Shattered Lands

Title: Shattered Lands – Five Partitions and the Making of Modern Asia
Author: Sam Dalrymple
Publisher: Fourth Estate, 2025 (First)
ISBN: 9789369894628
Pages: 520

Hindu nationalists flaunt the map of an undivided India - Akhand Bharat - that existed in the ancient period where Indian culture prospered and illuminated the culturally benighted frontier lands. This territory usually consisted of the modern nations of Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and of course, India too. This diagram is only a plot of the cultural spread of India, but critics accuse it to be evidence of hegemonic designs on the part of Hindu nationalists quite forgetting that this map is or were not a political one. India’s soft power united this varied landscape rather than a central administration, bureaucracy or military. In truth, all the people who look at the map know in their hearts that such a political union never existed in the past and most likely would not come into being in the future. At this point, it may appear as something out of the blue to learn that such a political union, or an approximation to it, really existed till 1937 which was divided five time and the final partition occurred as late as 1971 to make the map that we see today. At that time, Afghanistan still did not belong to India, but Burma, South Yemen, Oman, the UAE, Bahrain, Qatar and Kuwait did. This book tells the story of five partitions of the British Indian Empire that most people don’t know about – apart from the partition of India in 1947 and that of Pakistan in 1971 (to make room for Bangladesh). Sam Dalrymple is the son of William Dalrymple, but the biographic note on the book curiously omit this information. Instead, it goes on with a lengthy introduction such as he was a Delhi-raised Scottish historian and award-winning film maker. This is his first book. Even though Sam does not flaunt his pedigree, he follows his father in spirit and exhibits an anti-Hindu and anti-Indian bias which is a shade darker than William’s. This generalisation is a sweeping one that does not include his latest book, ‘The Golden Road’.

The author starts with debunking the urban legend that the Great Wall of China was the only man-made structure visible from outer space. It is not, he asserts, but adds that the India-Pakistan border is, especially at night. A wall of separation, which didn’t exist a few decades before, came up overnight and has become a noted feature of the earth, as proof that one’s nationality need not be of one’s conscious choice. Till 1928, a vast swathe of Asia, including India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Burma, Nepal, Bhutan, Yemen, Oman, the UAE, Qatar, Bahrain and Kuwait, were bound together under a single imperial banner known officially as the Indian Empire or as the Raj. Its people used the Indian Rupee and were issued passports stamped ‘Indian Empire’. All the protectorates in Arabia were legally part of India under the Interpretation Act of 1889. The list of Indian princely states even opened alphabetically with Abu Dhabi. The British were determined not to let the Arab territory administered by an independent Indian nation. As a result, they separated the Arab states on Apr 1, 1947, just four months before independence. Dalrymple claims that it was India’s greatest lost opportunity, willingly giving up the combined oil wealth of Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain and the UAE. The sheikhs were some of the poorest rulers because oil industry was still in its infancy and they were not entitled to any gun salutes. However, the era was not only that of partition but of integration too. Over 550 princely states vanished from the map through the pioneering efforts of V.P. Menon and Sardar Patel. India had increased by almost two-thirds and Pakistan’s landmass doubled. There is no other revolution in history that ended so many monarchies in so short a span of time and without liquidating the monarchs.

The book consistently exhibits an anti-Hindu bias which sometimes spill over to anti-India hatred. Dalrymple alleges that Hindu nationalism was a key driving force in the earlier partitions separating Burma and Arabia (p.7) on the flimsy assumption that these regions do not belong to the Akhand Bharat imagined by them. This seems not to be true as a few pages later (p.18), he informs that Simon commissioners found Rangoon restive with a strong demand to separate from India. In fact, just before Simon reached there, he wrote to his mother that ‘Burma is not really India at all’. Even Gandhi was for separation because in 1927 he categorically stated that ‘I have no doubt in my mind that Burma cannot form part of India under Swaraj’ (p.21). The second Round Table Conference, which included Gandhi, decided to separate Burma on Apr 1, 1937. A prominent section of the Burmese society wanted to stay with India. A Buddhist monk affectionately called Mahatma Ottama opposed Burmese separation. He became the president of the Hindu Maha Sabha in 1935. This was the first time a Buddhist ever held that position. However, anti-Indian riots in Burma in 1930 and afterwards killed hundreds. The author further claims that the decision to separate Burma was not taken with any long-term planning. The government overlooked the fact that 15 percent of India’s rice had come from Burma which was blocked by Japanese occupation in World War II. Famine spread in Bengal and the government stood watching in heartless indifference. Millions died of starvation but the British government was not providing any relief (p.111). The author assigns only partial responsibility to them as the provincial government was run by Indians from 1937 onwards. Censorship prevented any news of it coming out. At the end of two years after the famine began, the death toll touched two million. The book shows how the British put paid to any chance of making India grander. A few days after Burma was separated, the decision to free Aden and other Arabian states were taken. The aim was that Indians would not be allowed to run the Persian Gulf in the event of independence. Perhaps the British had subconsciously felt in 1937 that India’s freedom was not far away.

Sam Dalrymple’s abomination of Hindu organisations which spills over into a dislike of India as a whole, is incomprehensible as he is a permanent resident of Delhi and Indians form the bulk of his readership. As such, a very jaundiced version of the events leading to and arising out of the Partition is given in the book which offers nothing new except the anti-India tirades. In 1946, the Muslim League obtained 87 percent of the Muslim vote on the issue of Pakistan’s creation. It was a referendum for Pakistan and Indian Muslims eagerly came out to support creating a Muslim nation by dividing India. Ironically, the most fervent support had come from Muslims in the provinces which stayed in India. However, these Muslims did not migrate to Pakistan when that county was formed, but continued their residence in India. The author's clear anti-Hindu prejudice comes out in the open in reports on Partition-related violence. He virtually claims that Hindus started the violence on Direct Action Day in Kolkata. On the other side, looters raiding Hindu shops were said to be ‘stocking up before the feared second famine’ (p.151). He accuses the RSS of training young men in Lahore in ‘using bombs and pistols’ (p.154). This is alleged to have prompted Jinnah to expand the Muslim League National Guards a hundredfold for the defence of Muslims. Even the religious violence is portrayed as simple excesses by Hindu organisations. He repeats some incidents of Muslims saving their Hindu neighbours during riots in East and West Pakistan while the brutality of violence is the prime focus when India is concerned. In Hyderabad, the author dismisses the Razakars’ brutal anti-Hindu violence as exaggerations (p.265) while conjuring up instances of conversion of Muslim women after Hyderabad’s forced annexation to India. He sources this outrageous accusation only from the book written by Abdul Ghafoor Noorani. Even Pakistan’s invasion of Kashmir in Oct 1947 is portrayed as a ‘reaction’ to the massacre of Muslims in Jammu. He even makes out that had Pakistan did not hesitate to move in support of the Lashkar invaders, Indian army would not have been able to push them back. All of this is typical Pakistani propaganda regurgitated by a British author for consumption by an unsuspecting Indian public!

In addition to having a dig at Indian nationalism every now and then, Dalrymple surreptitiously nurtures Naga separatism in the tribal areas of India’s northeast. He coins phrases like ‘unresolved questions of nationality in the Indo-Burmese border lands’ as a result of the latter’s separation from India in 1937. He claims that ‘Nagas felt betrayed’ by the British decision to split into two states. There’s even a map of ‘Greater Nagaland’ comprising regions of Manipur, Assam, Arunachal and Burma (p.328). It is to be feared that this Delhi-domiciled Scot may become a leech extracting lifeblood out of India. His remarks on the disturbed post-partition religious atmosphere are not honest but specious claims like ‘no truth or reconciliation mission has ever tried to address any of the deep-seated traumas of the fifth of the world’s population whose lives are daily informed by these great tragedies (p.428). This requires one to be intellectually truthful. Accept that Muslim invaders have carried out countless atrocities in India, then recognise it as evil and try to reconcile the modern world with lessons learned from the past. Instead, the secular liberals deny them outright or claim that these were beneficial to Indians. Such a road will take you nowhere. The book also provides some interesting facts about the Indian community in Arabia. The Sultan of Oman made Kanak Khimji, a Gujarati merchant, a sheikh of the new ‘Bania’ tribe. He was the first Hindu sheikh.

This book is a hodgepodge of Left-Islamist calumnies against Hindu nationalism which on closer inspection is a scapegoat to mask its real intent to go for India's jugular. There is no doubt that if this book was published in Pakistan, Sam Dalrymple would have been feted with the prestigious Nishan-e-Pakistan. Instead, as of now, the naive Indian society subsidizes this insidious piece of one-sided research. Sardar Patel is portrayed as a villain who helped the RSS kill Muslims while serving as the Home Minister. He accuses that Patel ordered the release of criminals and justifying the violence. V.P. Menon is termed as ‘indentured-labourer-turned civil servant’. On the other hand, he worships Nehru and rehabilitates the Junagadh Nawab who loved dogs better than his begums and was corrupt to the core. This is alleged to be false and made up by India because the Nawab chose to accede to Pakistan even though his country was Hindu-majority and shared no land border with Pakistan. Make no mistake about it – The author’s writing style is as pleasant as his father’s and he is sure to attract more and more gullible Indians as his fans. That’s the saddest part. This book is hence a dollop of poison coated with honey. The book makes a prescient observation about the world that the last decade has witnessed the decline of globalization, the strengthening of borders and the resurgence of nationalism across the world.

The book is recommended only to those readers who can see through its charming shell at the malicious intent lurking at the core.

Rating: 1 Star