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

Musaliar King

Title: Musaliar King – Decolonial Historiography of Malabar’s Resistance
Author: Abbas Panakkal
Publisher: Bloomsbury, 2024 (First)
ISBN: 9789356409125
Pages: 280

The 1921 Malabar riots is a blood-stained chapter in Kerala history where a genuine agitation for independence from Britain unexpectedly changed track and hijacked by jihadi elements to kill, convert and rape Hindus en masse. A lot has been told about the episode and nothing more is intended as introduction to this book's review. Suffice it to say that hard-line Islamists still try to whitewash this Hindu genocide under the garb of 'freedom struggle', 'resistance to colonialism' and 'secular struggle' (citing the few Muslims who took sides with the British and were killed by the rioters). This book is one among them. This is especially alarming as the author is an academic faculty in an institution of higher learning in the UK. This book is a plain rebuttal of known facts in favour of a jihadi agenda to rewrite history according to them. It's no wonder that recently, the UAE significantly restricted government-funded scholarships for its citizens to study at UK universities, driven by concerns over Islamic radicalization and the influence of the Muslim Brotherhood on campuses. This book is about Ali Musaliar of Tirurangadi (1862–1922) who was a religious scholar and leader of the Khilafat movement who fought against the British and was arrested and hanged. He is said to have declared an Islamic state under his kingship when the countryside lay in his hands for a few days when the British power was temporarily stopped in its tracks. Abbas Panakkal is a historian affiliated with the School of History at the University of St. Andrews in the UK. Simultaneously, he holds a position on the advisory board at the Religious Life and Belief Centre at the University of Surrey. The author aims to provide a 'decolonial narrative' that represents the struggles of Malabar.

This book claims to rely on collective memory and oral narratives of those who witnessed the struggle, quite possibly that of the fighters themselves. How objective such a hotchpotch can get is anybody's guess. It's a totally one-sided perspective as it ejects colonial documentation and history as 'contrived', 'manipulative' and 'conferring legitimacy on British efforts'. In a stroke of breath-taking disingenuity, Panakkal discounts all of the British narrative and concludes that not even a word in them can be trusted! Not content with that, he then proceeds to denigrate the memoirs penned by Indians as well which do not agree with his narrative. He accuses them of adopting a linguistic style reminiscent of the colonial administration. This is because some of them use the term 'Moplah fanatics' which irritates the author. What else would you use to denote a crowd intent on achieving martyrdom by fighting for their religion, especially since the position of Hindus in 1921 Ernad-Valluvanad areas was akin to that of Yazidis in Iraq in the 2010s against the Islamic State terrorists? In the same vein, C. Gopalan Nair's memoir is accused of supporting the British line. K. Madhavan Nair's version is alleged to be fabricated by adding 'layers of intrigue'. M. Gangadhara Menon's narrative is 'ensconced within the colonial narrative'. What he finds agreeable are the accounts made by jihadi elements and Leftist Historians.

The book is very subdued in recollecting the violent incidents of the rebellion maybe because they are too stark to gloss over. Obfuscation begins the moment he sets the objectives of the riots. He claims that the instigators laid down their lives for the cause of their land. This itself is not factually correct. The agitation's casus belli was the dethronement of the Turkish sultan who was also the Islamic caliph. Hence the agitators laid down their lives to reinstall the deposed Ottoman sultan on his throne. On the British side, Panakkal practically exonerates the provincial and central governments and casts blame on Collector Thomas and district police chief Hitchcock who are said to be behind the provocation of the events. The author uses his 'decolonial analysis' to reach this conclusion which means that official narrative is negated as fabricated and lists out the opposite as true without any evidence, or even supporting fact. For example, one Vadakke Veettil Mammad, manager of Nilambur Kovilakam, was dismissed from service and his house raided on accusation of theft of a gun and Rs. 130. Author argues that this is not true and that the landlord — who was one of the richest landed magnates in the entire country — owed him thrice the claimed sum (p. 31). The preparations of the government in assembling men and material to counter a possible riot is portrayed as a pre-planned effort to cause mayhem. The District Magistrate (Thomas)'s expedition to Tirurangadi to apprehend Ali Musaliar and his associates is claimed to have marked a watershed moment that set in motion a comprehensive military intervention (p. 39). Thomas' report is alleged to have characterized 'common utilitarian knives employed for mundane purposes' as weapons of war made in a hurry. He also claims that the police fired without warning on unarmed peaceful protesters and killed 40 of them. Again, this appears as a falsehood as the crowd had attacked and killed two British officers. The author concludes his charges with the declaration that Thomas and Hitchcock exceeded their authority and used lethal force resulting in numerous fatalities. This was an active attempt to incite unrest which was a ploy to validate their earlier warning report (p. 50). This is representative of the tone of the book.

When the author opens up a little, his ultra-religious outlook exposes itself. Before any confrontations in which government troops were likely to be killed, the rioters exhorted the Muslim soldiers to leave the field for their own safety (p. 52). Even though the author denies it, Ali Musaliar is said to have assumed kingship of the 'liberated' areas when the forces temporarily retreated. But when they regrouped and hit back with full force, Musaliar meekly surrendered. Loot and pillage are justified in this book. Rioters looted homes which the author characterizes as 'seizing funds from landlords'. Participation of Hindu Congress leaders in the early part of the agitation is arrayed as certifying to the secular nature of the struggle. The sad truth is that as the jihadis took over and started rampaging, the others backed out of the endeavour. In Malabar, the military and the police responded with a harsh and punitive stance, resorting to violent measures resulting in fatalities. Conversely, within the provincial headquarters, a more conciliatory strategy was employed, avoiding confrontations that led to human casualties. The author accuses the British of not respecting the 'human rights' of the rioters. He does not pause to examine whether the assailants respected the human rights of those they captured. Also, judgments of tribunals are claimed to be 'dictatorial and lacking humanitarian considerations'.

A striking contrast is seen in the valiant spirit of the rank and file and the leaders. Ali Musaliar and Variamkunnath Kunjahmed Haji's abject surrender to the British was humiliating for his supporters as many of them had fought till death. If Musaliar and Haji had desired to save their own skin, they were painfully mistaken. Musaliar was tried and hanged in Coimbatore Prison while Haji was summarily shot! Panakkal presents a fantastic tale that a miracle had happened inside the prison. He claims that Musaliar prayed fervently to avoid gallows and passed away in deep prayer on the morning of his day of execution (p. 85). Despite this, the authorities hanged his dead body. This is the story told to the author by the Musaliar's grandson and this yarn is admitted at face value! This is the level of research in the book. Panakkal quotes from the diary of a poet in Vengara as evidence of Muslim women's empowerment and independence in 1921. They are said to have dabbled in business and wealth management. However, this is such an obviously fraudulent take on reality that readers won't be misled. A French magazine 'Sciences et Voyages' had published a photo of Ali Musaliar and two of his accomplices on the centenary of the rebellion. One of them was claimed to be Variamkunnath Haji by a section of social media, even though their names were not divulged by the magazine. This book completely debunks this claim. It also contains several false claims on religious harmony in statements such as 'many non-Muslims participated in a shared jihad' (p. 126), even though he admits that Khilafat was a 'pan-Islamist' political campaign (p. 126). Listing two prominent Muslims opposing Tipu, he concludes that support for Mysore stemmed from shared political objective, rather than religious affiliations.

Panakkal does not appear to be much comfortable with the Khilafat Movement itself, which he claims to have no resonance with Malabari Muslims. Instead, it was introduced in Malabar through the efforts of Gandhi who in turn was influenced by North Indian Muslims. However, in another part of the book, we read about Muslims in Malabar donating money directly to the Ottoman sultan for his war effort (p. 45). So it cannot be said that Malabar was not in thrall to the Ottomans. Besides, the book describes about Sayyid Fazal Pookoya Thangal ending up in the court of Istanbul after his transportation for life from Malabar. The author argues that the Khilafat issue became a tool for the British to instigate the non-Muslim's aversion to Muslims (p. 144). He does not explain why the non-Muslims should harbour an aversion to them. The British had instituted harsh legislations like the Mappila Outrages Act 1859 and the Malabar War Knives Act 1854 to quell sectarian violence to good measure. In spite of this, there was a channel of support among them to the colonial power. A military contingent called the 77th Moplah Rifles was part of the British army till its disbandment in 1907.

There is a section on resistance to colonial aggression played out by the Mappilas right from the arrival of the Portuguese. It recounts some noted Mappila outbreaks in the nineteenth century, but is insistent that only landlords and their supporters were killed and economic reasons are attributed to the atrocities. But the fact was that all of the killed landlords were Hindus. No Muslim landlord was killed anywhere by his Hindu tenants. Besides, the author denigrates the victims by accusing them to have 'a penchant for intoxication', 'domineering and abusive nature', 'usury' and 'land encroachment upon religious institutions' as if to create the impression that they deserved to get killed! British newspapers are castigated for spreading propaganda that the rioters coveted the 'virtue of eliminating idolators and thereby securing a distinct reward in afterlife'. Thanks to the burgeoning works of ex-Muslims in social media, we now know that this is not propaganda at all and the jihadis were only trying to live up to the tenets of their religion. Rape of women, forced conversions and desecration of temples are not colonial resistance. The Moplah Outrages Act 1854 levied substantial collective fines, seized the assets of those found culpable and deportation for life. These were harsh but very effective and the bulldozer tactics we read about in North India are emulating the spirit of these prescriptions. The assassination of Connolly, district collector, finds mention in the book. Connolly was an efficient administrator but fell foul of the Mappilas with his handling of violence with an iron hand. He orchestrated the banishment of Pookoya Thangal. Connolly was killed on an evening in his bungalow's portico when he was relaxing with his wife. He was hacked to pieces in front of her eyes. As a political assassination, this is not extraordinary, but the author romanticizes the incident stressing on the 'bravery' of the murderers describing about the settings of the scene as if it was a candle-lit dinner. It reminded me of the eulogization in jihadi Palestinian media of the terrorists who shot dead 11 Israeli athletes during 1972 Munich Olympics.

The book is written in a clumsy style with heavy academic jargon. After a few pages, you feel like being in a swamp with no other way than going forward wading through the muck. The book assumes that the readers are well familiar with the causes of the conflict. It does not explain what was the spark that ignited the Khilafat agitation but claims that it was a struggle against colonialism while in fact it was only a failed effort to resuscitate the Ottoman colonialism. The book is divided into two parts, the first being the visit of Gandhi to Malabar, the setting up of Khilafat committees and the events associated with it. The second deals with resistance to the Portuguese and British from 1498 to 1900s. The research methodology lacks academic rigour and one wonders how such a loosely organized piece of mostly unverified information passed through peer review. Acts of resistance and British atrocities were collected from the author's 'field study' which seems to be a euphemism for collecting hearsay and embellished legends. Panakkal collects reports on Mappila riots from newspapers in Australia and New Zealand, but provincial and nationalist newspapers in India are omitted entirely, probably because it does not suit or support his narrative. A passage in the book refers to the Governor of Madras as ‘Lord Wellington’ (p. 107) instead of Willingdon. These are two distinct statesmen separated by a century between their lifetimes and even a silly schoolboy is not expected to falter under confusion on their names. The book quotes Left historians such as Romila Thapar and K. N. Panikker to buttress his argument that Muslim invaders such as the Mughals or Tipu Sultan were interested only in material gain. It also includes several historical falsehoods and half-truths such as the British persuaded the Raja of Cochin to renounce allegiance to Tipu (p. 161). The fact is that Tipu extracted this offer of allegiance from the raja under extreme coercion.

This book is totally unappealing for an interesting read, serves only jihadi propaganda and fails to provide a fresh outlook on the riot and hence not recommended.

Rating: 1 Star
 

Dutch Heritage in Fort Cochin, Cannanore and Quilon

Title: Dutch Heritage in Fort Cochin, Cannanore and Quilon
Author: Bauke van Der Pol
Publisher: Darpan, 2024 (First)
ISBN: 9788119355303
Pages: 138

In the colonial race for India, the British and the Dutch joined the fray at around the same time, but the latter opted out of the race two centuries later, influenced by historical movements in Europe and a splash of red in the account books. The Dutch were not able to penetrate into the interior and remained stuck in coastal streaks where they fought the British and local princes with their backs always to the sea. The Dutch had a mission to perform in Kerala in the final reckoning. They drove out the Portuguese who alienated the locals with their characteristic religious intolerance. Kochi (Cochin), Kannur (Cannanore) and Kollam (Quilon) were the three places where the Dutch had a solid presence and this book investigates their legacy at these places. Even though the place names have been indigenised a few decades back, the book still uses the colonial names throughout in the text. Bauke van Der Pol is an anthropologist and an Indo-Dutch historian. He has written about and travelled throughout India and lectured on the historical relations between the two countries. He first visited India in 1974 at the age of 22 and has interacted with backward communities in India. He has written many books on the Dutch presence and their influence in India.

Van Der Pol begins with a survey of how the Dutch ended up in India. The company known as VoC (Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie – United East India Company) was one of the first multinationals in the world and was a contemporary of the British East India Company, set up for the same purpose. Dutch history in India covers about 150 years of activity and is often mistaken for the Portuguese or the British. Being a coastal region with a rich history of trade in spices, Kerala was a major theatre of operations for the Dutch. Cochin, Cannanore and Quilon were the best kept Dutch forts in India. The Dutch conquered the Portuguese possessions in Kerala in 1663 and held sway for nearly a century. Their defeat at the hands of Marthanda Varma at Kolachel in 1741 inaugurated the beginning of the end. They were finally replaced by the British in 1795. The first agreement the VoC had struck in India was in 1604 with the Zamorin of Calicut vowing to fight their common enemy – the Portuguese. There began a colonial enterprise that was uprooted in 1795 when following Napoleon’s occupation of the Netherlands, the British took over their possessions in India. In 1825, the Treaty of London was signed and the last VoC stronghold of Chinsurah in Bengal was handed over to the British. The downfall of VoC was caused by defective bookkeeping in the Netherlands, mismanagement and corruption in Asia, growing costs of overseas administration and the Fourth English War of 1780-84. Many parts of the book are based on the letters sent home by the missionary Canter Visscher between 1717 and 1724.

Fort Cochin was the head of Dutch operations in India. The town has a variegated history. The Portuguese owned Fort Cochin from 1498 to 1663, the Dutch till 1795 and the British thereafter till India’s independence in 1947. The author remarks that what is remaining of the Dutch heritage can still be reasonably found because a lot of drawings, maps and paintings of Fort Cochin are still available in Dutch museums and archives. A striking thing to note in this context is the early colonialists’ eager initiative to re-plant the city of Amsterdam in Kerala as many street names in Fort Cochin are also found in the parent Dutch city. However, the architectural style did not seem to differ that much between the Dutch and the Portuguese. Even though he arrived almost half a century after the latter was driven out of Fort Cochin, Canter Visscher observes in 1720 that it was not always clear which houses were Portuguese or Dutch. Van Der Pol walks around Fort Cochin, visits still extant houses of the era, describes its architectural details and marvels at the still-preserved sale deeds of these properties. In addition to the old town, the author visits heritage places nearby, such as the forts at Cranganore (Kodungallur) and Chettuva. The author also comments appreciably on the slightly more tolerant form of the religion followed by the Dutch. He says that unlike the Portuguese, the Dutch chaplains did not actively convert people into Protestantism. The Catholics were forced to remove their religious idols and altarpieces to churches outside Fort Cochin after the Dutch conquest in 1663.

The book casts a glance at the innards of the society back when Dutch power was in the ascendant who rather uncharacteristically encouraged the Jewish community in Cochin to flourish by trade. It makes an analysis of the Jewish settlement and some of the persons in that community who were connected to the Dutch as confidants and middlemen in trade with locals. It was only after the arrival of the Dutch in 1663 that they developed contacts with foreign Jewish communities which ended their isolation. The author still finds some remnants of anti-Semitism and racial intolerance among the Dutch settlers. In a sale deed of 1772 of a prime real estate inside the fort, it was mentioned that the plot shall not be sold to Jews, Moors (Muslims) or heathen (Hindus), in which case the company has to approve the transaction (p.47). The population of Fort Cochin was around 2,000 by the end of the Dutch era, of which 20 per cent were slaves. Some form of discrimination based on skin colour was also rampant among the Jews as well who were split into two distinct groups such as the black and Pardesi (foreign – white) Jews. Exemplifying the marriage of two senior individuals named Gumliel Salem and Reema which had to be solemnized in a Mumbai synagogue, the author brings to light the blatant refusal of the local Pardesi synagogue to carry out the rituals because Gumliel was black. When the couple eventually returned to the Pardesi synagogue, all the women in the ladies’ gallery walked out in protest!

The author follows the same itinerary at Cannanore and Quilon as at Fort Cochin though on a reduced scale because of the scantiness of architectural evidence. He provides an interesting aside from the temple at Mavelikkara that exhibits the close association the Dutch had established with the Travancore royal family in the eighteenth century. After the battle at Kolachel, Marthanda Varma entered into a treaty with the Dutch at Mavelikkara. There is a tiered lamp in the temple at the foot of which the replicas of four VoC soldiers cast in bronze stand guard at each corner of the lamp. The soldiers in characteristic Dutch hats stand with the head humbly downwards and in their hands a gun rests on the ground with the barrel upwards, symbolizing peace. The lamp is thought to have been donated by the Dutch. Unlike the Portuguese, the Dutch had a hand in promoting knowledge about Kerala’s flora to a wide audience in Europe by commissioning a botanical compendium named Hortus Indicus Malabaricus, under the pioneering effort of Henrik van Reede, the governor. This book offers tribute to him and the native experts who took part in the endeavour. However, among the VoC personnel, van Reede was known as a maverick. His rivals complained to Dutch higher authorities that he ‘writes elaborate letters about the local plants and trees but did not know how to make Malabar profitable’. As an anthropologist, the author has close connections to the depressed classes of Kerala. He visited Cheruvathur in 1983 to live among the Pulaya caste to see how their social conditions were improved over the years and was quite impressed at the steady progress the community has made.

The book is published in hard cover format with fine, thick pages so as to feel like a collector’s item. The photographs are in colour and the paper is partially glossy making it a coffee-table book. The author notes that the roles of Indians and the Dutch have been reversed over the centuries because now the Indians are visiting the Netherlands to look for trade items. Readers can make an amusing observation regarding the racial profile of Kerala through two unrelated photographs in the book. On page 71, there is a photograph of a group of Jews who left for Israel in 1955. On page 108, a group photo of the community with whom the author stayed for some time and who belong to the Pulaya caste which was traditionally considered very backward. The curious part is that you really can’t tell the two images apart without a closer look on the attire which signify that all castes and religions in Kerala comprise of people belong to one and the same racial stock. It is worthwhile for architectural lovers to explore Fort Cochin with this book in hand as the trek would impart a lot of insight into the closely woven fabric of Indo-Dutch ties.

The book is highly recommended.

Rating: 4 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

Sati

Title: Sati – Evangelicals, Baptist Missionaries and the Changing Colonial Discourse 

Author: Meenakshi Jain
Publisher: Aryan Books, 2016 (First)
ISBN: 9788173055522
Pages: 464

On Sep 3, 1987, a young man aged 24 died in a Rajasthan hospital due to illness. On the next day, his widow, 18-year old Roop Kanwar, sat on the funeral pyre and burnt herself along with her dead husband. This caused a huge uproar in India and overseas. This was clearly a suicide but the fact that it was committed under the full glare of a large throng of people made them culpable. No cases were registered against anybody. However, by the time of the incident’s first anniversary in 1988, a stringent law had been in place and it came down heavily on a few people who glorified Kanwar and the practice. 45 people were charged for the offense which carried a prison sentence of seven years. The trial proceedings went on interminably as usual. After 17 years of deliberations, 25 were acquitted in 2004 for insufficient evidence, eight people were set free in 2024 for the same reason (after 37 years), four are still absconding and the remaining eight died in the meanwhile. This was a classic instance of overzealous legislation ruining innocent lives. Instances of widows immolating themselves on the pyres of their husbands have occurred intermittently even after the notorious 1987 Deorala incident. Despite the ban on glorification of sati, temples dedicated to sati matas exist and continue to thrive. This book is not a work on sati as such, its origins or voluntary or mandatory nature of its performance. The primary focus is on the colonial debate on sati and the role of evangelicals and Baptist missionaries in it. Sati was an exceptional act performed by a miniscule number of Hindu widows but its occurrence was exaggerated by the missionaries in the nineteenth century who were eager to Christianize and anglicize India. Meenakshi Jain is an associate professor in history at Gargi College, University of Delhi and is a former Fellow of the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library.

Jain looks at information from foreign sources regarding the practice of sati and also at the religious sanction for this weird custom. Sati is not sanctioned in ancient texts. In fact, Vedas specifically ask the widow to return to life. Even Manu Smriti, which is generally deemed to be mildly misogynist, recommends the widow to remain chaste after the death of her husband and promises a place for her in heaven for that. Sati came into being in the Puranic age, but still its occurrence was highly sporadic. The Greek historian Diadorus writes about a voluntary immolation in 316 BCE in Persia where a contingent of Indian soldiers was stationed. All observations indicated that the rite was not obligatory and ridiculed the men folk for not dissuading the women from committing it. By the early middle ages, it became more common but never universal. Up to 1000 CE, satis were rare in the Deccan and an exception in the extreme South also. However, it flourished under the Chola dynasty.

The book notices the shift in European perspective on sati after they obtained political power in India. By the late-eighteenth century, the earlier sentiments of approbation and awe in foreign accounts which mostly stressed the voluntary nature of the rite, were replaced with condemnation and demands for intervention and abolition of the custom. This may also have something to do with the work of Orientalists. By the late-eighteenth century, a long line of scholars whose work worthily assessed ancient India’s contributions which put the country a notch higher in the cultural ladder even though she was chained in political bondage. Christianity was reinventing itself in Britain at that time from the ideals of Enlightenment with bold assertions to abolish slavery and carry the religion to every corner of the world to convert the heathens. This necessitated India to be projected in a bad light which urgently required the civilizing effort of missionaries. As a consequence, the 1800s witnessed foreign accounts suddenly assuming monumental dimensions which were at odds with earlier narratives. With the advent of the Baptists, earlier sentiments of wonder and astonishment were replaced with condemnation. The sati rites were sporadic but the Baptists asserted that it was rampant.

Jain makes a diligent assessment of the social climate in Britain at the moment it donned the mantle of self-righteousness and looked down upon India. Whatever might have been their antecedents back home, English society in late-1700s India was noted for their low morality, high cost of living, gluttony and concubinage. It was as if the Europeans left their religion behind them at the Cape of Good Hope to be resumed when they returned from India. Evangelicalism in India derived much of its motive force from hostility to the French revolution. They believed that the root of the crisis in France lay in the rampant irreligion and endeavoured to prevent a similar outburst in England by a religious movement to make the lower classes religious and reverent. Cambridge University was the intellectual centre of the Evangelical Movement under Isaac Milner and Charles Simeon. Till 1813, the East India Company did not permit the missionaries to operate in India for fear of an adverse impact on its trading activities. Charles Grant, who was the commercial agent of the company in Malda, was the first British official to argue for the Christianization and Anglicization of India. Grant’s commentaries invented the reform agenda for the British and thereby provided a justification for British rule in India. He termed Indian religions – all of them – ‘false, corrupt, impure, extravagant and ridiculous’ (p.99). He also pleaded for the permanence of British rule in the country. Intellectual heavyweights in England were arrayed on the side of the missionaries. James Mill was instrumental in underpinning a theoretical background for the effort of dismantling Indian civilization. His six-volume work ‘History of British India’ made a decisive and transforming contribution to reverse the trend of admiration for the civilization of the East due to the work of Orientalists. Mill categorized the Hindu civilization the rudest and weakest state of the human mind.

The author notes that not all Orientalist writing was actuated by noble motives. Some of them translated Hindu texts to English with the intention to ‘expose those mysterious sacred nothings that had maintained their celebrity so long merely by being kept from the inspection of any’ (p.125). But old India hands and administrators refuted the missionary claim of women burning themselves on the pyres of their husbands as ‘not any more a religious rite than suicide was a part of Christianity’. The missionary effort in India was a concerted one and determined to show results. From 1793, missionaries started coming to Kolkata without valid licenses due to the encouragement Charles Grant in India and his Evangelical friends in England were providing them. Incidents of widow immolation in Bengal were embellished by Evangelicals and missionaries to gain the right of proselytization and to justify their presence and British rule in India. Missionaries falsely proclaimed that more than 10,000 widows were burnt a year in Bengal and 100,000 devotees committed ritual suicide under the wheels of Lord Jagannath’s rath at Puri. The Evangelical-missionary campaign against sati falls into two phases – the first, from 1803 to 1813 when the case was prepared and the second, from 1813 to 1829 when awesome figures were marshalled to demonstrate that it was a raging practice. The author points out that it was at this moment a pronounced anti-Brahmin sentiment became palpable in missionary writings because they were an obstacle to proselytization. The missionaries made all efforts to undermine the status of Brahmins.

This book also examines the demographic profile of women who performed sati and how could anyone voluntarily undergo immolation in public. The need to accompany her husband in death was carefully inculcated in girls’ minds so that it was not the result of a momentary impulse, but of a long-resolved determination. They conducted themselves not like mad enthusiasts but as martyrs expecting and getting respect from all assembled at the spot. However, in some cases use of psychedelic drugs is to be suspected. The British were at first agreeable to permit sati if neither coercion nor narcotics was involved and the voluntary nature of the act was convincingly established by interrogation of the widow by high officials. Brahmins constituted 34 per cent of the sati cases, Kshatriyas 14.8 per cent and Vaishyas 3.1 per cent. Almost half of the satis were in the age group of 50 or above and two-thirds 40 or above, but 5 per cent were between 11 and 20 years of age. State registration of cases of sati began in 1815. The appointment of William Bentinck as governor general in 1828 gave momentum to the campaign against sati. Bentinck had already decided on abolition even before his arrival in India. Hindu thinkers and social activists like Raja Rammohan Roy and Mrityunjaya Vidyalankar advocated for its abolition. They suggested an ascetic life for widows and remarriage was not there even in their horizon. They were also reluctant on an outright ban but in imposing harsher conditions so as to make its occurrence progressively more and more burdensome. Hindus who opposed abolition led by Radhakant Deb did not defend the legality of widow burning and opposed only the government intervention in Hindu affairs. They did not encourage sati in their own families. When the British finally decided to put down the practice, what worried them most was the backlash from Hindus as a response to British meddling in religion. Bentinck consulted 49 military officers on the effect abolition would have on their men. Most of them supported immediate action. Sati was abolished in December 1829. As it was never a commonly observed rite, there was little protest on its official prohibition.

This book does its job well. It has brought to light the ‘missionary position’ in effecting a ban on sati. It explains that what prompted them in this venture is a desire to demote Hinduism as barbarous and to get enough funding from England to gain maximum converts in India. It has also proved two points beyond doubt – that the act was voluntary in most cases and that the number of sati cases was statistically insignificant. This is an effective argument, but the fact remains that this was not ethically or morally acceptable. A huge crowd witnessing the immolation of a woman and facilitating it by pouring oil and other flammable articles on to the flame is impossible to accept as normal by any person. Sati would have had to go at any cost, but it would have been infinitely better if its demise was caused by the effort of Hindu reformers alone. This is the message sent out by this nice work which is well researched. Section B of the narrative, which is almost half of the book, is dedicated to foreign accounts of sati. It exposes the condemnation and attitude of racial superiority of the British towards their colonial subjects in India. One official remarks with scarcely hidden contempt that when he reached a place of sati, he found that the ‘coolies had dug a hole’. Here, the term ‘coolie’ refers not to the labourers but all Indians. Jain provides some references which show how the British estimated people of different provinces on their valour and sense of injustice. Bentinck notes that if sati was more prevalent in the upper provinces (present day Uttar Pradesh and parts of Bihar) from which most of the soldiers came, he would be more circumspect because the people are more bold and manly (p.409). An earlier review of the book ‘Immolating Women’ by Jorg Fisch can be read here as a related topic.

The book is highly recommended.

Rating: 4 Star

Dethroned

Title: Dethroned – Patel, Menon and the Integration of Princely India

Author: John Zubrzycki

Publisher: Juggernaut, 2023 (First)

ISBN: 9789353451691

Pages: 337

 

“My own personal wish is to abdicate and to serve Islam. I have not amassed a fortune but that does not matter as long as I can serve Islam and Pakistan. I am prepared to serve Pakistan in any capacity”. This excerpt is from a letter written by Hamidullah Khan, the Nawab (king) of Bhopal to Jinnah on Aug 2, 1947, hardly two weeks before freedom dawned on India. A cursory glance at the map would convince any political novice that the Bhopal ruler’s wish to join Pakistan was physically impossible, yet it contained a political dynamite that was sure to wreck the unity of India. There were around 565 native states in undivided India, of which only ten states came inside the geographical boundary of Pakistan which easily acceded to it with the exception of Kalat in Baluchistan. The situation in India was different. All the Muslim rulers and even some of the Hindu rulers did not want to join India for various reasons, most of them religious or selfish. The native states were too dispersed geographically and too interconnected economically with British India for having any chance ever to become truly autonomous. Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel and V P Menon achieved their integration with India in an astonishingly short time. This book tells the story of India’s native princes from the arrival of Lord Mountbatten as the viceroy in March 1947 until the abolition of the former rulers’ titles, privileges and privy purses in Dec 1971. John Zubrzycki is the author of several books on Indian royalty of the twentieth century. He majored in South Asian history and Hindi at the Australian National University and has a PhD in Indian history. He had worked in India as a diplomat and as foreign correspondent of The Australian newspaper. My review of his earlier book ‘The Last Nizam’ can be read here.

 

The author makes an analysis of how the native states were managed by the rulers. There were large states such as Hyderabad which equalled France in geographical area but most were very small and the titular rulers were practically nothing more than zamindars. Some states – such as Mysore, Travancore and Baroda – were administered better than British India, but most of the others were backward fiefs. Whatever laws existed in many princely states were a jumble of personal decrees, British Indian laws and local customs. Britain, being the paramount power, did not interfere in their administrative affairs in return for cooperation and support of the princes when they needed it. The India Office in London was the final authority on recognizing successions and determining when to hand over powers in the case of minors. The system of gun salutes tied the princes to a feudal hierarchy. Out of the 565-odd states, only 149 were privileged to have gun salutes ranging from 9 to 21. By comparison, the Viceroy was entitled to 31 gun salutes and the King Emperor 101. Personal misrule freely occurred in many states. The proclivity of the princes towards sexual perversions reached gross proportions in some cases. In the summer of 1947, four tons of paper containing correspondence between the local British resident and the political department in Delhi regarding the secret affairs of the princes were clandestinely confined to flames so as not to reach the hands of the leaders of independent India. Congress withdrew its earlier stand-offish stance in the 1938 Haripura AICC session. It declared that the Congress stood for the same political, social and economic freedom in the states as in the rest of India and considered the states as integral parts of India which cannot be separated.

 

The book includes the fabulous intrigues and machinations undertaken by the Congress, Muslim League and the British in the run up to and immediately after independence. Most white officials had no qualms to see India disintegrating into a multitude of small, independent nations. Some of them even cherished the idea, while some others came around to embrace a nationalist outlook later on. Conrad Corfield, the political secretary to the Viceroy, was of the former type and he gave the rulers the assurance that their states would become independent once the British left, as was promised earlier by the Cabinet Mission plan. Mountbatten also toyed with the concept of disintegration at first. He was having a Balkanizing plan for independent India. Eleven provinces of British India would become free along with most of the native states which would negotiate with the provinces regarding accession. Nehru was furious at this callous proposal which would forever put India’s political unification to doom. It was on May 10, 1947 that V P Menon articulated a plan to Mountbatten which eventually materialized. On May 18, Menon and Mountbatten flew to London with the plan and convinced the British cabinet. This established Menon as an irreplaceable factor in the States ministry. An interesting anecdote is told in the book that exemplifies Jinnah’s subterfuges to destabilise India after he got assurance of Pakistan. The Patiala kingdom was reluctant to join India while entertaining hopes for an independent existence. Jinnah quickly seized the opportunity and in May 1947 urged Yadavindra Singh, the ruler of Patiala, to join Pakistan and offered an array of carrots. Singh refused. Undeterred, Jinnah invited him to his residence in Delhi two days later for an informal chat where his sister Fatima ‘made excellent tea’ while Jinnah repeated his offers. Once more, the Maharaja remained unmoved, but Pakistan’s reputation for preparing excellent tea for ‘Indian guests’ (remember Abhinandan Varthaman) appears to be long established.

 

The author covers most of the contentious cases where the rulers had to be forced to see reason and fall in line. It is to be remembered that not a drop of royal blood was spilt in the process. That was why Khrushchev once remarked that ‘India liquidated the princely states without liquidating the princes’. Patel’s powerful personality, which mixed fury with charm and persuasion with coercion complemented Menon’s skills as a tactician. Most rulers held Patel in awe and esteem. Menon cleverly handled this to his advantage. Even a mere hint from him that a point of contention might have to be referred to Sardar was sufficient to bring the rulers around. Menon and Patel thus achieved their wonderful goal of creating a politically cohesive India and of extending responsible, democratically elected government to the people of the states. No longer could the ruling princes run their states like fiefdoms. Rulers surrendered all their governing powers in return for a guaranteed privy purse amounting to ten per cent of the revenue of their states in 1947. This money was tax-free and this was an important concession considering the exorbitant levels of taxation at that time. Princes were allowed to retain their palaces, personal privileges and titles. Integration yielded, in addition to territory and population, cash and investments worth almost Rs. 100 crores, half of which had come from the bonds of just one state – Gwalior. In return, the government of India committed itself to paying privy purses costing around Rs. 4.5 crores in the first year, which would shrink with each succeeding year.

 

This book is unique because of two reasons. One is that it describes how the native states acceded to Pakistan while the same process was going on in India. Fortunately for them, they had to handle only ten states out of the 565. Even then, the accession of Kalat in Baluchistan was a coercive one that totally alienated the sentiments of Baloch nationalists. Pakistan is still paying a bloody price for disregarding the wishes of Baloch people in the form of a thriving freedom movement and militancy. It is interesting to note that Pakistan too revoked the privy purses shortly after India did so. The second noteworthy feature of the book is the clear exposition of Indira Gandhi’s rationale in rescinding the privy purses. After their states were merged to the union and their powers conceded, many rulers had taken to electoral politics cashing in on their immense clout with the local populace. The former rulers had begun to unite on the political front and tried to influence electoral outcomes in many constituencies. Indira Gandhi was not someone who would acquiesce in to such encroachment on territory which she deemed sacrosanct for popular politicians. One thing led to another and with a showdown with judiciary, Indira achieved what she wanted in taking away the incomes of the former princes. Whatever may be the democratic justifications, readers feel that the abrupt cancellation of princely privileges was a breach of promise Nehru and Patel had vowed to them while merging their territories voluntarily with India.

 

While the book is an enjoyable read, it presents the most blatant one-sided and pro-Pakistan outlook coming from a Western author. The accounts of even Pakistani authors such as Ayesha Jalal are much more balanced than this one which has completely gone over the fence as far as neutral readers are concerned. Zubrzycki’s narration is a totally partisan account of atrocities as if the Muslims alone were at the receiving end. He justifies the Pakistani attack on Kashmir in 1947 that propelled its king Hari Singh into the arms of India as a justifiable outrage of Pashtun tribals at the ill-treatment of Muslims in Kashmir. He alleges that Patel sanctioned ethnic cleansing of Muslims in Alwar by the state forces. He again stoops so low as to mimic the Pakistani propaganda piece that the atrocities committed by Razakars in Hyderabad were fake and fabricated by K M Munshi, India’s agent in that state. It is as If this author was asked to prepare an account on the losses of World War II, he would come up with only German losses suffered subsequent to Allied bombings while claiming the Holocaust as ‘fake and fabricated’. This book’s handling of the situation in Jammu and Kashmir is terribly off-balance by propping up a biased overview of the alleged violence on Muslims of Kashmir by the Dogra ruler. Plain communal disturbances are portrayed as ‘anti-monarchical protests’. He accuses the minority Kashmiri Pandit community of having 78 per cent representation in state services as a valid justification of the jihadi violence on them. By the same token, we would expect that this author would mention that Muslims cornered 85 per cent of the state services in the Nizam-ruled Hyderabad, but he maintains a stoic silence on this issue. Moreover, atrocities on Hindus are just ‘sectarian violence’ for him (p.222). This book also attempts to whitewash the Bhopal Nawab’s bigoted overtures to join Pakistan with a dubious allegation that the preference of a handful of fellow princes to the Hindu Mahasabha had driven Nawab Hamidullah Khan into the folds of the Muslim League and Pakistan (p.55). This kind of an argument would come only from a hard-line Muslim League supporter and Zubrzycki’s parroting of this line only proves his incompetence and ignorance of Indian politics and society.

 

Since this book is just a Pakistani propaganda piece, it is not recommended for general readers.

 

Rating: 1 Star