Title: Aryans – The Search for a People, a Place and a Myth
Author: Charles Allen
Publisher: Hachette India, 2023 (First)
ISBN: 9789357312684
Pages: 387
The word ‘Aryan’ rose to prominence in European languages by mid-nineteenth century as denoting a race destined to rule over the others. It was virtue of the superlatives they possessed in every factor that ensured a competitive advantage in the fight for survival – such as intelligence, physique, beauty, language and organisation. This was part of a post-factual justification after the Industrial Revolution had made Western Europe prosperous and thriving on colonialism. Concepts of the unadulterated genome of the master Aryan race widely circulated leading to the growth of Nazism in its most horrific form in Germany as well as racism on a full spectrum from the very mild to eugenics in other countries. At the same time, the term ‘Aryan’ was being used in Sanskrit literature for several centuries to denote persons marked by noble demeanour and deeds. When language families were discovered by early Orientalist scholars, they clubbed Indo-European languages under the misnomer of Aryan. The desire of the British colonial regime to legitimise their rule in India was the driving force behind the colonial masters’ research pursuits into India’s religion and sacred literature. Without any credible scientific evidence to support it, the British fabricated the Aryan Invasion Theory (AIT) which postulated that the Aryans who came from central Asia had colonized India much before the British did. It also questioned Indians’ moral high ground as the original inhabitants. However, as more evidence was collected over the subsequent decades, not only a hole but a huge crater was formed in this argument. This book is a recent effort to vindicate the racially tinged fantasies of imperialist scholars trying to establish the central Asian or south Russian ancestry of Aryans and their ‘invasion’ of India. Charles Allen is the author of a number of best-selling books on India. Two of his books Ashoka and Coromandel were reviewed earlier in Aug 2014 and Dec 2021 respectively. His lasting legacy lies in a series of books about British involvement in India and the effort of early Orientalist scholars. Allen died in 2020 while the book was almost complete. It was edited by David Loyn who has authored the Introduction to this book.
Allen confesses three motives for writing this book. The first and foremost is that he was sorry at the way professional historical research has been ‘hijacked’ in India by the Hindutva movement which deny the influx of Aryans. The second is to give his opinion on how the word ‘Aryan’ became so prominent in the West as a racial indicator and the final reason is his love of archaeology. As a result, this book has a clear political intent and is a tool to influence public opinion in India possibly in view of the general elections in 2024. Can you believe that this book on a people who lived three millennia ago talks about the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) of India and Narendra Modi? The author also admits that he was greatly influenced by Marxist interpretations of history along with those of other Left-leaning historians such as Eric Hobsbawm and Christopher Hill in his student days (p.176). At the same time, he shows clear traits of white supremacism in his undisguised contempt for Indian scholars and unflinching belief that only the Western scholars understand Sanskrit texts even though it was only the Indians who regard them as sacred. He stoops so low as to abuse critics of Max Muller by calling them ‘zealots’ (p.62). To keep his exit route clear, he then accepts as true their allegations against Muller that he was employed by the colonialist English East India Company to translate Sanskrit texts for the company’s use at the exorbitant rate of GBP 4 per page (equivalent of GBP 800 today) but justifies this robbery of India with the flimsy argument that each page took weeks to produce and the entire project took 25 years to complete. The nostalgic part was that I still remember a researcher from my graduation days who took this much time to complete a project. ‘Why don’t you Indians just shut up and be thankful to the white colonialists who compiled your sacred books at the cost of your freedom?’ is the refrain that resounds silently and between the lines in the entire book.
The book offers a very fine overview on archaeological finds in the former Soviet republics in Central Asia which broadly bear the title of ‘Kurgan’ culture. The places he describes include Arkaim, Yamnaya, Ordek’s Necropolis and Hallstatt. These may be excellent for Google explorers to have a wonderful visual experience visiting these sites in cyberspace. At this point, Allen succumbs to the usual folly of armchair enthusiasts to link two concepts solely relying on how their names sound similar. The Yamnaya culture in Ukraine is examined in interesting detail showcasing the pit-grave burials characteristic to this culture. The author then irrelevantly burps out that ‘in a clear link with South Asia, Yama is also the Hindu god of death’ (p.179). This is only a pipedream as ‘Yama’ in Ukrainian only means a ‘pit’. Allen continuously uses such tricks to fool gullible readers into believing his outrageous conclusions. However, the author also points to the truth in some unrelated parts of the book as if to ease his conscience. He admits that the progress of Proto-Indo-Iranian people (the primal group which split into Aryans in India and Ariyas in Iran) has left little physical trace (p.207). It is also conceded that horse burials are totally absent in India but was widely practised in central Asia. The book cites a medieval Scottish document which recites their migration myth and concludes this as definite proof of how the Aryans migrated from Russian steppes to Scotland (p.128). Here again, words resonating similarly in Old Norse and Sanskrit are considered as enough evidence of their mythologies also being similar (p.133). The German archaeologist Friedrich Klopfleisch, who unearthed several ancient pottery from burial mounds in Jena in nineteenth century is introduced to us and then makes a strange claim that ‘Klopfleisch quite rightly believed them to be speakers of proto-Indo-European and thus ancestral Germans’ (p.143). How could he conclude like this? Can you deduce the language spoken by a person long dead, just by looking at his mummified bones and a few potsherds he used while alive? Inconsistencies similar to this one plague this text in its entirety.
A detailed narrative on the development of Aryan racial feeling in Europe and the appropriation of its supposed symbols by the Nazis and racists are found in this book. Racist thought developed in mid-nineteenth century Europe through the writings of Comte de Gobineau. He found enthusiastic admirers in Nietzsche, Richard Wagner and other thinkers. With German unification in 1871, patriotic sentiments fertilized the hope of descending from a master race (ubermenschen). Germans thought they were destined to bring in a new world order by conquering others by their racial superiority. German society was willing to absorb notions of Aryan supremacy and to suspend belief in matters of national self-image. This book proves that the four-handed Nazi symbol which is commonly confused with the auspicious Hindu symbol of Swastika is in fact ‘hakenkreuz’ (hooked cross). The hakenkreuz symbol was used in the coats of arms of many German municipalities even before theories of Aryan origins had emerged. Hitler had a personal connection to this symbol. The hakenkreuz was prominently displayed in the Lambach monastery where Hitler served as a choir boy. The symbol was engraved on a heraldic shield which was the personal seal of Theodorich Hagn, abbot of the abbey from 1856 to his death in 1872. This makes it obvious that the accursed Nazi symbol has no relation to India or Hinduism. Allen also examines how the false link between ‘Aryan’ and race came about. The word ‘Aryan’ comes from Sanskrit and Avestan where it changes to ‘Ariya’ in the latter. Both these languages give the meaning of ‘good or noble people’ or the ‘venerable ones’. Max Muller postulated that the Indo-European language was spoken by an Aryan race erroneously assuming that the speakers of similar languages were united by blood as well as tongue. But by the end of nineteenth century, consensus emerged that ‘Indo-European’ referred only to a language or group of languages rather than a people. Racist thought had far advanced in Europe by this time portraying the Aryans as a ‘tall, pale-skinned, blue-eyed, fair-haired, clever and martial race’. Muller later corrected this by clarifying that by ‘Aryan’ he meant only language and not race, but the damage had been done.
As noted earlier, this book begins with a political promise that it is a propaganda piece against Hindutva in India, which is alleged to have a xenophobic agenda and lack of respect for Western scholars specializing in Sanskrit. However, Allen confuses Hindutva with Hinduism proper and considers the religion as part of the game and hence a legitimate target for attack. He accuses that ‘intolerance of the Other and the persecution of minorities have been a feature of Indian society not just for centuries but for millennia’ (p.280). This is shocking as India was famous the world over as a safe abode of minorities facing persecution at home. The funny thing is that just four pages before, on p.276, he excitedly informs us about the excellent preservation of Parsee culture in India whereas it had crumbled in its homeland of Iran. As noted in para 3 above, this book is full of such gaping inconsistencies and glaring contradictions. More than that, he uncritically retells half-truths such as crossing the sea resulted in loss of caste and asserts that only the Paraiyar outcastes engaged in it. He is totally unaware of the robust Gujarati merchant class that flourished in East Africa and the Middle East without losing their ‘caste’. Read Chhaya Goswami’s excellent book ‘Globalization Before Its Time’ reviewed here in Dec 2020. Allen puts Swami Vivekananda in a bad light by asserting that he ‘used publicity photos to sell himself to the public’ as ‘a clean-shaven and muscular modern Guru’ (p.293). He accuses ISKCON for ‘helping bring the chauvinist and sectarian Hindutva repackaging of India’s history into the mainstream’. The chapter on ‘Holy Cows and Gurus’ is a brazen attempt to paint a black picture of all great leaders India admire and respect such as Dayanand Saraswati, Tilak, Swami Vivekananda and Aurobindo. After this tirade, the author arraigns against some Indian freedom fighters who died fighting for their motherland. Allen calls them ‘hotheads led by Tilak’s call for violent action’ and notes with smug satisfaction that ‘they were tried and hanged’. He doesn’t mention their name, but is obviously referring to Chapekar brothers who killed W. C. Rand who used vandalism and assault on Indians while working as the Plague commissioner.
The chapters on Indus Valley Civilization and its archaeological remains is a rigmarole of wrong conclusions and even plain ignorance. This book admits that John Marshall’s excavations at Mohenjo Daro were chaotic without any concern for stratification. In short, Marshall’s work was qualitatively more like tilling a farm field than archaeology. Even then he came out with a result which the author grudgingly concedes as something which ‘came as a gift from heaven to the ideologues of the nascent Hindu nationalist movement’ (p.214), because it buttressed their ‘Out of India’ and ‘No Aryan Invasion’ hypotheses. Swastikas were also found on Indus seals. Allen is also confused about what he is trying to establish and confirms at one point that ‘there may have been fighting [between Aryan invaders and original inhabitants of Indus Valley] but few today believe that Aryans put a sudden stop to the Civilization’ (p.217). While balancing the evidence offered by cultural specimens, he claims that the Daimabad Charioteer is an Indus legacy, but this area in Maharashtra was not inside the Culture’s accepted geographical range. In fact, this argument only strengthens the Out of India theory. When unable to find a plausible provenance for the famous ‘Dancing Girl’ sculpture of Indus Valley, he puts forward the silly argument that ‘they were not locally produced’ (p.222). Is he hinting that Amazon and FedEx had a pre-historic franchisee in Mohenjo Daro? Another fallacious and unsubstantiated conjecture is that the people of pre-Aryan Indus cities were lactose intolerant because ‘there is evidence that they produced ghee, which is lactose-free’ (p.230). By the same logic, a country which manufactured insulin must be full of diabetics! When DNA sequencing was done on a female skeleton found from Rakhigarhi, it ruled out any link to Central Asian genes. Allen accepts only those genetic studies done by western academics like David Reich as authentic while the strong protests against his work from Indian researchers are ignored. Based on this cherry-picking and shaky evidence, the author concludes that prior to 2200 BCE, there had been no admixing between original inhabitants and incoming Aryans whom he calls ancestral south Indians (ASI) and ancestral north Indians (ANI) respectively. Then in one instant they mixed like the flick of a switch and immediately stopped mixing thereafter till modern times due to the development of caste system. So embarrassingly naïve is Allen’s grasp of Indian society that I seriously doubt whether he has understood the concept of caste.
The author tries both sides of the argument of Aryan invasion to see which has better purchase. If he cannot find remnants of Central Asian practices in India, he is equally willing to transport Indian practices there. He then makes a pointless claim that caste system was part and parcel of the proto-Indo-European worldview and cites the two respected groups of druids and mounted knights in ancient European societies as forerunners of Brahmins and Kshatriyas. He invents another category of his own as ‘workers’ to rise the count to three and then atrociously claims that a French mythologist Georges Dumezil who lived in India in the 1920s recorded only three divisions in Indian society. The claim is that since Dumezil has said so, it must be so. Such is the level of white supremacism seen in this book. The skin tones of Aryans also do not match his narrative. Rig Veda describes god Indra as pot-bellied and ‘tawny-skinned’ (brown coloured). This is thought of as the model of a marauding bronze-age chieftain. This human figure is not white, blonde or tall as he ascribes to Aryans in the early chapters. The author also tries to improve upon the Parsee holy book Vendidad by claiming that the sequence of migrations of its early ancestors is not correct and suggests a new itinerary whose only relevance is that it agrees with his theory. Max Muller described the soma plant mentioned in Rig Veda as a creeper, but Allen thinks it is a fleshy, twig-like bush. Either Muller or Allen must be true, but not both. Maps given in the book are not effective in monochrome and the marked regions are difficult to differentiate. Altogether, the book is designed more as a wrecking ball on Hindutva than to serve any constructive purpose. Its sole aim is to debunk the Out-of-India theory that is gaining momentum. It is also an example of the folly that is produced by a scholar whose outlook is blinkered with politics.
The book is still recommended for the fine introduction to archaeological finds in Central Asia.
Rating: 2 Star
Title: Sir C P Ramaswami Aiyar – A Biography
Author: Saroja Sundararajan
Publisher: Allied Publishers, 2002 (First)
ISBN: 8177643266
Pages: 778
‘Diwan’ was the official title of the prominent minister of a king in an Indian state before all of them were folded down in the 1950s. If you ask a person from Kerala to name a Diwan he can think of, it is absolutely certain that the first or even the only name that comes to his mind will be that of Sir Chetpat Pattabhirama Ramaswami Aiyar (1877 – 1966), commonly known as Sir CP. He was well known for his keenness, intelligence and extraordinary charm. As in this book, ‘he was very intelligent and could not be hoodwinked; he was incorruptible and could not be purchased; he was superhumanly courageous and could not be blackmailed’. Sir CP founded many industries in Travancore and his visionary outlook in developing the state’s infrastructure is legendary. However, you won’t see a picture or bust of him in any public place in Kerala which has erased him from public view. He had the misfortune to cap his long association with the state with a severe calling out on the repressive measures he initiated to suppress the democratic aspirations of the people. He successfully contained a communist uprising in Punnapra-Vayalar, but then turned against the national movement too by advocating independence for Travancore when the British left. This was the proverbial last straw. An assassination attempt on his life took place, after which he resigned from his position as Diwan and left Travancore. This book sums up in around 700 pages the tumultuous life of this great scholar-intellectual who was once known to the British as ‘the cleverest man in India’. Saroja Sundararajan is a distinguished administrator and researcher from Tamil Nadu. She served as the principal of several colleges for 26 years. She has several books of a biographical nature to her credit.
This book provides a good overview of CP’s childhood, education and law study without delving into too much detail. His latter day fame as an authoritarian seems to have been moulded from his student days when he was under the control of his strict, disciplinarian father. To prevent the boy from dozing off while studying, a special lectern was made in which he had to stand all the while he was reading. However, he was mindful of serving the society. He joined the Servants of India Society run by Gokhale after graduation. A short while later, he abandoned it and returned to legal profession as per his father’s persuasion. CP joined the Indian National Congress in 1904, two years after becoming a lawyer. He attended the 1907 Surat conference and many such meetings in the following years. He drafted the Lucknow Pact of 1916 which reconciled the Congress with the Muslim League. He was one of the general secretaries of Congress along with Jawaharlal Nehru. CP associated with Annie Besant and engaged in nationalistic work letting go of a lucrative legal practice. Anyhow, it must be stressed that his social work was not full time and he found enough opportunities to engage in legal work commissioned by very prominent clients.
The author does not say so plainly, but CP was disillusioned with Congress following the ascent of Gandhi and his agitation based on mass participation which invariably ended up in violence even though professing lofty platitudes on ahimsa. Sundararajan notes that ‘by the turn of 1918, CP dissociated himself from Congress owing to various factors’ (p.55). These ‘factors’ are not clearly elucidated. It’s a puzzle that the author is reticent to disclose them even after the lapse of a hundred years. Congress had demanded immediate provincial self-rule at that time which was in stark contradiction of its resolve taken a few months back contemplating a gradual takeover. Hardening of such a nationalistic line made several eminent moderate men to leave the party. This was the time when the non-Brahmin movement was gaining momentum in Tamil Nadu. They targeted CP for being Brahmin – or rather, a successful Brahmin – and subjected him to ridicule and criticism. This bordered on intimidation and physical violence that he started carrying a gun with him in 1920. The non-Brahmin movement is not to be confused with Dalit activism. This was an association of non-Brahmin castes of Hinduism, many of them upper castes themselves, who treated the untouchables with equal or perhaps a little more contempt than the Brahmins. CP then turned to government work and was elected to the provincial legislative council in 1920. In the 1923-28 period, he was appointed the advocate general of Madras and later the Law Member of the Governor’s Executive Council. This is equivalent to a ministership in today’s Indian states. At this point, he was instrumental in clearing the Mettur and Paikara dam projects of their legal hurdles. As a kind of promotion, he was elevated to the Viceroy’s Executive Council as Law Member in 1931 which is equivalent to a union cabinet minister today. CP was a close associate and friend of Lord Willingdon when he was the Madras Governor and later as Viceroy. When India was taken out of the fiduciary gold standard and the economic problems developed, Willingdon was on the verge of resigning his post in protest. It was CP who persuaded him to stay on. Even after he left for England, Willingdon closely followed CP’s work in the press with keen interest and provided feedback occasionally. CP was transferred to the Railways and Commerce portfolio in 1932. He was the first lawyer deemed fit to fill that post. The entire British administration evaluated him as ‘the ablest man in India’.
CP had confessed that there was an autocrat in him. This autocrat had his most fulfilling incarnation as the Diwan of Travancore. This job appealed to CP’s heart who returned to it many times after temporary assignments elsewhere. However, Travancore proved to be his nemesis. Had it not been for Travancore, CP would have had a glorious career in post-independent India. CP was fiercely loyal to Maharaja Sree Chithira Thirunal and his adamant upholding of independence for Travancore as per the Maharaja’s wish cost him the goodwill of eminent statesmen who came to power in Delhi after the British left. This book presents a true picture of CP’s involvement with Travancore. Even before his elevation as Diwan, CP intervened with Viceroy Willingdon and high officials in Delhi in advancing the investiture of Chithira Thirunal by as much as ten months, ending the regency of the Maharaja’s aunt. (More stories on the palace intrigues can be obtained from Manu S. Pillai’s ‘The Ivory Throne’ reviewed in December 2019 and ‘History Liberated: The Sree Chithra Saga’ by Princess Aswathi Thirunal reviewed in July 2024). As Diwan, CP instituted many reforms in the social, political, industrial and commercial frameworks of the princely state, the most important being the Temple Entry Proclamation of 1936 permitting entry of untouchable Hindus inside temples. It was the Maharaja’s initiative as well, but some caste Hindus blockaded CP’s house in protest. His granddaughter, a baby of three years, sustained a fracture on her elbow at that time by falling into a pit in the backyard. The crowd prevented her from being taken to hospital chanting ‘let the granddaughter of untouchable CP die’ (chandalante pothi marikkatte, p.317). The child suffered a permanent deformity on the elbow which she later jokingly referred to as her ‘temple entry elbow’.
The book aptly describes the very strong antipathy of Travancore’s Christian community against CP who tried to curtail the unbridled proselytization and mass conversions in the state. Schools run by the Church received aid from the state but imparted Christian religious education to all children with an eye to ‘catch them young’. The percentage of Christians in the population of Travancore made a quantum jump from 20.6% in 1891 to 31.5% in 1931 and that of Hindus dwindled from 73.2% to 61.6% in the same interval. In 1936, the government forbade schools to be held in churches, places of worship or prayer houses. While instituting compulsory primary education, the 1945 educational reforms withdrew grant-in-aid to schools which taught religion. Churches came out strongly against it but CP stood his ground. The Temple Entry Proclamation closed the tap which supplied converts to Christianity. Piqued by the Proclamation, the Christians of Mankompu desecrated a bust of Chithira Thirunal. CP built a police station there and took strict action (p.324). The inveterate hatred of Travancore State Congress (TSC) towards CP was said to be fed by some Christian leaders in the top rung. The Church used British dignitaries also to their aid. Emily Kinnaird, an English lady and MP, freely indulged in a false but vicious propaganda against CP and Travancore itself by accusing them as anti-Christian. Questions were raised in British parliament on ‘persecution’ of Christians in Travancore. The book includes a long chapter on the liquidation of the Travancore National and Quilon Bank and the imprisonment of its Christian proprietors after a long court battle. They had attacked CP through their newspaper ‘Malayala Manorama’. The author claims that CP had no role in the bank’s unravelling and that the law had merely taken its course. But it is likely that CP was the brain behind the initial run on the bank and its eventual collapse.
Sir CP’s descent to disaster began in 1939 when public demands for responsible government became louder and more strident. Confrontations with TSC on the streets upset the tranquillity of the state. CP tried to downplay popular sentiment as roused by Christians on a communal agenda. The author also follows this line, but it seems not true. All sections of the society came out in support for the agitation. CP gagged several newspapers for reporting on the struggle or criticising him. The trait of authoritarianism was becoming clearly visible. There was also a spat with Gandhi around this time. In 1939, Gandhi advised CP to resign as Diwan as he had ‘heard disparaging remarks about his private character from reliable sources’ (p.377). CP began sounding out on the constitutional changes required in Travancore in view of India’s impending independence. Right from the beginning, he was very vocal against the British model having an executive responsible to the elected legislature. He favoured an irremovable executive with no dependence on legislature modelled on the US Constitution.
The ten months from October 1946 to July 1947 were epoch-making in Kerala history for the lightning pace at which far-reaching transformations took place. It began with the armed Punnapra-Vayalar insurrection and ended with the assassination attempt on CP’s life which injured his spirit more than the body. It all began with a communist-orchestrated militant labour movement in Alappuzha. Coir workers demanded bonus irrespective of profit of the company. CP took a pro-labour attitude and persuaded the company owners to grant four per cent bonus as deferred wages. This was before any labour leader had opened his mouth in the conciliation meeting. Having realized their demand for a song, the workers immediately asked for the end of monarchy and replacement of the Diwan. The government could not countenance such purely political demands coming from labour unions. Armed fighting took place between labour unionists and police. The disturbed areas were put under martial law and CP was made the lieutenant general of the army. The fighters in Vayalar were made to believe that they could effortlessly overwhelm the state forces whose weapons were claimed to be not loaded with ammunition! A brutal carnage then ensued and the number of people killed in the encounters is still not indisputably settled. CP felt singled out in this episode. The neighbouring Cochin state abetted in the uprising by taking no steps to prevent its soil from being used as a base for organizing subversive acts in Travancore. This was alleged to be in a bid for gaining popularity for the Cochin ruler. As independence neared, CP was further isolated from the national mainstream as he was not ready to concede paramountcy to the new regime that will be replacing British power. By April 1947, Baroda, Gwalior, Patiala, Bikaner, Jaipur, Jodhpur, Udaipur, Rewa and Cochin joined the constituent assembly, further cutting Travancore off from the tide. The tug of war continued till CP was taken out of the arena by the stroke of a would-be assassin’s sword. The author insists that the attempt on CP’s life had no relation to Travancore’s decision to finally accede to India. Sundararajan again certifies that the decision on Travancore’s status was the prerogative of the Maharaja and CP’s role in it was only advisory in nature. CP had confirmed it by saying that ‘by temperament and training, I am unfit for compromise, being autocratic and over-decisive’. However, CP was pained at his perceived abandonment by the royal family after he resigned as Diwan. The book narrates CP’s life for the next two decades, till his death in 1966. Though he worked as the vice chancellor of BHU and Annamalai universities, no worthwhile job which taxed his considerable talent in law and administration came his way.
A major shortcoming of the book is that it is written in a reporting style of what the subject said and did and not of what he thought. The author is never in touch with CP’s mind. Even though an extensive collection of his writings and speeches are meticulously maintained by the charitable foundation named after him, there is no mention of any diaries in which he recorded his most intimate thoughts. Did CP keep a diary? We may never know. He started writing a book on his ‘times’ towards the final years of his life, but it did not go anywhere. May be this constrained the author from making any analysis or review of her own rather than reproducing, and probably editing too, of what she had gathered from other sources. A touch of humour always attended his demeanour. This is natural in a person who was bandied about as a ‘Ladies’ man’ by his detractors even though the author stoutly rejects this accusation. When he was offered the post of judge early on in his legal career, CP declined saying that he ‘preferred talking nonsense for a few hours a day’ to ‘listening to nonsense every day and all day long’. Through the biography, Sundararajan also provides a broad outline of the progress of constitutional development in India under British rule. CP was closely associated with numerous reform committees in a substantial way. The book does not mention when CP was knighted and for what services he rendered. Another surprising drawback of the book is the total lack of information on CP’s private life. Even though the names of his wife and three children are mentioned, there is no chapter on how the family fared in the face of turbulent opposition engendered by CP’s official work as the Diwan. This is strange, especially from a woman author. The book includes a lot of monochrome pictures depicting various important occasions of his official life, but their reproduction is low-resolution and of poor quality. Considering their historical significance, readers can only hope that the originals are scrupulously preserved.
The book is highly recommended.
Rating: 4 Star
Title: City on Fire – A Boyhood in Aligarh
Author: Zeyad Masroor Khan
Publisher: HarperCollins India, 2023 (First)
ISBN: 9789356998247
Pages: 294
In 2017, Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman vowed to make Saudi Arabia ‘a bastion of moderate Islam’. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan retorted that ‘Islam cannot be either moderate or non-moderate. Islam can only be one thing’. Of course, he didn’t specify which one. When a terrorist attack takes place, or more commonly when jihadist propaganda is loosened on social media, we wonder why the ‘moderate’ Muslims are silent or inactive in the face of effervescence on the extremists’ part. Instead of addressing the social evils associated with the community such as polygamy, arbitrary termination of marriages at the husband’s whim, discriminatory treatment of women in distribution of family property and a host of other such issues, the so-called moderates blame others for offending the hardliners through any real or imagined action. The true fact is that notions of religious supremacy and the desire to dominate over the other religions are what make the hardliners restless, but the moderates adroitly obfuscate it and loudly play the victim card to find justifications for the physical or ideological violence exerted by the jihadists. This leads us to conclude that Erdogan is, after all, quite right in what he said. This book from Zeyad Masroor Khan is about his life in Aligarh which is marked by frequent skirmishes and riots between the Hindu and Muslim communities. Khan finds the conditions repeated in Delhi as well where he worked as a journalist. The author is a journalist, writer and documentary film-maker based in New Delhi. He has worked with national and international media companies like Reuters, Vice, Brut and Deccan Herald. This is his first book.
Surprisingly for a native, Khan is unusually circumspect and subdued in extolling the legacy of Aligarh in deciding the destiny of the subcontinent. Aligarh was the epicentre of the Pakistan Movement and the nerve centre of the seditious campaign that ended up in the partition of the country. Jinnah and Liaquat Ali Khan were carried on the shoulders of students whenever they visited the Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) which was their intellectual headquarters. Yasmin Khan notes in her book ‘The Great Partition’ that there were student leaders in AMU who openly boasted to have killed Hindus in riots (read my review of ‘The Great Partition’ here). Aligarh Muslims voted en masse for the Muslim League and thronged in support to its policies. The polling data leaves no doubt on the total support the League enjoyed. But when Partition actually came, they chose to happily stay back in India. The author says that after Partition, his grandfather ‘believed in Gandhi and wanted to stay in a secular India’. The author also comments on the violent methods used by the Pakistan supporters: ‘riots were taking place, people were butchered on the streets, trains were robbed and houses set on fire’ (p.21). With this truculent past behind their back, Zeyad Khan is acting astonished that the Hindus were not on friendly terms with them after partition. Communal riots were very common in Aligarh. The book talks about secret electric switches wired in Muslim areas for sounding emergency alarms to quickly gather people for fighting the Hindus.
This book is thoroughly hostile to Hindus and contains unmitigated hatred towards them. All Hindus are straitjacketed to be antagonistic towards Muslims. Some quotes from the book would help to uncover the fangs of venom concealed in the text: “Even the Hindus respected Ishrat Bhai for his honesty” (p.31), “Even the Hindus here are nicer than those from other neighbourhoods” (p.12, speaking about Uparkot), “During riots, Rasool’s house was attacked first, even if they acted all friendly with their Hindu neighbours” (p.32), “In my dreams, I’d see Hindus entering my home and setting it ablaze” (p.247). Muslims living among Hindus on very friendly terms were said to be mercilessly and treacherously assaulted during riots. The constant refrain of the book is that Hindus cheat. If the word ‘Hindu’ was replaced by ‘Jew’, this book would’ve been proscribed as a classic case of anti-Semitism. Beneath all these charades, the author’s real intention to play the victim card on Muslims comes out in the open. Khan is also careful to distinguish Hindus into upper caste and rich businessmen, lower caste labourers who are as poor as Muslims and Dalits (p.14). This newfound sympathy for the oppressed is just another masquerade for cutting down the tall poppy rather than upliftment of the downtrodden. Whenever a riot occurs, it is the Hindu who is on the other side, without any subtle caste demarcations.
The extraordinary effort exerted by Khan in appearing temperamentally indistinguishable from a boy who grew up in the 1990s elsewhere would’ve been appreciable had it not been used for giving respectability to his sinister and vicious narrative. His interest in comic books as a child helped to foster his faculty in handling languages. But the places to access these books were in Hindu areas and Khan narrates going about these places in trepidation that the Hindus may attack him. On the other hand, comic books were considered ‘the pinnacle of wise’ in his family. Drawing or seeing pictures is frowned upon in Islam. Practising music also infuriated some of his family members. Muslim children dutifully attended local madrassas while the author enjoyed reading comic books in Hindu areas. The comics told the story of a detective duo Ram and Rahim who intervened to save the country from aggression. Even though these books thus carried the rudiments of secularism and living in a pluralistic society, the author is anguished that “Muslims were never the central characters in any comic books. They were only the sidekicks and villains, a trend that continued in almost all the ones I read” (p.66). That’s simply because most of the Muslim children didn’t read them! In the books they actually read at madrassas, infidels were the villains. You get heroes in books who appeal to the bulk of its readers. As years go by, Khan tries his best to look and sound like a regular, mainstream school-going boy interested in Cartoon channel and video games. His discusses about a lot of cartoon characters he found attractive on TV. At times, he appeals to reason, ridiculing Muslims’ belief in djinns and spirits. He even pretends to be rational, but beneath this thin veil lurks his poisonous divisive agenda of being victimized in spite of holding all these ‘modern’ habits and tastes. He even feigns that he didn’t know how to offer namaz though he joined the hard-line Tablighi Jamaat a few years later. Khan also confesses that Osama bin Laden was a hero for him after 9/11 and dreamed of the Arab terrorist defeating the US in Afghanistan and then taking over Pakistan and India. He also dreamed that it would lead to Islam’s domination over the whole world. All this is written in a half-humorous way designed to disarm sceptics who might not read the whole book and to wriggle himself free of allegations of vituperation. A careful scrutiny will expose the vicious payload of communal hatred cloaked under the blanket of superficial humour.
Khan’s reproduction of communal unrest in Aligarh is deviously and shamelessly partisan. It serves only to bolster the Left/Islamist propaganda that Muslims are scared to live in India. Such an argument strengthens only the anti-national narrative. Mindless exaggeration oozes out of assertions like “all people in Muslim neighbourhoods lived in anticipation of the bad times that were always round the corner”. Communal tension is said to be a part of existence for Muslims around which the lives of everyone were moulded. This book narrates fine details of violence in which Muslims got killed or injured. These are so one-sided and quoting abuses verbatim that they appear to be insinuations for taking revenge. Aligarh has a history of communal rioting going back several centuries but for the author it mysteriously starts only in 1984 following the build-up of the Ayodhya temple movement. The narrative maliciously and cleverly omits the Rushdie ‘Satanic Verses’ and Shah Bano agitations in which Muslims went on the rampage. At one point, the author is forced to admit that Hindus also were killed in the riots but he rues that they were “fewer in numbers than the Muslims” and makes a sneering comment that “these were small sacrifices to achieve larger goals” (p.172). All the violent scenes portrayed in the book appear to be concocted fantasies and they always take place ‘a few feet away from a police station’ where the policemen ignored appeals for help. On the other hand, he proudly describes how BJP leaders were killed in retaliation (p.180) who were suspected to be behind attacks on Muslims. Khan notes some curious characteristics of AMU professors. Most of them have an ancestral connection to nawabs, zamindars or rich families. Only a few have risen from underprivileged backgrounds. Most are anti-student and part of regional lobbies. Occasionally, there were professors who became goons themselves and carried country-made guns in their pockets (p.188). This confirms Yasmin Khan’s observations referred to in Para 2 above.
It is astonishing that the author maintains his sentiment of hate for most of the narrative. He has packed that much malice in this book. Many a times the readers vainly hope that the verbs and adjectives are being used in half-jest, but it’s not so. Like a guided missile evading and going around obstacles to home in on the target, Khan is very focussed and totally dedicated to deliver his communal payload even though sometimes he acts like a rationalist or a leftist. Any Muslim reading this book will naturally feel pain and get offended. This is quite expected as the story is carefully crafted to produce this effect. Only the last five pages of the book are free from spite. In fact, this portion which tells about the author’s long walks in Aligarh after abandoning his job in Delhi in the aftermath of Covid, is the only saving grace. Then the author observes Hindus living alongside Muslims – as if for the first time – and realizes that they too belong to the Homo sapiens species. Like a flash of lightning suddenly illuminating a dark landscape, his bigoted mind escapes its shackles for a brief moment to realize that ‘forgiveness, coexistence, compassion, empathy and respect’ are the characters which are required to be instilled in every person for a harmonious communal life in India. At this instant, the author acknowledges workers everywhere in the world for giving him hope through their resilience and courage. This looks like a weak strategic ploy to appear leftist rather than borne from any genuine conviction or empathy.
In the beginning of the book, Khan records that ‘slight exaggeration is an inextricable part of Aligarh’s culture. If somebody from Aligarh tells you a story, take it with a grain of salt’ (p.4). Readers are advised to keep this confession in mind while reading through the author’s communally prejudiced rant. However, the exaggeration in this book is not at all slight and you require a full chest of salt to make it palatable. The author has a western audience in mind, possibly of the NGO variety, while telling his story. Usual tropes of foreign authors in India such as pot-holed roads, open drains, nightly power outages, stench from drains and garbage accumulated in streets are mentioned many times for effect even though not exactly suited or even relevant in the context.
This book is a piece of Islamist propaganda and it’s astonishing why HarperCollins chose to publish it. The book is not at all recommended.
Some other books which features Aligarh in a prominent way and were reviewed earlier here are
a) Aligarh’s First Generation by David Lelyveld (read review here)
b) Separatism among Indian Muslims by Francis Robinson (read review here)
c) The Great Partition by Yasmin Khan (read review here)
Rating: 1 Star
