told him so (p.144). It is amusing that on the immediate previous page, it is asserted that the Mughal Islamic state mandated the testimony of four witnesses to attest to the victim’s version to award sentence to the offenders (p.143). He then maliciously compares the rape of a minor Muslim girl at Kathua to this incident and implies that Hinduism is involved in this brutal incident. To establish the culpability of patriarchal polytheistic religions in sanctioning rape, he describes the story of Medusa from Greek mythology. Medusa was raped and then punished by the gods. Akbar promoted eunuchs in bureaucracy much unlike his predecessors. Those outside the court was still treated with contempt. Even today, Indian politicos and the society at large have not been able to do better than Akbar (p.122). After several rounds of grandstanding, the author ruefully admits that Akbar mercilessly slaughtered tens of thousands in the siege of Chittor in 1568. The emperor then went straight to the shrine of Moinudeen Chishti in Ajmer and proclaimed that his mujahids (holy warriors) defeated kaffirs at Chittor. To iron this out, Sharma slyly assures that this was only a ‘religious rhetorical invocation’ (p.168).

Make no mistake about it that I fully share the author’s conviction that Akbar was the most tolerant of the Mughals – especially in the latter half of his reign. He built the ibadat khana for religious discourse which admitted only Muslim theologians at first. When the emperor realised the hollowness of their arguments, he invited speakers from other religions too. He never joined any of them, but introduced one himself called din e-ilahi, which was nothing more than a kind of personal worship of the emperor. A doubt which is usually pointed at Akbar’s religiosity (or the lack of it) is that whether he had turned ex-Muslim (in the modern sense of the term). The author does not even pronounce it, because his Islamist mentors would not allow it; but gives subtle hints that it may be so. He remarks that since Akbar didn’t go through the formal education process of the time, which involved theological lessons, he had a relatively unencumbered mind that was open to receiving different ideas (p.239). The author quotes Badaoni in such a way as to hint that the emperor had become an apostate. Badaoni sullenly points out that ‘His Majesty had the early history of Islam read out to him and soon began to think less of the companions of the Prophet; soon after, he felt the five prayers, fasts of Ramadan and the belief in everything connected with the Prophet were vain superstitions’ (p.218). When Jahangir rose in revolt against his father, one of the accusations was that Akbar had converted many of the mosques into storehouses and stables. Badaoni also mentions that Akbar dropped all references to the name ‘Muhammad’ and shortened his own name to ‘Jalaluddin Akbar’ (p.227). He assumed the title of amir ul-Mominin (commander of the faithful) which was a break from tradition and a snub to the Ottoman caliphs. The author then argues that ‘this was the reason why Muslim soldiers of the Indian army had no qualms about going to war against the Ottoman empire and Indian Muslims never bothered about the Ottoman caliph’ (p. 222). This is a plain falsehood and raises the question whether he had heard about the Khilafat agitation, which was a bloody episode in India’s freedom struggle and the only instance when Muslims came out in support of Gandhi and his party.

This book is a feeble attempt to understand Akbar in his own time and examine his relevance in our own time. Unfortunately, the author has made the latter part a political slugfest on Narendra Modi. He admits that he has picked some episodes from Akbar’s life story and left out some others (p.xxv) which means that it is a sanitized, if not censored, version. This is a fairy-tale book on Akbar fit for indoctrinating young minds who have not developed the faculty of critical thinking. The author claims himself an Ekalavya and the Islamist historian Irfan Habib as his Dronacharya and consoles that he has not lost his thumb at the end of it. He may have retained his thumb, but certainly has lost common sense and self-pride. This book pompously describes battle stories from European wars in a bid to compare them with Mughals’ experiences and to appear erudite. Most of these stories are irrelevant and uninteresting. They seem to be selected by AI. Sharma calls his detractors ‘weekend historians’ and ‘Twitter professors. He himself fits the bill. His logic is preposterous in the case of many observations. The book declares that Rahul Gandhi comes close to Akbar in unconventional ways because ‘he has ridden bikes and ate with Dalit families’ while Modi has not (p.252-3). The book also includes a discussion on movies such as Jodhaa Akbar and TV serials depicting the Mughal emperor.

This petty political baggage of a book is not recommended.

Rating: 1 Star

The Conscience Network

Title: The Conscience Network – A Chronicle of Resistance to a Dictatorship
Author: Sugata Srinivasaraju
Publisher: Vintage, 2025 (First)
ISBN: 9780670096787
Pages: 554

If you are in the habit of judging a book by its cover, this one would look like another run-of-the-mill product on Emergency for which there is no dearth. It describes the organisation and the methods through which Indians in the US – staying there for study or employment – resisted the Emergency declared by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in India in Jun 1975 to Mar 1977. The organisation followed a path independent of Cold War leanings and was guided by nonviolent Gandhian action. It recounts a nearly forgotten story of resistance to the Emergency, its manner of construction, its philosophy and pursuance which is fascinating and a compelling read. This story is put together by a string of individuals in the USA. The role of Gandhians and Socialists and the networks they ingeniously made possible in the US to fight the Emergency have been underplayed and unrecorded and this book claims to endeavour a correction on this aspect. Sugata Srinivasaraju is an independent journalist, author and columnist who has written for nearly three decades at the intersection of politics, culture and contemporary history. In the past, he has edited newspapers and run television channels and digital news platforms. He has four other books to his credit.

The business of the 1970s Emergency is still an unfinished business in India because the Congress party, which declared the Emergency and suspended democracy in this country for 21 months, have still not owned up the culpability nor regretted it. In other words, Congress still has not accepted the mistake of Emergency. In Jan 1978, Indira Gandhi herself took the entire responsibility for all the mistakes and excesses committed, but she caveated it by saying she did what she did to save the nation. In Mar 2021, Rahul Gandhi admitted that the Emergency was a mistake, but again qualified it by saying that the Congress at no point had attempted to capture India’s institutional framework. This was a plain lie because the Emergency saw the worst corruption and capture of India’s institutions. Raju observes that it was the dynastic succession of the Congress party that prevents it from fully owning up and regretting the Emergency which should have elicited an unqualified apology in any other civilized context. In fact, the political dynasty itself was a product of the Emergency. This book does not cover the excesses committed during that dreadful period in India where tens of thousands of innocent people were imprisoned for no reason and without trial. The repressive measures adopted by the Indira regime against overseas Indians who were part of the resistance movement such as revocation of their scholarships or impounding of passports are described in good detail. The book also indicates that Nehru had also exploited this provision in the Constitution for his political expediency. Nehru imposed the Emergency in 1962 during the China invasion and did not lift it for many months even after the ceasefire. It was also misused to repress citizens for innocuous and unconnected acts after labelling them as anti-nationals (p.150).

Even though the book is fairly huge at 554 pages, it is eminently readable and a pleasant experience. The resistance movement in the US was powered by a few individuals – S R Hiremath, his wife Mavis Sigwalt, Ravi Chopra, Anand Kumar, P K Mehta and Shrikumar Poddar. The first two chapters describe their backgrounds and how they ended up in America. It also discusses the political situation in India and the US in the 1970s. Jayaprakash Narayan (hereafter JP) started a movement called Citizens for Democracy (CFD) to fight the rot in economic and social spheres in India under Indira Gandhi. The expatriates created another organisation to mirror it and named it Indians for Democracy (IFD) which consolidated support and spearheaded the resistance program in the US. Despite the contradictions in the ideologies of the IFD constituents, the organisation firmly decided to adopt the Gandhian model and were not caught up in petty streams of power games back home. Amidst all the currents and undercurrents of ideology circulating around IFD, it remained steadfast to Gandhian ideals and methods. It could build support among pacifists, Quakers and the enlightened civil society of America only because Gandhi and his non-violent methods had cast a total spell in those circles. Noted Quaker leaders like Horace Alexander who had enjoyed a warm friendship with Gandhi and Nehru, intervened on behalf of the protestors and sent fact-finding teams to India. Indira allowed herself to be interviewed by them but nothing much came out of these meetings. The western press saw JP as another Gandhi-like figure and his was another freedom movement to rid India from corruption and dictatorship. There was a Cold War angle too, as JP was fighting Indira, who was a bosom friend of Moscow.

Emergency was a heinous assault on our democracy and there is absolutely no doubt that it should have been avoided. Still, the role of the Opposition in fomenting violent protests which were encouraged to be verging on open rebellion is traditionally not examined seriously. This book also follows this paradigm. Probably if Indira Gandhi had restricted the arrests to some leaders and refrained from muzzling the media, she might’ve had a presentable case. This book describes some activities of the Opposition leaders which would make us think that they were exceeding the limits of democratic decency. JP’s exhortation of Sampoorna Kranti (total revolution) was an indirect call to arms, even though he later wriggled out of such interpretations. He has been making revolutionary utterances on a continuous basis for a year before the Emergency. In June 1974, he demanded closure of all schools and colleges in Bihar for a year. He encouraged a no-tax campaign to paralyse the government. In July 1974, he exhorted the police personnel in Bihar to be guided by their conscience rather than illegal orders from their superiors. In Oct 1974, he directed student volunteers to set up parallel, ‘revolutionary’ peoples’ governments. In the same month, he threatened to hold parallel elections in Bihar if the elected assembly was not dissolved. On June 25, 1975, he repeated the threats he had been using in Bihar in Delhi and the police scooped him out to jail on the same night. George Fernandes was a firebrand trade union leader who led a 20-day railway strike in May 1974. He asked the railway workers to realise their collective power. A 7-day strike by them would close down every thermal power plant in the country. 10-days’ strike would shut down every steel plant which would then take up to a year and considerable expenses to restart. Moreover, L N Mishra, who was the Union railway minister and a crony of Indira Gandhi, died in a bomb blast at the Samastipur railway platform in Bihar. The perpetrators were not found. In view of all these, the ethics of the Opposition protests should be re-examined by a neutral party now – at a distance of fifty years chronologically from those fateful incidents.

The book provides a good coverage of the activities of the Indians for Democracy (IFD) organisation in the US. Several times they marched to the Indian embassy or local consulates holding placards and raising slogans. Official propaganda meetings were intercepted and tough questions asked to the local or visiting dignitaries. They also organised a 200-mile walking procession to rouse awareness of India’s fall along a slippery slope to authoritarianism. With press censorship in full throttle in India, the only arena left for the counterargument to exist was the international stage, especially the US and the UK. However, the monotony and low-key of the protests turned even the ardent volunteers off. About seven months after they had begun, the program slowed down because they were only repeating the speeches and was far away from home. All of them had other regular and full-time academic and professional duties to attend to. The regime retaliated with brutal swiftness. Scholarships of several students who participated in the protests were revoked and several passports were impounded. Anand Kumar of Chicago had a tough time managing a year without financial support. When the Janata government came to power after the Emergency, his scholarship was restored with retrospective effect. The year 1976 was not like the previous year for the protestors in America. The Western press took a graver turn when the general elections scheduled for that year was indefinitely postponed. It was a kind of confirmation of dictatorship. Some Indian leaders escaped from India through adventurous means to reach the US. Their work on foreign soil are also catalogued in the book. Subramanian Swamy set up the Friends of India Society International (FISI) which had RSS links. IFD had an uneasy relationship with it due to its socialist bias, but they got on well in view of the common enemy who was browbeating both. Ram Jethmalani also escaped to the US and obtained political asylum there in 1976, becoming the first Indian to get asylum from the Indira regime.

We also read about some eminent individuals who either came in support of the Emergency or were not vocal enough in opposing it. Non-political scientists and other professionals were understandably reluctant to take the plunge which was sure to divert them away from their academic pursuits. However, the leaders of the IFD were also professionals or scientists, so there was no hard and fast rule on who could qualify for volunteering for democracy. Noted physicist S. Chandrashekhar, later a Nobel laureate, and A K Ramanujan, eminent linguist and litterateur (not to be confused with the famous mathematician) were in the University of Chicago at that time engaged in research, but they were not interested in supporting the protests. There is a chapter on T N Kaul, who was India’s ambassador to the US during the Emergency, and was personally so close to the prime minister as to address her ‘Indu’, stoutly defended the Emergency at every step as directed by Indira. But after a few years since stepping down, he changed tone and admitted that Indira was surrounded by self-seeking sycophants and democracy was indeed in danger at that time. Powerful Christian groups in the US wholeheartedly supported the Emergency and came out in vocal agreement with it when the US Congress constituted a committee under Donald Fraser. James K Matthews, Bishop of the Washington area of the United Methodist Church and Charles Reynolds, secretary of the Ludhiana Christian Medical College, took the trouble to testify before the Congressional committee to extol the Emergency, but the prudent committee did not take them seriously.

Raju has followed a non-partisan approach throughout the narrative with a distinct negative bias. He includes the arguments against a particular organisation or individual without bothering to look deep into it or attempting to verify it. However, he leaves no party untainted and in that sense, keeps a fair and neutral stand. His characterizations are stellar and deeply convincing. He claims that the police ran the country during the Emergency and each police station was an independent republic with its own set of arbitrary rules, applied differently to different people. His observations on the extreme left faction, who were called Naxals, are noteworthy. Organisations like the IPANA were Naxal-minded. They were not angry with Indira Gandhi alone for having proclaimed the Emergency; they were angry with everything connected to the freedom struggle and since India’s independence. The book sports excellent diction. Rarely do we come across books of this genre. It was a pleasure to read Raju’s turns of phrase and assimilate the fine nuances. The book was written based on personal interviews conducted during the early-2020s, but the passage of half a century has not dimmed the colour nor dulled the pungency of the narrative of the protests which was a labour of conscience.

The book is highly recommended.

Rating: 3 Star

India@100

Title: India@100 – Envisioning Tomorrow’s Economic Powerhouse
Author: Krishnamurthy Subramanian
Publisher: Rupa Publications, 2024 (First)
ISBN: 9789390260836
Pages: 497

India’s stature on international platforms post-independence was that of a pygmy because of its poor economic clout. Jawaharlal Nehru, our first prime minister, self-delusively believed that the circus he set up – called Non-Aligned Movement – would guide the world into new paths in international relations. But the plain fact was that nobody took any serious note of a block of nations which struggled even to feed its people. The stark truth in global power dynamics is that unless you are economically well off, you are nothing. At the most, a poor country can hope to be a pawn in the power play and get some crumbs off the table. After the 1991 reforms, India grew in size financially and she is perceived as such by the great powers. Trump’s additional tariffs for India’s purchase of Russian oil is an unwilling recognition of this truth. The country is on its way to become viksit (fully developed) by 2047, when it celebrates a century of political independence. The 2047 target has catalysed policy formulations at the government level and a distinct push towards that goal is clearly perceptible in the economy. This book explores the strategies India must pursue to achieve the target of 8 per cent growth in the next two decades to reach the target of a 55 trillion-dollar economy when India is at 100 in 2047. The book suggests the four pillars of macroeconomic focus on growth, inclusive growth for a large middle class, ethical wealth creation and a virtuous cycle ignited by private investment. The entire book illustrates these four concepts in good detail. Krishnamurthy V. Subramanian is an executive director of the IMF and professor at the Indian School of Business (ISB). He was the chief economic advisor to the government of India from 2018 to 2021. He was born in a Tamil family.

To be able to see the country blossom into the dawn of developed status in one’s lifetime is an unalloyed bliss for any citizen. Subramanian makes a painstaking analysis of the factors which guide this transition. Its greatest asset as the most populous country in the world is the people itself. Fortunately for us, India has entered the demographic phase in which a large share of the population is working age – between 15 and 64. India will remain in this demographic dividend zone for over two decades. In 2011, the working age population was 50.5 per cent of the overall; in 2041, it is expected to raise to 60 per cent. The author’s estimation of reaching 55 trillion dollars in 2047 looks like the height of optimism, because some reputed rating agencies approximate the size to only half of this figure. However, the author is quite persistent and fairly convinced that the country can achieve this goal if it necessarily grows the GDP at a rate of 8 per cent per year for the next two decades. India is at the position where China was in 2007. They grew at 7.7 per cent thereafter for 16 years. Given India’s demographic dividend, it has the potential to achieve similar growth rates, provided there is a supportive economic policy. Another factor which can help make the switch is that about half of India’s economy is still informal. Formalization of this sector can provide growth through productivity improvement.

The book discusses about some of the blunders of India’s socialist-era economic policy promoted by Nehru and Indira Gandhi and dismantled by P V Narasimha Rao. A relic of this socialist era is the perception that creation of wealth is somehow immoral and evil. This mindset still remains in some of the influential circles and must be shed, the sooner the better. India must also boldly jettison anachronistic ideologies about the large and pervasive role of the state as the provider of employment and producer of goods. Except for some strategically critical sectors, where the state’s role cannot be ceded to the private sector, the government needs to get out of business to enable better business. Subramanian also advises the government to adopt protectionist measures if it would help local industry even at the cost of stoking ire on the part of developed nations. Before attaining economic advancement, these same advanced countries used the same insular policies for which they shun the developing economies now. In the present day itself, when they face financial difficulties, they resort to the same tariff- and non-tariff-barriers in trade. This book was written last year in 2024, but Trump’s tariffs vindicated this prophecy. The author also calls out overzealous thrust for equity which is prevalent in social circles. While we desire an equitable society, excessive redistribution can dull incentives. In most cases, inequality of opportunity is much more objectionable than inequality of outcomes. Perfect equalisation of outcomes after the efforts have been exerted to obtain those outcomes, can reduce individual’s incentives for work, innovation and wealth creation. Inequality is not poverty; in fact, increase in inequality is most often accompanied by reduction in poverty. This book suggests that poverty alleviation through growth should be India’s central strategy. High growth rate will lead to lower debt-to-GDP ratio. So, government should borrow more to fund investments in digital, physical and human capital, where the human capital encompasses investments in healthcare and education. The directive to borrow more may run counter to established wisdom in this regard.

Subramanian was chief economic advisor of India in the Covid period and it is natural that he reminisces about it and brags a little about his achievements in that difficult and unprecedented period. India’s economic policy during the Covid 19 disruption is compared to its response to the 2008 global financial crisis. The Covid response was well-conceptualized and ab initio for the needs of the economy rather than a copy-paste of policies implemented by advanced nations. This was not so in 2008 and that was why India soon ended up in the ‘fragile five’ list by 2013. The author also advises about the Middle Income Trap which is usually encountered by rapidly expanding less-developed countries in their stride. This arises when fast-growing economies experience rising wages and struggle to sustain an economy that is based on labour-intensive manufacturing and export-led growth. However, he finds a ray of hope through which India might evade this trap. The productivity improvements driven by reforms suggest that the necessary conditions for avoiding the middle-income trap is being fulfilled in India. This is because India’s growth since the 1990s manifested more from growth in capital and productivity, with labour contributing very little. However, it may produce other problems such as an exacerbating inequality in societies and may create fault lines. The final two sections of the book are dedicated to healthcare and education that should develop a labour force which will take India to prosperity.

The author looks into every aspect of the economy and administration and suggests sweeping reforms in many sectors which would ease the way to India@100. The suggested judicial reforms skip all contentious issues regarding the appointment of judges. To clear pending cases and to ensure a 100 per cent clearance ratio of new cases, he suggests that more judges are to be appointed. The book recommends movement of professionals from private sector to middle-level government bureaucracy and vice versa. The government should simplify the regulations and allow some discretion in decision-making. Ex-ante accountability and ex-post supervision should be strengthened. The book also calls for agricultural reforms that benefits the small, marginal farmers who constitute 85 per cent of the households. The vocal minority of rich farmers in Punjab and Haryana earn most of the government’s largesse. These vested interests oppose real farm reforms. Profits of these farmers are also tax-free as agricultural income is not taxed. It is obvious that this observation was formulated in the wake of the repeal of government’s farm laws in response to the high profile agitation engineered by the rich farmers around Delhi. It is also suggested to relax restrictions on agricultural land conversion for alternate uses. Currently, these restrictions depress the value of agricultural land and pose obstacles to transitioning out of agriculture. This rule prevents other types of land to be converted to farm use. Aggressive privatisation of public sector enterprises is advised because it unlocks the potential of PSEs to create wealth.

It’s a no-brainer that private enterprise should be encouraged to the maximum to bring out the best in the economy and to reach fully developed status by 2047. The author makes some prescient observations in this regard. Private investment is the key driver that drives demand, creates capacity, increases labour productivity, introduces new technology, allows creative destruction of uncompetitive enterprises and generates jobs. India’s economic prosperity till the eighteenth century and her economic progress post-liberalization in 1991 demonstrate that the secret to sustained prosperity lies in enabling private enterprise in sectors where government has no business to be in business. A policy stance in favour of competitive markets and free enterprise – in short, pro-business – is often confused with a pro-cronyism stance. Competition will lead to creative destruction of some companies and generate more wealth for the whole sector. When creative destruction is fostered, sectors as a whole will always outperform individual companies within the sector. R&D investment is another area that needs to be strengthened. India’s R&D expenditure at 0.65 per cent of GDP is very low as compared to 2.5 – 3 per cent of advanced economies, primarily because of the disproportionately lower contribution from business sector. Government alone does the heavy lifting in this field and this should change. Manufacturing is also an essential sector India must accord priority to. Higher wages and lower uncertainty in this sector increase aggregate consumption more than service sector jobs.

Frankly speaking, this books flies over the heads of most readers who are not so familiar with the vocabulary of macroeconomics. The author uses a top class methodology of sophisticated charts and diagrams to prove the truth in his line of thought. These diagrams are too small in most cases and monochrome print has robbed some of its relevance. These look best if presented on to a big screen in full colour display. The publisher could have set up an online resource page to access these diagrams dynamically and in higher resolution so that some of the readers could follow through the argument. This book targets pragmatic administrators, visionary politicians and patriotic influencers who want to bring in change for the better. The targets Subramanian has chosen are very ambitious and there is every likelihood that they may be missed. Still, getting somewhere ahead and within a short range of the ultimate aim would itself be a tremendous achievement that will transform the lives of Indian society for the better.

The book is recommended.

Rating: 3 Star

Who is Raising Your Children?

Title: Who is Raising Your Children? – Breaking India Using Its Youth
Author: Rajiv Malhotra, Vijaya Viswanathan
Publisher: BluOne Ink, 2025 (First)
ISBN: 9789365470673
Pages: 438

India’s education system has changed itself completely within the span of a generation. ‘Spare the rod and spoil the child’ was the motto of parents and teachers while I was in school. Of course, there were some teachers who spared the rod but still inspired their students. But such students were generally having better academic credentials anyway. Overall, corporal punishment generally helped all categories of students to perform better. When the rod was taken out of the system and scolding itself became a taboo, the academic standards collapsed. To masquerade this fall, the rigour of exams was loosened and marks were granted liberally, and often undeservingly, to show a decent score when the student was unable even to read and write. This is the present condition of Indian schools. These so called ‘reforms’ occurred under the watchful supervision and sometimes funding by international organisations which had their own motives which did not often align with our national ethos. This book neatly summarizes the hidden dangers and deceptive threats the children and youth of the country faces. The situation is likened to the story of Aghasura in the Bhagavata Purana. Just as Aghasura disguised his lethal intent with an innocent and appealing appearance to lure the children into his mouth to devour them, many dark forces are currently cloaked in benign forms. Developing skills of literacy, reading and numeracy along with character development were the objects of traditional education. This has totally given way to an education that is used as a tool to raise a generation of children who are oversexualized, unemployable, angry at the prevailing structures and driven by a sense of entitlement. Rajiv Malhotra needs no introduction. Three of his books – Breaking India, The Battle for Sanskrit and Academic Hinduphobia – were reviewed earlier here (click on the title to read review). Vijaya Viswanathan is a mechanical engineer having global experience in manufacturing and finance. As a co-founder of Agasthya Gurukulam, she leads initiatives on an educative system centred on Indian heritage.

The authors identify Marxist ideology as the motive force behind all kinds of wayward experiments in the field of education. Marxism started out by targeting only the economic exploitation, then expanded to include cultural exploitation and now gender is claimed to be an institution of exploitation. For them, gender is not a biological characteristic but rather a social construct which is not fixed at birth. Incentives are liberally provided for those willing to explore or experiment with one’s own gender. It has become a factory to mass produce trans-people. The international agencies in this field are funded by powerful oligarchs like the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, George Soros’ Open Society Foundations and many Western governments. They psychologically manipulate the youth of the world. Marxists believe hegemonic social structures reproduce itself following the educational methods designed by the oppressors and strive to undermine them. They teach students to dismantle the existing power structures through dissent, activism and resistance. However, the authors do not clarify the discrepancy of why capitalist barons like Soros or Gates fund the Marxist ideology.

The trap set by this clique is primarily intended to change sex education into methods by which they can manipulate the content and influence the outcome. Traditional sex education handled issues such as sexual hygiene, abstinence, prevention of sexually transmitted diseases and prevention of unwanted pregnancies. UN’s Comprehensive Sexuality Education (CSE) coupled with Social Emotional Learning (SEL) anticipates on the other hand enjoyment and fulfilment of sexual desires in children, focus on treatment of sexually transmitted diseases rather than prevention, encourage abortion and disconnect children from cultural norms on risky sexual acts. Under the guise of diversity and inclusion, they want to introduce deviant sexual practices to children and de-criminalize paedophilia. UNESCO’s guideline is that human beings have sexual rights from birth! Organisations like International Planned Parenthood Federation are pressing the UN to modify the definition of human rights to include sexual right as a fundamental human right applicable equally to minors and even toddlers. They strongly oppose the POCSO Act in India which prescribes harsh punishment on sexual crimes involving minors. They deliver pornographic sex education through SEL and CSE programs to children as young as ten (p.114). These programs also try to encourage gender transition and abortions without informing the parents or mandating their consent.

The most damaging intervention made by woke educators is in confusing young children on gender issues. Woke social scientists declare that gender and sex are not biological fixities but only social constructs and therefore fluid. The dominant/oppressor group who has controlled society are responsible for the male/female binaries. They argue that this classification is wrong and children are taught that gender is a spectrum of maleness and femaleness with many combinative genders in between. Not only that, children are encouraged to explore the ways of behaviour of trans-people and are nudged to become one themselves. These organisations offer puberty blockers and create trauma in the lives of young people by pressuring them away from nature. Irreversible surgery to change sex are also dangled as carrots for young children, often keeping their parents in the dark. The author affirms that this is what is happening in the US at present and sooner or later it will arrive in India too. Women-only spaces like rest rooms are now being encroached upon with policies that permit men who identify as women in these areas. In sports, women have to compete with biological males who ‘identify’ as women. The author presents a comparison of China and India handling this UN-sponsored woke ideology. Jharkhand state in India is a willing partner of UN’s woke programs. They would do better if they look at Gansu province in China which is also mandated to facilitate these programs. China does not let global nexuses dictate how to run its health and educational institutions. UNESCO guidelines on CSE/SEL allow each country to tailor the guidelines to comply with their local laws. China quickly amended its child protection laws, added sixty new articles and made it impossible to exploit its children in the name of CSE/SEL. Numeracy and literacy skills are relegated as the most irrelevant in education of children and these skills are plummeting among school students. With such low basic literacy and math skills which resulted, the government should purge the education system of subjects that distract from basic learning, yet they are continuing to give priority to UN mandates. The woke ideologies undermine meritocracy, replace individual rights with identity politics, worsen divisiveness among groups and thwart academic freedom and free speech by adopting Cancel culture.

An unexpected takeaway from this book is its sharp accusation against the present government in India which is headed by a political party that is unabashedly nationalist and rightist. The authors claim that the National Education Policy (NEP 2020) was an effort to align India with Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs 2030) of the UN. Though it boasts of lofty ideals such as sustainable goals, the program is inspired by woke ideology and tries to make Indian children adhere to woke standards set by foreign institutions. The mandates and targets of SDGs 2030 are built into NEP 2020 (p.150). Moreover, NITI Aayog often employs foreign-funded NGOs as consultants to draft policies thereby outsourcing the government’s job to foreign entities (p.234). Programs like the Rashtriya Kishor Swasthya Karyakram is organized by the Health ministry and bypasses teachers to directly deliver sex education to children as part of CSE. They use mobile apps like Saathiya Salah to reach children directly circumventing parents. It also uses adolescents as peer educators for further reach which bypasses all persons of authority. Elite schools and programs follow this woke agenda and this prompts the authors to suggest declaring those educated in non-English medium as linguistically disadvantaged and a quota in jobs should be earmarked for them. The book quips that they are the oppressed and the English-educated as the oppressors, to pay the wokes back in the same coin. This book consistently urges Indians to emulate the deeds of China in resisting and fighting back the woke encroachment. China effectively strategizes proactively to protect its children, society and cultural values. On the other hand, India is scaling at a rapid pace and doing just the opposite by selling out its future generation (p.138).

The authors remind us that most major intellectual breakthroughs in history have been initiated by a small number of ultra-gifted pioneers. The obsessive focus on equity has neglected the value of gifted students. UN’s SDGs’ sole aim is to ensure that Indian children are advancing well in areas like human rights and global citizenship while literacy and math skills are deteriorating. This program intends the children to be made global citizens. However, this thrust is premature for the time being and facilitates illegal immigration to developed economies which is tolerated to an extent by people who are indoctrinated through the change in education which focussed on global citizenship. This book describes the Vedic philosophy of education as a model on which the Indian system should take root. The Vedic concepts of rtam, yajna and karma are explained in scientific terms, using the vocabulary and notions of modern science which might’ve had no resonance to the original Vedic line of thought developed several millennia ago. This is in fact a reintroduction of the original ideas borrowing or grafting on to the language of science. This exercise feels like old wine in a new bottle. Even then, there are some aspects of ancient thinking which don’t conform to modern consensus. The Vedic system’s deities are supposed to reside in other realms than space-time. In another instance, a new-born excelling in some field is suggested to be the result of a prior life’s samskaras (p.292). The author exclaims quite forcefully the need to focus urgently on the K12 (Kindergarten to 12th standard) system to arrest the rot being imported into India which is accelerating the ruin of an already failed education system for India and which will incorporate shastras and pedagogies relevant to a modern India.

The book follows a textbook-like structure with paragraph titles, bullet lists and numbered points. This becomes a drag on easy reading later on. The narrative refers to a multitude of organisations which are referred by acronyms and hence each page is filled in an alphabet soup. A large number of illustrative diagrams are included which look like salvages of a PowerPoint presentation – a number of presentations, to be precise. This would be very good if projected on to a large screen in full colour and at the same time explained by the presenter. But on a monochrome page, it looks out of place and often worthless. The authors maintain that the varna system in ancient India was based on individual talent and not by birth as in castes. So, on page 247, you’ll find a comment that ‘in India, it is the job of Kshatriyas to protect the rashtra’. If this is taken out of context, it would cause a serious allegation of casteism on the part of the authors. However, it is clearly stated elsewhere in the book that they mean the government by the term Kshatriya. The narrative is also unnecessarily elaborate and not a pleasant read. Somehow, somewhere, the authors lost their focus on external appropriation of our education system and concentrated on how a system rooted in Vedic learning is the best suited for India.

The book is recommended.

Rating: 3 Star

The Lion and the Lily

Title: The Lion and the Lily
Author: Ira Mukhoty
Publisher: Aleph, 2024 (First)
ISBN: 9788119635979
Pages: 456

The greatest contribution of Aurangzeb, the Mughal emperor, to India’s well-being was that he initiated the disintegration of the Mughal empire. Even though it managed to totter on for another 150 years after his death, its vitality was snuffed out and it served only as a punch bag for every adventurer. Close came the invasion and plunder of Nadir Shah and Ahmed Shah Durrani. These incidents devastated Delhi and impoverished the emperor. The regional Mughal governors in Hyderabad, Bengal and Awadh exploited this opportunity to the hilt and set up hereditary dynasties in these provinces. The English East India Company (EIC) was the other contender who utilized the chance to establish territorial power. The eighteenth century saw a series of wars around the globe between the colonial aspirations of Britain and France. The former lost a part of its colonial empire in American independence while France succumbed in all theatres of encounter. This sealed the fate of the French in India. Many French soldiers quickly changed sides and sold their military skill and services to native states who could remunerate them handsomely. The Nawab of Awadh was a patron of these European mercenaries. This book brings to centre stage the lives of the nawabs, begums, eunuchs and other lesser known players, in addition to the perspective provided by the involvement of certain French adventurers and soldiers. The ‘lion’ in the title refers to the Awadhi nawabs and ‘lily’ refers to the French royal banner fleur-de-lys (the lily flower) which was part of the French king’s heraldry. Two of Ira Mukhoty’s earlier books – Akbar: The Greal Mughal (read review here) and Heroines: Powerful Indian Women of Myth and History (read review here) – were reviewed here earlier.

The origins of the Awadhi nawabi is full of deception and treachery, but the author lets it pass without comment. However, she does not extend this courtesy to the Marathas or the British. Saadat Khan, who established the Awadhi line, was a cheat on the personal level and a traitor against the Mughal empire. The Mughals had successfully persuaded the Persian invader Nadir Shah to accept a measly war indemnity and return home. But Saadat Khan informed Shah of the vast treasures of emperor Muhammad Shah Rangeela and where it was hidden. Nadir Shah blew into Delhi like a tempest and killed almost 100,000 people till the city drains literally overflowed with blood of the slain. However, after appropriating the treasure, he humiliated Saadat Khan who immediately committed suicide by taking poison. The first Awadh Nawab was thus instrumental in helping Nadir Shah annihilate the very fabric of Mughal imperial authority. Saadat’s son-in-law Safdar Jung succeeded him on the throne. He paid Nadir two crore rupees to confirm his nawabi of Awadh. The helpless Mughal emperor had no other option than to accede to the invader’s command as a fait accompli. The funny part of the episode was that the name of the new nawab meant ‘Lion in war’! The next nawab, Shuja-ud-Daula, sided with the Afghan invader Ahmed Shah Durrani in his battle at Panipat against the Marathas. Such was the antecedents of the scions of Awadh and the author wants us to sympathise with them over their eventual loss of the kingdom to the British.

The book explains how the EIC consolidated their hold on power in north India by cashing in on the wrong policy decisions of the Mughals and their Awadhi vassals. Mughal emperor Shah Alam II and Shuja-ud-Daula lost the battle of Buxar to the British in 1764 who swiftly took possession of Allahabad and then Lucknow, the capital. Shuja would pay a crippling indemnity to the British to get the regions back. On his part, Shah Alam would sign away the right to collect taxes (diwani) of the provinces of Bengal, Bihar and Odisha to the Company. This was the single incident that spawned British colonial empire in India. England no longer needed to send bullion to India for trade. The most heinous part was that the nawabs sided with Britain when one of their vassals was engaged in a tussle with the British. Benares erupted in revolt against the EIC in 1781 under its governor Raja Chait Singh who was loyal to Asaf-ud-Daula. It was a forerunner of 1857 in the retributive spirit of the local troops. Asaf-ud-Daula, who followed Shuja to the throne, sent troops and money to the British. They crushed the rebellion in two months with this generous help. Even though a few loyal courtiers and the nawab had an extravagant existence with all pleasures life could offer at their disposal, the populace languished in miserable degeneracy. The author lets out some vague hints about these, but a pair of discerning eyes could easily penetrate the subterfuge and false praise heaped on the nawabs. Slavery was rampant in the province, both of the menial and sexual varieties. We read of an English architect named Anthony Polier purchasing an eight-year old girl and sending her as a ‘gift’ to a fellow European. When the girl’s father demurred, he threatened the helpless parent with the title-deed of the transaction (p.92)!

Mukhoty notes down the resurgence of Awadhi art under constant intermingling and rejuvenation from exposure to the finest European art. Jean Baptiste Gentil, who was the French Resident at Shuja’s court, wrote down his memoirs that provide us with a mirror of the high society in Awadh. He set up an art atelier and created the largest collection of art assembled by a single person in the province. British painters, starting from Telly Kettle, introduced European techniques to the local audience. It provided candour and recognisable immediacy. Painters trained in the Mughal tradition of the side profile struggled visibly with the full frontal format, the subjects often ending up with an unfortunate squint. Awadhi artists became deeply interested in light and shadow and the creation of volume and space. Mughal artists would thereafter follow the path of greater realism in their paintings. Culinary habits were refined to the highest level. Food became a matter of contestation between Mughal Delhi and nawabi Awadh. Delhi was famous for its biryani while Lucknow cultivated the pulao with infinitely many variations like gulzar, noor, koku, chameli and the like.

This review does not intend to be judgmental on the character of the nawabi aristocracy, but some points need to be mentioned, especially since the author consistently tries to downplay such unsavoury episodes if the Nawab is at fault. She is entirely hostile in the case of the English or the Maratha. An English traveller noted that Shuja was deceitful, unprincipled, bound by no laws divine or human and a tyrant in power (p.54). Even though this observation is nothing but the plain truth, the author blames the observer as being querulant. The first act of Shuja as Nawab was to abduct a beautiful Hindu Khatri woman. When a huge outcry was made, he returned her after a night in the palace (p.26). Mukhoty could have set this aside without any remark, but she stoops so low as to justify such transgressions as ‘the reaction of a boy who had once been powerless at his father’s harsh rendering of state affairs’. Was she an urdubegi (a matron who administers a harem for the pleasures of a domineering master) in a previous birth? Shuja was a licentious wretch who was fortunate to have an accommodating wife in Bahu Begum who ‘graciously’ accepted Rs. 5000 for each sexual transgression and forgave him (p.65). The author observes that she made a tidy sum of money! She became so rich – of course, by other sources as well – that she lent to the state when the need arose. The Europeans also shared the permissive ethos of the times at first. Many of them in high positions lived with Indian bibis and children from them. However, this baggage was usually shed when they returned home. William Dalrymple’s The White Mughals nicely illustrate this (read review here). Muslim governors often enslaved the children of Hindus whose families resisted his rule, emasculated the boys and then converted to Islam (p.161) like the Ottoman Janissaries. One such person, Jawahar Ali Khan, rose to the position of khwajasara (chief eunuch) of Bahu Begum and held great power in his hands. Quite naturally, such a degenerate society is bound to go downhill further. The book gives subtle hints of the elite slipping to effeminacy. The elite copied the nawab’s style and a type of male attire called the banka evolved which used kajal in the eyes and henna at the fingertips like women used to do (p.222).

Willingly or not, Awadh turned a cash cow for the British and financed all their needs. The nawabs demurred only when the British sought to control wasteful expenditure of the palace. Like a gang of robbers, both were more than willing to share the public money between themselves. It was only the ratio of split that was in contention. Asaf-ud-Daula’s tone gradually turned from one of generous largesse towards the fatherly governor general Hastings to one of wounded incredulity and finally to despair and hopelessness (p.180). Even with all this humiliation, he did not turn against them. Asaf always cozied up to the British even at the cost of self-respect. He sent 60,000 rupees along with a letter of congratulations to King George III on the king’s recovery from an illness. Out of this, half was to be paid to the king’s physician and the other was to be distributed as charity in England (p.225). He also helped the EIC by sending horses and baggage elephants in the company’s war against Tipu in the south. It is strange that the author still praises both these men! Asaf was so obsequious to the British that they viewed him with a sniggering disdain. A Britisher who was paid 1800 pounds a year with no work to do wrote to a friend in England about Asaf that he was brutal and an imbecile (p.318). The British who used Asaf for their purposes without any cover however evaluated the man as an ‘effeminate and debouched buffoon’ (p.218). But Mukhoty wants us to believe that he was ‘intelligent and full of vigour and energy’. British control of the state was total by the end of his reign. After Asaf’s death, his son Wazir Ali was initially chosen as the nawab, but the British immediately deposed him and instated his half-uncle Saadat Ali Khan who was earlier exiled to Benares. This was because he was so unpopular with the people of Lucknow, had no soldiers at his disposal and had no powerful supporters. An immense change came about in the attitude of Englishmen at this time. Earlier, EIC officials accepted the Awadhi world full of delicacy and grace with passionate enthusiasm. This changed to produce a generation of haughty men and women brash with a new confidence about their role and ‘civilizing’ mission. Evangelism also played a part in this transformation, but the author does not take this into account.

The nawabs were ardent Shias who are the followers of Ali, the Prophet’s cousin and fourth Caliph. They ostentatiously displayed Shia imagery and rituals and celebrated their festivals with great pomp. As can be expected, this became synonymous with the elite culture among nobility. Asaf built the grand monument of Bara Imambara in Lucknow to commemorate the martyrdom of Husayn, the Prophet’s grandson. This building cost 30 per cent of the annual revenue of the entire Awadh state. In addition, he spent extravagantly on overseas religious structures too. Enormous sums were expended in Iraqi cities which are holy to the Shias like Najaf and Karbala. He also paid for a canal to be dug to bring water to Najaf which is still known as the Asafiya or Hindiya Canal. Persian was admitted as the language of sophisticated poetry par excellence in the Nawab’s court. Poetry also flourished in mushairas and through courtesans. Persian phrases and idioms were self-consciously inserted into Lucknawi Urdu poetry in a process known as islah-i-zaban (correction of language). However, the society became ever more decadent with each passing year. The author ruefully admits that a great deal of Faizabad/Lucknow’s panache was built on elaborate chicanery and dissimulation.

This book is a good example of the diction that makes history books so appealing. I’m sure you will have to look up many words in the dictionary during reading as I myself had had to do. But let me assure you that the time spent on this effort is not at all wasted if you stop for a moment to ponder over the relevance and aptness of that particular word you just looked up. However, this flourish is not shared by the narrative which seems to be driven by an agenda to denigrate native Indian leaders and their actions. Mahadji Scindia, the Maratha leader who was the strongest power in India at that time, is always referred as a ‘Maratha warlord’ and nothing else. Meanwhile, Tipu Sultan of Mysore who had actually usurped power, is portrayed as a ‘warrior sultan’. This book also contains a short history of Tipu Sultan even though it is not relevant to the main topic. Is this because Mukhoty is genuinely thrilled by the antecedents of this most fiendish bigot in Indian history? Even Nadir Shah, who invaded, plundered and washed Delhi in a bloodbath, is described as ‘imposingly tall with flashing black eyes and a voice like thunder’ (p.15). This usurper is also eulogized as one who ‘staged a coup in Persia to depose the centuries-old Safavid dynasty’. But no such courtesy is ever extended to the Marathas. The author also paints all British narrative as inherently biased and hence unreliable. This is in fact an application of the cancel culture to history and is a flawed methodology. Almost all portrayals of Asaf-ud-Daula project the man as an ‘overweight, simpering fool; ridiculously pious, raunchy womanizer, effete homosexual, profligate wastrel and a miserly ruler’. This synopsis of Asaf which is borne out even by the author’s own narrative is assailed as a wilful character assassination by all the British authors who are separated not only by distance, but by time too. To counter this line of thought, she dips into French journals and diaries and reproduces the expected glorification of Awadhi nawabs and Tipu Sultan. In some instances, the author seems to be genuinely confused with some nicknames that are gained at the hands of a mute but critically appraising section of people. Emperor Muhammad Shah’s appellation of rangeela (colourful) was in fact pejorative, but Mukhoty thinks it is affectionate (p.18). This is really amusing, especially if you know why he was called rangeela, which is mentioned in some books on later Mughals.

This agenda-driven book is no better than a historical fiction. If you enjoy that genre, the book is recommended.

Rating: 2 Star

On the Origin of Time

Title: On the Origin of Time – Stephen Hawking’s Final Theory
Author: Thomas Hertog
Publisher: Penguin 2024 (First published 2023)
ISBN: 9781804991121
Pages: 313

Stephen Hawking was the face of physics for nearly three decades. His achievements in theoretical physics, especially the finding that black holes do emit radiation contrary to popular belief, was a game-changer in astrophysics. All of these in the face of a severely debilitating physical illness helped Hawking reach the level of an icon of resilience and hope. His best seller ‘A Brief History of Time’ was as legendary a work on popular science as its author was among physicists. People thought he would rest on his laurels since there was so much of it, but Hawking had other ideas. This book contains his research on the cosmos towards the end of his life long after he lost the whatever little power of muscles for electronic communication. Twenty years of the author’s conversations with Hawking are faithfully and truly woven into this narrative. The thrust of the story is on his so called final theory of the universe’s origin. Thomas Hertog is an internationally renowned cosmologist who was for many years a close collaborator of Stephen Hawking. He is currently professor of theoretical physics at the University of Leuven, where he studies the quantum nature of the big bang. He lives in Belgium.

A problem with cosmology is its inability to handle and explain the moment of origin. In spite of many theories elaborating on how ‘something came out of nothing’, they are unable to fulfil the basic criteria of a scientific theory on testability and falsifiability. Esoteric terms like quantum fluctuations of the void are thrown hither and thither, but the sad fact is that this aspect of physics – the exact point of origin – is still shrouded in mystery and conjecture, just like a religious myth. To add to the confusion and stoke the arsenal of religionists, Hawking and other writers toy with the concept of the appearance of design in the origin of the cosmos because it turned out in the future to be an ideal place for life in general and human life in particular. The book begins with the recollection of a talk with Hawking in which he commented that the universe appears ‘designed’. Most physicists believe that the universe’s delicately crafted architecture follows from an elegant mathematical principle at the core of the theory of everything. Then the universe’s apparent design would seem like a lucky accident of objective and impersonal nature. The author then contrasts the appearance of design at the root of things in physics and biology. This unnecessary exercise only serves to lure the attention of creationists and nothing more. Darwinism offers a thoroughly evolutionary understanding of the appearance of design in the living world. Physics and cosmology, on the other hand, have looked to the nature of timeless mathematical laws. Not history or evolution but timeless mathematical beauty is thought to rule at the deep bottom level of physics.

Even though the creation myth was part and parcel of the cultural milieu of every human society, the concept of a definite origin for the cosmos did not enter scientific thought till the last century. It was only when the expansion of the universe was established that scientists extrapolated it backwards in time to reach the starting point. Georges Lemaitre proposed a primeval atom which expanded to become the universe. The seed of big bang was sown then and interestingly Lemaitre was also a priest. He maintained that science and religion do not overlap. What happened to the primeval atom later is the realm of science while questions such as who created it or what went before it, is the subject matter of metaphysics and religion. Half a century later, Pope John Paul II claimed that every scientific hypothesis on the origin of the world such as the primeval atom or the big bang leaves open the problem of the beginnings of the universe. Science itself cannot resolve such a question which requires ‘revelation from god’. This remark was made in connection with the 1981 conference held in Vatican organized by the Pontifical Academy of Sciences convened to enhance the mutual understanding between science and religion. At this meeting, Hawking declared that the universe had no boundary and no definite moment of creation. Some curious facts about the universe’s expansion are also mentioned in the book which emerged recently from observations. We live in a hesitating universe, meaning the expansion rate was slow at first, but its period of hesitation ended a few billion years ago and is now expanding more rapidly. This was predicted by Lemaitre but contested by Einstein. Recent researches has proved Lemaitre right. A lot more has to be learned about the universe as well. 70 per cent of the universe consists of dark energy and 25 per cent with dark matter which do not interact with ordinary matter, which we are familiar with. Even according to the little chunk we know, it is difficult to explain strangely coincidental occurrences without resorting to concepts in quantum theory. The hot and slightly colder spots in the Cosmic Microwave Background radiation is very essential for the formation of galaxies and life. Inflationary theory states that these spots are primeval quantum fuzz, magnified and writ large across the cosmic sky.

Hertog describes the development of many hypotheses in physics that deal with cosmological concepts and the role Stephen Hawking played in developing or modifying them. Hawking was bold, adventurous and ready to do a lot of intuition-driven practice of physics. This characterized much of Hawking’s later work, which is after the publication of Brief History. The paradoxes of the life cycle of black holes and with our place in the multiverse are the two vexing and hotly debated physics puzzles of the last decades. Hawking found that black holes emit some radiation and will eventually go into a void, destroying all information that had previously entered into it. But quantum theory states that this is impossible. Hawking’s clever attempts to rid the origin theories of a singularity at the very beginning are described in detail. The no-boundary hypothesis of Hartle and Hawking are illustrated, even though it is still very complicated to comprehend. The time dimension warps into one of space in the beginning of the cosmos. In this way, the singularity at big bang is conveniently taken out of the picture, but this looks more like a metaphysical somersault. This is also an approach towards developing a clear view of quantum gravity. In short, the theory holds that ‘once upon a time, there was no time’, because the time dimension is changed into one of space. The role of an observer in a quantum experiment is very critical as sometimes the effects fail to materialize in reality if there is nobody or nothing to observe it. In a quantum universe like ours, a tangible physical reality emerges from a whole horizon of possibilities by means of a continual process of questioning and observing. Now comes Hawking’s final theory. It offers a different explanation of the assertion that the universe originated in a big bang from nothingness. He held that nothingness at the beginning is nothing like the emptiness of a vacuum, but a much more profound epistemic horizon involving no space, no time and no physical laws. The origin of time is the limit of what can be said about our past, not just the beginning of all that is. This he calls the top-down approach (p.257).

The first decade of this century was a golden period for cosmology books in which quite a good number of titles abundantly ‘infotained’ the audience. Most of them talked about the quest for a grand general theory of physics that would unify the four fundamental forces of strong and weak nuclear forces, gravity and electromagnetism. The general consensus was that string theory would one day become ripe enough to explain it all. The second decade was not so prolific after all with very few good books coming our way and this book steps into the role of updating people about the fortunes of the fabled string theory at present. It now seems that the theory has not been able to live up to the expectations. The fundamental structure of string theory remains somewhat elusive. If you were to ask a number of theorists, you are likely to get a range of different answers. String theorists have mostly had to supplant input from experiments with mathematical research. Over the years, the community has developed its own intricate checks and balances system to judge progress, baked mostly on criteria to do with mathematical consistency of the framework. Unlike the Einstein equations of general relativity or the Schrodinger or Dirac equations of quantum theory, a single agreed upon master equation that encapsulates the kernel of string theory has yet to be found. Many predictions offered by the theory are not testable in the short or medium term because of the very high energy levels required. This has put the research at a dead end. This is the impression readers get regarding the string theory.

The book is extremely unappealing to read for general and lay readers for whom completely reading this would be a test of endurance and steadfastness. I don’t use the word ‘boring’, only because I am being charitable. Several diagrams are included in the work, but they fail to enhance comprehensibility and the book lacks the ability to inform lay readers. Many chapters are highly abstract and not described with the general reader in mind. This tome is rather a tribute to Stephen Hawking who was the teacher, philosopher and mentor of the author for many years, rather than serving as a herald of new developments in the field. Even Hawking’s final theory is not very convincing and appear to be only a philosophical conjecture of possibilities rather than a snapshot of reality. It is felt that this idea many not go much further.

The book is not recommended for ordinary readers.

Rating: 2 Star

It’s All About Muhammad

Title: It’s All About Muhammad – A Biography of the World’s Most Notorious Prophet
Author: F W Burleigh
Publisher: Zenga Books, 2014 (First)
ISBN: 9780996046930
Pages: 554

As the title implies, this is an explosive book for the believer as well as non-believer but its relevance cannot be doubted. It is an unabashed criticism and the onus is now on the believers to come out refuting the claims in this book. The world is wracked by Islamist violence on an unprecedented scale in its history. This book claims that every thirty minutes or so, a murder is happening somewhere in the world committed by jihadis, of people who refuse to pronounce the first pillar of Islam – the kalima (p.12). This book was published in 2014, but its continued significance is attested by the Pahalgam terror incident in Kashmir two months ago where terrorists gunned down 26 Hindu male tourists in front of their wives for refusing to, or more probably, being ignorant of the kalima. In fact, this gory incident was a reason to read this book in order to understand why the jihadis go on such bloody rampages for the last fourteen centuries. This book asserts that Islam was imposed by violence, because it has no other way to sustain itself. This is claimed to be a biography of Prophet Muhammad compiled from original sources. It is not clear whether the author has used the Arabic versions or later translations. The author’s name, F W Burleigh, is evidently a pseudonym as no search on the Internet could extract any info on his identity (I believe the author to be a male). He claims that he had examined 20,000 pages of original Islamic texts for the research of this book. He was motivated by the 9/11 attack to delve deeper into the question of why hard-line Muslims resort to such violent measures.

His life and times are well chronicled by early Islamic writers and biographers and an extensive corpus of literature is available on this topic. It also surveys the socio-religious milieu of pre-Islamic Mecca. The town was the centrepiece of Arabian polytheism which housed the temple of moon worship by importing a human-like statue of the Nabatean moon good Hubal. This temple was without a roof and had a rectangular wall about the height of a single storey building. The walls were often breached by flash floods and the Meccans rebuilt it with a raised platform and roof and named it ‘the cube’, that is, kaba. There were people protesting against various aspects of the religion and a polytheistic apostate named Zayd ibn Amr believed in an idealized Abrahamic religion founded on belief in one true god and total submission to it. Meccans drove Zayd out of the town and he took up residence in a cave on Mount Hira. He used to come to the town at night and had discussions with Muhammad and other people who shared his interests.

Paganism is inherently tolerant. So it is with some astonishment that we read about why the Meccans drove him and his disciples away from the town. The narrowness of the new religion’s dogma was offensive to the Meccans who were traditionally tolerant of everyone’s god concept. Our protagonist ridiculed their idols and statues; he condemned each and every polytheist to the fires of hell. This was in no way acceptable to the Meccans who tolerated everything except intolerance. He performed his prayer routines in the open in front of their temple as a challenge at which the Meccans seethed in anger, but they could do nothing about it because such freedom was granted to everyone by default. Allah was one of the gods the Meccans worshipped. What was different in the new religion was its repudiation of all other deities. He branded the people of Mecca as idol worshippers whereas none of them disputed the existence of a supreme deity. They thought that the idols were only representations of higher powers and not the powers themselves. While most of his own Hashemite clan rejected him in the early stages, they supported him against any harm by other groups as a show of clan loyalty. This tribal affinity prevented the Meccans from dealing a severe personal assault. The new religion used the Meccans’ customs such as providing safe passage in specific months to good advantage even though they had little respect for the traditions. He was exploiting their openness and tolerance. The temple was open to worship for anybody to worship whatever they wished but he tolerated only his own idea of god. This was a bone of contention with the Meccans.

He and his companions were forced to leave Mecca as their lives were at risk. Yathrib (present day Medina) was the preferred destination because the Khazraj and Aws tribes which resided there were more receptive to monotheism. They had exposure to the Jewish faith who constituted nearly half of the population. Prophets guided the Jewish religion. Besides, the warring tribes in Yathrib needed a strong leader to unify them. Polytheism was weak there and no communal worship was in place. After the alliance with the Yathrib tribes was sealed, revelations were received to fight for the cause since peaceful proselytization could not make much impact. Once the group relocated to the new desert oasis, there began plunder of caravans and he claimed a fifth of the booty which made him and many of his followers rich beyond their wildest dreams. The victory at the battle of Badar gave them confidence to take on his enemies in Yathrib. All criticism was silenced; several poets who mocked him in verse were assassinated. After the base was secured, hostile tribes in Arabia were targeted. Heavenly sex or terrestrial booty was promised to the loyal fanatics who fought on his side. If they did not fall in line, the threat of perpetual hellfire was an effective clincher.

The consolidation and empowerment of his reign in Yathrib is explained in quite some detail. The string of assassinations and expulsion of Qaynuqa Jews brought about a rapid expansion of his religion and it included much of the non-Jewish population of Yathrib. The book provides a graphical description of the massacre of Qurayza Jews in which 900 men and grown up boys who surrendered were beheaded five or six at a time and dumped into a trench dug nearby for that purpose. The author claims that this was exactly what the ISIS did in Iraq and Syria and concludes that terror was a convincing missionary. Boys were killed if they had reached puberty. If there was any doubt about their age, they were checked for pubic hair. If so, they too were beheaded. Men with clothes worth preserving were forced to remove them so that some of them died naked (p.311). Their women and children were forced to watch this ordeal and were then sold into slavery. He was ferocious than any of his opponents and overwhelmed them until his very name caused fear. Though his enemies were able to inflict occasional setbacks on him, they ultimately saw the embrace of his religion as the only refuge from the pain and misery he was able to impose on them. Thus his religion grew. Proactive attacks on enemies, real or imagined, were carried out through numerous raids, forceful conversions, fundraising through plunder and spreading terror. He invited the people to convert to his religion. If they refused, he proclaimed them guilty of turning their back on truth. They were then subject to god’s punishment; attacking them was rendering divine justice (p.380). The book contains a vivid description of the brutal interrogation of the leader of Khybar Jews named Kinana regarding the places where he had hidden his wealth.

Burleigh makes a character sketch of our protagonist which has some positive and mostly negative aspects. He is alleged to possess some psychiatric problems and is claimed to have gained control of anxiety disorder by ‘elaborating and practising a complex prayer ritual marked by repetition and precise, time-consuming body movements. He is also said to be a control freak. Creating rules was fundamental to his controlling nature and he never passed up an opportunity to create laws about matters as they arose, no matter how trivial. It also went into areas he did not comprehend fully. For instance, he prohibited intercalation of the Arabian calendar which added a month every three years to keep the lunar calendar in sync with the solar cycle and seasons. With this omission, the Muslim calendar began to slip the sun by eleven days each year. This act was contrary in spirit to what Gregory XIII did nearly a millennium later. His family life is treated in a gentle manner throughout the book and a chapter titled menage-a-quatorze is reserved for a detailed analysis which is surprisingly devoid of harsh recriminations. Such allegations are reserved for the personality assessment. Very harsh terms like epileptic psychopath, deluded mass murderer, revelations were hallucinations, etc. are included in the book. At the same time, some qualities are also indicated. He is said to be a creative genius, masterful at reading his audience, gift of eloquence, astute leadership, make others die for him, ability to convince people he had the truth etc. He is also credited to have created a trans-tribal super tribe of believers.

The book is claimed to be entirely based on the original literature of the religion. If the readers find the protagonist of this biography disturbing, it is asserted to be because what is written about him in the original literature is disturbing. The lay followers of the religion are obliged to follow the protagonist’s practice and they are violent to non-believers because he was so. Burleigh declares this book an antidote to what the protagonist created and to facilitate the ‘the aggressive, relentless and unapologetic exposure of the truth about him, particularly through dramatization in film’ (p.477). The book contains several illustrations of the protagonist contrary to the dictates of the religion not to personify him in any way and also as committing or superintending violent acts. The author advocates the production of a movie depicting these events. If such a movie is ever produced, it would be the ultimate expose of the religion and is sure to produce a violent backlash all over the world. Probably, it could be distributed only in the electronic format but would spread to every corner of the globe like wild fire. The book is dedicated to Theo van Gogh, the Dutch film director who was assassinated in 2004 in Amsterdam by a Muslim who resented his film Submission, Part 1 which criticized the treatment of women in Islam.

The book is highly recommended.

Rating: 4 Star