Ashoka – Portrait of a Philosopher King

Title: Ashoka – Portrait of a Philosopher King
Author: Patrick Olivelle
Publisher: HarperCollins India, 2023 (First)
ISBN: 9789356993228
Pages: 356

This book is the first in a series called ‘Indian Lives’ which will be a collection of prominent personalities which will illuminate the rich, complex and contested history of the subcontinent. Ashoka stands out among all the kings and emperors of the world who held sway over the people over several millennia. He is made known to us by the edicts he carved in prominent rock faces and polished pillars spread out in his empire in which he exhorted his subjects to follow dharma meticulously and to lead a morally pure life following his example. Through these inscriptions, he offered religious freedom for all the diverse sects subject only to the contention that they respect other faiths which may differ from their ideology. This was a glowing model for later religions which was unthinkable in medieval Europe or even in modern Middle East where no opposition to the prevailing dogma would be encouraged. Also, Ashoka was the lone king in world history who was strong enough to say ‘I’m sorry’ and had had a distinctive moral philosophy which he sought to imbibe on his people. The Ashokan inscriptions containing 4614 words was the most studied piece of secular ancient Indian writing. This was tough work as the writing system did not separate words with blank spaces or punctuations. Patrick Olivelle is a Sri Lankan scholar who is currently professor at the University of Texas at Austin. He is the author of about thirty books on Indology and ancient Sanskrit literature.

Olivelle makes a short analysis of the salient points related to the country, its polity and Ashoka himself. The emperor used the name Piyadasi (Prakrit for priyadarshi, dear to behold) and the honorific Devanampiya (beloved of the gods) to refer to himself on the edicts; the name ‘Ashoka’ was first obtained from later Buddhist hagiographies, but the minor rock edicts in Nittur, Udegolam and Maski in Karnataka mentions the name ‘Ashoka’ (without sorrow) as well as ‘devanampiya’. The pillars on which later edicts were engraved were incredibly well polished. This superb quality of polish achieved for pillars and their capitals is intriguing because it was not repeated later. Ashoka intended the edicts only to preach morality is evident from the fact that one central aspect of the state that is hardly mentioned in Ashoka’s inscriptions is the economy. No mention is made even of revenue officers without whom taxes could not have been collected. Though a Sri Lankan, the author was educated and is working in western academia and appears more loyally inclined to western ideals than a native American or European. Without any corroborative evidence, the author credits Greek influence in moulding Ashoka’s administrative apparatus. He suggests familiarity to Greek customs and education brought on by the entourage of Greek princesses brought as wives of Ashoka’s father and grandfather Chandragupta Maurya as the reason for the expansive and Universalist vision of Ashoka’s moral philosophy.

The book makes an elucidation of the edicts and how it helped to promote literacy and fellow-feeling in the empire of Ashoka. Standardization of language (Ashokan Prakrit) and Brahmi script across most of the empire helped spread literacy across the country. Local dialects were spoken at various provinces and in the case of Karnataka, some form of Dravidian language was spoken, but the inscriptions were in Prakrit except in Afghanistan where Greek and Aramaic were also inscribed. The language, script and literacy gave a strong foundation to the new imagined community that he was trying to build in which he was the father and the people were children. Ashoka was more in contact with neighbours from the Northwest than from the South. He refers to his southern neighbours anonymously using ethnic or geographical names, but in the case of western Hellenistic regions, he refers to the kings by their exact names, suggesting better diplomatic contacts. The fourteen major rock edicts were located close to large towns at the borders of the empire, minor edicts are found at some distance from human habitations like hills or boulders, which were possibly pilgrimage sites. The pillar edicts are placed in the heartland of the empire. The author appears to be such a Hellenophile that whether it is the inscriptional techniques, construction of edict-bearing stone pillars or even the script itself, he credits the Greeks or Persians with it. For the pillars, he even suggests Egypt as a source only because Ashoka had sent a diplomatic mission to Alexandria. It seems like he does not want to ascribe originality of any kind to ancient India.

Ashoka extends great respect to all heterodox sects and to Brahmins in particular. In almost every rock edict, he exhorts others to honour them as a class. This flies in the face of left historians’ portrayal of Brahmins who were claimed to be working against the Buddhist system. Moreover, Ashoka is silent on the four-fold division (chaturvarna). He seems either not to have been aware of it or not to have thought it to be significant. The very term ‘varna’ or any of the names of the three varnas other than Brahmin are completely absent in Ashoka’s vocabulary. Even Brahmins are mentioned in the context of religious organisations and not as a social or demographic group. This contrasts with the author’s antipathy to Brahmins in his statement that ‘displacement of Brahmins from their privileged position within the social and political hierarchy was clearly one of the major consequences of Ashokan reforms’ (p.263). Further, Brahmins are always contrasted not to the other three varnas, but to wandering ascetics or Sramanas (p.57). This observation simply illustrates that the varna system was not internalized by the society. Olivelle suspects that the varna system was fabricated by later Brahmins and it was most likely aspirational and prescriptive, rather than descriptive. Non-Sanskrit inscriptions before the second century CE does not talk about varnas. The book also indicates a weakness of Ashokan dharma that might have contributed to its downfall after the patron’s demise. While Ashoka was downgrading the domestic religious rites, Brahminical texts like Apastamba’s dharmasutra and gruhyasutras which were penned at around this time were encouraging them. It served as an extension of Vedic ritual forms and Brahmin expertise into the realm of popular ceremonial that had previously lain beyond their purview. The book also includes a vitriolic attack by Buddhist monks made against Brahmins in the Anguttara Nikaya comparing them to dogs using filthy metaphors (p.242-3). Obviously, the antagonism existed on the Buddhist side too.

This book takes some effort to understand the personality of Ashoka from his inscriptions since we do not have any other source to do so. Ashoka was a penitent, but not a pacifist. We see traces of his veiled threat to use force in his message to the forest people within his territories. He never forsakes capital punishment but allowed only a reprieve of three days for the convict to reflect on his life and to give gifts as part of dharma. Ashoka never said he became a vegetarian. Pillar edict V states that ‘whereas hundreds of thousands of animals were slaughtered in the royal kitchen, now only three are killed per day’. Obviously, this will be for the king! But the author quotes a phrase ‘Saka parthiva’ of Sanskrit grammarian Patanjali and gives the meaning as ‘vegetarian king’ after slightly modifying it to ‘saka bhoji parthiva’, which is unintended in the original. However, this is absolutely stretching things a bit too far. Saka parthiva can also mean Saka king. In variance to accepted wisdom, Olivelle does not think Ashoka was an avid follower of Buddhism after the ‘initial years of conversion’. He argues that Buddhism was widespread in India even before Ashoka became a lay disciple and began vigorously supporting it. After the early years, his interest shifted to a personalized concept of dharma rather than Buddhist religion itself. He uses it as a non-sectarian religious and moral concept. Ashoka does not mention any of the central doctrinal tenets of Buddhism anywhere in his edicts. The other ideas of ahimsa and doing good to others are to be found in the repertoire of all religious sects. The author then analyses the concept of Ashokan dharma. The word ‘dharma’ was coined by Rig Vedic poets. There are no Indo-European cognates for this term in any language. Upanishads handle this only marginally. Ashoka was in no small measure responsible for dharma assuming the centrality it did in Indian history.

Olivelle does not stop to find whether Ashoka had turned puritan in his prescriptions and pronouncements on dharma. Traces of coercion in Ashoka’s methods to spread his moral philosophy are also to be doubted. Minor Rock Edict I states that before the time Ashoka turned a lay disciple, men in Jambudvipa were unmingled with gods and they were made to mingle with them by Ashoka’s striving (p.45). Within a few years of becoming an upasaka, Ashoka issues a reading list for Buddhist monks and nuns to practice dharma better. In the schism edict, he virtually threatens any monk or nun who causes dissension in the Sangha with banishment. He forbade popular festivals for the merrymaking it entailed and frowned upon even domestic ceremonies as trivial and frivolous.

Part 1 of the book examines Ashoka’s role as a ruler of the land, composer of the moral lessons and builder of the finely polished pillars. Parts 2 and 3 deal with Ashoka as a lay disciple of Buddhism and his maturing to a moral philosopher respectively and Part 4 examines his character as an ecumenist. The author is a scholar of Sanskrit beyond doubt, but readers occasionally have some discomfort on his interpretation of words used in the inscriptions. He possibly misinterprets ‘janapada’ in edicts as rural countryside (p.35) which can also mean a republic. In the section on Mauryan state, he deems ‘rajuka’ officers to be assigned to rural districts. It is debatable whether an ancient kingdom would have rural development in their radar. There can be a possible error in his interpretation of Ashoka’s Lumbini inscription in which he makes the village of Lumbini tax-free and ‘to have a one-eighth portion’. Quoting another author Harry Fawk, the author surmises that this refers to one-eighth portion of Buddha’s remains are to be interred there (p.111). But this may more likely to be a cess on some merchandise in a nearby trading post so as to form an income stream for the village. Having read the entire book, readers are mildly surprised that the author has never considered for a moment the possibility that the entire edicts might be a politician’s hyperbole on how the empire is, and should be, run? Quite plausibly, this can be the ancient equivalent of the grand manifestos put out by political parties during election time in India. The book compiles the essentials of Ashokan dharma which is condensed into: few evil acts, many good deeds, compassion, gift-giving, truthfulness and purity of heart. The emperor was also tolerant. He permitted all religious sects under the overarching title of Pashandas to reside anywhere they chose and to carry out their sermonizing with moderation. He also visited them without discrimination, offered gifts and paid homages.

This book includes a foreword by Ramachandra Guha, the general editor of the ‘Indian Lives’ series, but looks lacklustre considering it is the first step in a supposedly great journey. Olivelle also tries unsuccessfully to project modern social constructs to Ashokan rule. He believes that Ashoka wanted to create ‘a community of people to socially bind them together’ in his empire. This is said to be similar to the idea of civil religion proposed by Rousseau to create unification of communities that form a nation and suggests that Ashoka’s obsession with dharma was a manifestation of this urge. This exemplifies the conclusion that the author is not much aware of how an ancient pagan polity worked in practice. Olivelle’s comparison of Ashoka to the much later Mughal emperor Akbar and India’s first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru as the reincarnations of Ashoka in their ecumenism (p.274) is simply outrageous as well as ridiculous. This assertion only proves that the author belongs to the clique of historians who enjoyed the run of the place in modern Indian historiography in the post-independence period.

The book is recommended.

Rating: 2 Star

My Father’s Brain

Title: My Father’s Brain – Life in the Shadow of Alzheimer’s
Author: Sandeep Jauhar
Publisher: Penguin Viking, 2023 (First)
ISBN: 9780670097913
Pages: 238

The mind is the single organ that makes an individual. Located in the brain – or you can take it to be the brain itself – it runs the software that animates a person. Without it, he turns into a vegetative state. Alzheimer’s disease is the most dreaded illness that afflicts this vital organ. An affected person loses memory first and then bodily functions in a gradually degenerating spiral from which no cure has been found yet. And it is fairly commonplace too, as evidenced by the increasing life expectancy all over the world. By the middle of this century, 100 million people would be affected by this malady all over the world, trailing only to heart disease and cancer. The resulting condition called dementia is actually more feared than cancer. In fact, it is deemed more terrible than death itself. This book presents a first-hand experience of an Indian medical doctor settled in the US, when his scientist father developed the disease and died around seven years after its detection. It is the painful story of the irreversible descent to death, punctuated by several episodes of strife and an undignified existence. An unhappy trait of the disease is that a patient can continue indefinitely on provision of nourishment intravenously even long after he has lost the ability even to sit up straight. Sandeep Jauhar is a cardiologist of Indian origin settled in the US. He is the author of many acclaimed books on medical topics. He writes regularly for the opinion section of the New York Times.

Being a physician himself, the author understood the problems his father was facing right from pathology even though the knowledge helped very little in giving care to a person who was losing the moorings that tied him to family and society. Jauhar provides an easily comprehensible description of what was happening in the brain when Alzheimer’s takes over. The hippocampus and its associated structures responsible for processing short- and long-term memories are often the first structures damaged in Alzheimer’s which is why they often cannot remember recent events like what they ate for lunch though they may retain memories from childhood or early adulthood. As the disease worsens, memory is completely obliterated and the person enters a state of perpetual present and unable to remember anything that can relate them to a family member or intimate friend. Apart from loss of memory, it leads one incapable of normal thought or to feel empathy to others. Alzheimer’s unravels the brain almost exactly in the reverse order as it develops from birth. Initially, patients can no longer walk unaided. Then they cannot sit up without assistance. Next they lose the ability to smile. Finally, they cannot even hold up their own heads. The author also presents a gruesome side effect of the symptoms. Amygdala, which is responsible for the processing of emotions, is only a few millimetres away from the hippocampus. Disease in the latter quickly travels to the former. So, often amnesia coexists with emotional outbursts out of proportion to the events that triggered them. Hence, lies and deception may be a shortcut to navigating such fraught moments. Anyway, they cannot remember what was said a few minutes earlier. The author discouraged this option at first, but slowly saw the logic and fell in line with his other siblings and caregivers.

The book presents a short primer on development of the awareness of old-age dementia as a physical process. It describes the studies of Alois Alzheimer in the early decades of the last century. He found that senile plaques of the beta-amyloid protein were getting deposited in brain tissues. The disease was first described in a middle-aged patient and it was thought it differed from normal, senile dementia. This outlook was changed by the 1970s and both were proved to be one and the same disease. Writing from the US, Jauhar observes it to be the fourth most fatal disease among elderly Americans. Former President Ronald Reagan was also a victim of it whose cognitive difficulties began to be evident in the last few years of his presidency. Dementia remains the only chronic and widespread medical scourge for which there are no effective treatments. What the patient gets today has changed little from what Alzheimer was able to offer his patients in 1901.

Having a close relative with Alzheimer’s disease is an excruciating experience, probably more for the caregivers than the patient himself. This is made all the more worse if the offspring have their own reasons in slackening care for their parents. This includes dwindling time, growing responsibilities at work, social commitment or perhaps insufficient inclination too. Presence of hallucinations or delusions in the patient increases the risk of disability, institutionalization and death. As the disease spreads to more areas of the brain such as hypothalamus, they will lose the sense of hot and cold and may wear woollen cloths in summer leading to other complications like dehydration. Even though the disease cannot be cured, the author suggests some methods by which its onset can be delayed. Higher social interactions such as relationships, environment and family support may lessen the impact of dementia. Studies show that people who were widowed experienced mental decline that was three times faster than that of similar people who had not lost a spouse. Getting enough sleep, engaging in social and cognitive activities that stimulate the brain, avoiding smoking and heavy drinking and minimizing stress also would help. But this sounds like the recipe for a healthy living and not much more. It shows the helplessness of the medical establishment in tackling the malady. Jauhar also briefly pauses to reflect on the legal and ethical aspects of terminating the miserable lives of demented persons. In Scotland in the year 2003, a man was acquitted with only a mild censure for smothering his demented wife with a pillow. She was 85 and they were married for 55 years.

The deterioration of the author’s father rivets the attention of the readers and brings to the foreground the stress of his three children to cope with the situation. He was a renowned botanist specialising in better-yielding varieties of wheat. He was a professor who published numerous papers on plant cytogenetics. Apart from the brain, there were no other physical illnesses for this 79-year old man. The portrayal of the shrinking brain and its manifestations in the degeneration of imagination, perceptions, ambitions and expectations haunt the readers. Within minutes or even less, his mood will swing from rage to resignation and even joy. His ability to forget, which is actually his disability to remember, was a curse as well as a blessing, because he will immediately forget whatever nonsense was said to placate him. The high cost of healthcare and assisted living is another factor that stands out in the narrative. Two of his sons were specialist medical practitioners yet even they struggled to meet the expenses.

This work is not to be taken as a medical primer on the disease. Its primary aim is to present the affected family’s concerns and anguish. The book clearly captures the strain in relationships between the siblings and their father as the disease progressed towards the end. It seems the in-laws were the first to back out of the rigour. This is ameliorated to some extent in the American setting in which parents lived separately from their children. The brothers and their sister often quibbled about how to proceed in caring for their father. To add to the woes, their mother developed Parkinson’s disease and died some years before his death. The atmosphere becomes poignant when the final days arrived which is very touching for those who have already lost one or both of their parents. The dilemma became all the more painful when one of them wanted to end the suffering by withdrawal or medication. In the end, the saga came to a sad but merciful end when death was assisted by withdrawal of fluids while administering short doses of morphine.

And, readers feel that one of their close relatives has died.

The book is highly recommended.

Rating: 4 Star

The Golden Road

Title: The Golden Road – How Ancient India Transformed the World
Author: William Dalrymple
Publisher: Bloomsbury, 2024 (First)
ISBN: 9781408864418
Pages: 482

William Dalrymple has become an Indian writer by now, living near Delhi and almost all his books related to Indian themes and interests. Each of his books lays before us one as yet unseen tapestry of Indian life that is noted for the richness of its warps and wefts tied to a syncretistic culture and firmly rooted in the popular mind. This book presents a refreshing change from others in the author’s oeuvre. No fewer than eight books in that eminent collection were based on an Islamic setting or theme. ‘The City of Djinns’ which showcased life in Delhi could as well have been penned about Baghdad or Samarkand – so completely was the Hindu element filtered out of the narrative like a noise-cancelling earphone cuts out background noise. This book examines how ancient India transformed the world before the Islamic occupation began in the tenth century or so. It is heartening for Indian readers to witness the change in which that ‘noise’ is now transformed into the ‘signal’. It aims to highlight India’s often forgotten position as a crucial economic fulcrum and civilizational engine, at the heart of the ancient and early-medieval worlds and as one of the main motors of global trade and cultural transmission in early world history, fully on a par with and equal to China. A sphere of influence – called Indosphere by the author – was created in Asia where its religion, art, music, dance, textiles, technology, astronomy, math, medicine, mythology, language and literature reigned supreme. This coveted position was achieved not by conquest, but instead by sheer cultural allure and sophistication. That’s why Xuanzang, the Chinese scholar, traveller and translator in seventh century CE, remarked: “people of distant places and with diverse customs generally designate the land they most admire as India”. The book covers three stages of the spread of Indosphere – towards China in the form of Buddhist theology, towards Southeast Asia as commerce, architecture and theology and finally to the Middle East and then to Europe in the form of scientific and mathematical wisdom after Islam’s conquest of these regions.

Indian cultural radiance to China is marked by the accounts of Buddhist monks who came to India in search of unadulterated Buddhist texts written in Sanskrit, the sacred language of Mahayana Buddhism. By the first century BCE, great Buddhist monasteries were very wealthy. They worked and exported cotton and operated mines for mineral trade. They lent money at interest to merchant guilds to support themselves who in turn patronized the viharas like no other. As the paintings in Ajanta caves show, India was already a cosmopolitan and surprisingly urban society full of traders from all over the known world. Outside Europe and parts of the erstwhile Roman empire, India was the place where most Roman coins were unearthed. When Xuanzang entered India at Jalalabad, he remarked that he was entering a holy land, ‘the five Indias made up of more than seventy kingdoms’. But for all its political fragmentation, the idea of India as a single cultural, sacral and geographical unit was still clearly understood from the very earliest times (p.21). The author tells the story of Xuanzang’s sixteen-year trek to India which achieved its aim of transporting a treasure of valuable information on the liturgy of Buddhism which also earned the monk an exalted status at the Tang court. The alliance of him and Empress Wu Zetian transformed Buddhism into the Chinese state religion and having a great sway in the court. Never again would India have such influence at the heart of the Chinese world. Immediately on his footsteps came another monk Yijing in 671 CE. He notes that fifty Chinese monks were studying at Nalanda. Regular translation of authentic Sanskrit texts into Chinese was carried out at the prestigious university. A great maritime Buddhist empire of Srivijaya had prospered at this time in Sumatra based on naval contacts from the shores of Bengal.

Dalrymple notes a subtle shift in Indian maritime trade from Roman empire to Southeast Asia around the fifth century CE. He claims that instead of China, India was the greatest trading partner of Rome. Sea travel was the fastest, safest and most economical way to move people and goods in the pre-modern world. Land travel was risky due to brigandage and inhospitable terrain. The intervening Persian empire was often at war with the Romans, adding to the difficulty in caravan trade. He declares that the term ‘Silk Road’ was coined only in the nineteenth century and did not have such a great provenance in the ancient world as it is portrayed nowadays. This book envisages fervent interaction with Rome after the Battle of Actium in which it conquered Egypt and Cleopatra committed suicide. Many ports sprang up along Red Sea on the Egyptian coast. Roman painters and sculptors also sailed along with the traders and travelled to Kushan kingdoms in the northwest of India. This facilitated mixing of Roman artistic ideas with Indian themes. Dalrymple assigns the origin of Gandhara style sculpture to these Roman artists which is quite in variance to traditional consensus which credits the Bactrian Greeks – who were the descendants of Alexander’s entourage – for the creation of this splendid hybrid art culture. The switchover from West to East for trade probably began with the sacking of Rome and Persian trade blockade of Byzantium in the sixth century CE. Volumes dropped, profits plummeted and Indian traders refocussed to Southeast Asia. Islamic conquests in the seventh century further disrupted trade with Egypt for another two centuries.

While Buddhism was thriving in China, a harmonious blend of it along with Hinduism was finding the ground fertile in Southeast Asia. In the seventh century CE, under the rule of Mahendravarman Pallava and his son Narasimhavarman, trade with Southeast Asia and Suvarnabhumi (Indonesia) burgeoned. Works of the court poet and playwright Dandin began to be read throughout the Indosphere. Indian epics and books began to be read, copied and recited. Indian plays and dances were performed to Indian music. Reliefs of Ramayana and Mahabharata began to be carved on temple walls in Southeast Asia. Free mixing of Hinduism and Buddhism is a striking feature of the region from the fifth century CE (p.181). People learned Brahminical writings and revered the law of the Buddha. These two accommodated each other and often appeared coexisting with local belief systems. The new empire in Southeast Asia grew rich on the spice and gold trade and amassed the resources to develop Indic ideas more extravagantly than any of the relatively small kingdoms which then divided India between them. The vastly bigger architectural plans of Borobudur and Angkorwat attest to this. No Indian import had a deeper or more long-lasting impact than the deeds of the heroes of the Ramayana and Mahabharata. From the fifth century to today, these remain a major feature in the art and culture of Southeast Asia. In Khmer, Hinduism seems to be the favourite choice of the elite, while commoners continued with local deities and beliefs such as ancestor worship. When the kingdoms collapsed, the temples fell into disuse and eventually the jungle reclaimed the land. Was this the same fate of Buddhism in India, where some scholars say it was nothing more than an aristocratic curiosity until the very modern times? The author does not pose this question as well as the enigma of why Hinduism went totally off the board in Cambodia – modern Khmer.

In 2001, I was pleasantly surprised when I heard the name of the new Indonesian president – Megawati Sukarnoputri. I was flabbergasted a few moments later when I learned the name of Indonesia's national airline – Garuda! None of my earlier school textbooks had informed me of the strong ties which once existed between the two nations and the deep cultural bonds. Dalrymple provides the answer to this quirk with historiography in modern India. The Marxist orientation of most of the Indian historians until recently, led to a lack of interest in matters of religion and art, which meant there was little or no pushback from Indian academia against post-colonial Southeast Asian scholars negating Indian influence. Another myth spread by these same historians is the persecution of Buddhism by Hindu kings in India. The author also appears confused about ancient Buddhism as a monolithic cult in the modern sense. This is however contradicted by many facts which he describes at other places in the book. Durga was worshipped at Mes Aynak Buddhist monastery in Afghanistan. Relics of Hindu worship were also found alongside Buddhist remains in Berenike, Egypt. The three great scholars of Buddhism – Asanga, Vasubandhu and Kumarajiva – on whose shoulders once rested the entire theological underpinnings of Mahayana Buddhism, are recorded to be Brahmins. The Jataka tales also indicate that the varna order had some relevance to Buddhists also. Chinese texts of 400 CE talk about a thousand Indian Brahmins living at a small coastal court in the Malay peninsula to whom the locals gave their daughters in marriage (p. 203). Where was the much trumpeted taboo on overseas travel then? These cultured emigres carried with them their epics, literature, mythology, theology, and spiritual and yogic methods. Not only Brahmins, other castes also migrated to Southeast Asia. The author then points out that caste system as well as concepts on ritual purity made no impact on that society. He however assumes that these customs were part of Indian society of that period.

The book illustrates more instances of Hinduism and Buddhism peacefully coexisting side by side and sometimes even indistinguishably in India as well as those places where the Indic culture reached. In fact, it is debatable whether a practitioner of both religions was aware of the miniscule theological differences that separated them. The Kushan period proved to be a great melting pot to fuse civilizations and religions together, mainly Buddhism, Hinduism and Zoroastrianism. In this syncretic world of evolving divine pantheons, at a crossroads where different civilizations and deities merged, different people recognized and worshipped different gods in the same images. Kujula Kadphises, the Kushan king who patronized Buddhism and provided a conduit to its spread to central Asia also issued coins inscribing the earliest pictorial form of Shiva. In the Bimaran reliquary found near Peshawar, the primal figure of Buddha is flanked by the Hindu gods Indra and Brahma.

The author then turns to how Indian knowledge was disseminated first to Islamic world and from there to Europe. After the Muslim conquest of central Asia, the Barmakids of Balkh converted to Islam and rose to the position of hereditary viziers of the Abbasid caliphate in Baghdad. They encouraged the flow of Indian mathematical and astronomical theories. The place-value notation, usage of the numeral zero and computation of planetary positions assumed significance. This blossoming of Indian knowledge was brief, however, in the Abbasid capital. Jafar al-Barmak was treacherously beheaded by his childhood companion and caliph Harun al-Rashid (of the Arabian Nights fame), possibly to appropriate the Barmakids’ immense wealth and uprooted the entire family. After the fall of the Barmakids, Arab intellectuals focussed more on retrieving ancient Greek learning than on recovering that of India. The Umayyad caliphate was then flourishing in present-day Spain and Indian knowledge reached there through the medium of Arabic. When the Christian kingdoms reconquered this al-Andalus, the knowledge made its way into Christian Europe and kindled the scientific effervescence after the Renaissance. The medieval European universities were inspired by madrassas which in turn were influenced by Buddhist monasteries which typically had apartments and endowed scholarship for its students as well as a good library. The Indo-Arabic numerals – which are in common usage day – were slow at first to gain acceptance in conservative Europe. Its use was banned in Florence in 1299 as they were more easily altered than Roman numerals, for example, by changing 0 to 6 or 9.

The book then turns to address how the Indosphere collapsed in the medieval period with the rise of Islam. 664 CE was the year in which the Indosphere reached the peak of its influence. In that year, the Damascene Umayyad Arab army destroyed the resplendent Naw Bahar Buddhist vihara in Balkh. This monastery was much appreciated by Xuanzang just twenty years earlier on his journey! With the arrival of Persian-speaking elite seeking refuge following Chengiz Khan’s invasions, the court language in India was changed from Sanskrit to Persian. India’s descent into a centuries-long servitude and intellectual eclipse thus began. Also, the Mongols opened up a vast trade route from the Mediterranean to China by obliterating the intervening political boundaries. The marine routes of the Indosphere lost prominence by thirteenth century. The Muslim armies were fired by a ferocious religious bigotry as well, unlike all the earlier invaders of India. The book describes the sacking of the universities at Nalanda, Odantapura and Vikramashila in a carefully sanitised manner. Even then, it becomes evident that these eminent institutions of learning were decimated for no other reason than the religious zeal of the Muslim invaders. In some cases, the stones were carried off to the river and thrown into it as if to preclude any attempt to rebuild them.

A drawback of the book is the lack of an analysis on why the fabled Indosphere vanished from the daily lives of the people in Southeast Asia and China so suddenly. The author perhaps deliberately omits to point out the spread of Islam in the Malayan and Indonesian archipelagos which might have had a distinct role in its extinction. Or more crucially, he does not dwell on the possibility that the Hindu and Buddhist influence we see plainly in architecture and folk art did not filter down to the ordinary man in the street like Buddhism in ancient India. It might have remained an aristocratic fad while the common man cared little. This aspect requires further study. The text is an effortless read and very appealing as any of Dalrymple’s works. Several beautiful colour and monochrome plates of people, sculpture and temples are included in the book. Pictures of lesser known temples in Cambodia and Indonesia are unique for the richness of sculpture. Besides all these, the book is gratifying to read, with the claim on its flap that ‘India is the forgotten heart of the ancient world’. The book is mind-bogglingly well-researched, with 100 pages of Notes and 50 pages of bibliography. Even with the absence of an objective analysis of the role of Islam in destroying Indic culture and influence, this book is a must-read for all Indians and other enthusiasts of the Asian way of life.

The book is highly recommended.

Rating: 5 Star

History of the Communist Movement in Kerala

Title: History of the Communist Movement in Kerala
Author: E. Balakrishnan
Publisher: KurukshethraPrakasan, 1998 (First)
ISBN: Nil
Pages: 268

Kerala’s politics differ much from the Indian mainstream. This was so, right from the incorporation of the state in 1956. The state also witnessed the remarkable occurrence of a Communist movement assuming power through a democratic election based on universal adult franchise and secret ballot for the first time in the world. All the material on the origin of the Communist party in Kerala is written by the comrades themselves. This book presents a refreshing alternate review of the birth and growth of communism in Kerala. This is published by Kurukshethra Prakasan, a mouthpiece of the Sangh Parivar. Naturally enough, the party and its leaders are generally criticised, but it keeps a fine balance to present facts without omission or embellishment. The foreword is penned by P. Parameswaran, former director of the Bharatiya Vichara Kendra, a think tank of the Sangh. E. Balakrishnan was associated with the Communist movement from his school days. He was attracted to the Naxalite movement later and was imprisoned for a short time. The atrocities of Stalin and the communist government distanced him from that ideology. He wanted to follow the path of sanyasa, but later abandoned the idea to become a teacher. This book is his dissertation for doctorate at the University of Calicut.

There is a superb introductory chapter by the noted historian M G S Narayanan. It gives a lively summary of the mess Communists have created in Kerala. The commerce and industry of the state have collapsed due to the proletarian culture rampant among all sections of society. All levels of education are over-politicized. The visible prosperity and higher quality of life are artificial and was created by the parallel economy made by remittances from the Middle East where almost a tenth of the Keralites earn their livelihood. This is hailed by the Communists as an economic miracle called the ‘Kerala Model’. MGS also comments on the duplicity of EMS Namboodiripad in ‘donating’ his family property to the party. He also notes the lack of an in-depth analysis of the economic and social factors which controlled and moulded the political fortunes of the Communist movement in Kerala in the book. Balakrishnan begins the narrative with Gandhi’s Civil Disobedience Movement through which most of the founders of the Communist Party cut their teeth. People opposed to Gandhian tactics worked under the Congress Socialist Party (CSP) which in Kerala metamorphosed into the Communist Party. However, the national leaders of CSP maintained their anti-communist stand till the end. The central narrative of the book begins with the formation of the state committee of the Communist Party in 1937 and ends with the dismissal of the Communist ministry in 1959.

As was the international political norm, the Indian Communist Party was also led and subject to handholding by the Soviet Communist party. In 1920, Lenin instructed Indian communists to work alongside the Indian National Congress even though they were bourgeois. Lenin’s plan for colonies was to fight against the imperialists before playing out any ideological strategy to wrest power. M N Roy, however, refused to toe this line. After Stalin came, this policy was reversed and the Communist party assumed an exclusivist posture. When the Soviets faced threats from Nazis, a rapport was offered in 1936 to create a united front even with class enemies to fight fascism. The author critically examines EMS at many places and brings to light his contradictions and occasional pettiness in dealing with rivals. EMS took part in the 1932 Civil Disobedience from the outset as a leader nominated to that position by Kongattil Raman Menon. As a prisoner, his family requested and obtained Class A facilities for himself. This was in stark contrast to AKG or P. Krishna Pillai who enjoyed no special privileges denied to ordinary workers. AKG had a great appeal on the masses. The author alleges that the foremost contribution of the Communist party in Kerala to the struggle for independence was the sabotage of the Gandhian strategy of nonviolence by staging violent upheavals under the guise of Congressmen. Balakrishnan also identifies five features of the Communist party in the pre-independence period. The first is the sabotage referred above. The other four are, 1) disruptive activities within the ranks of the freedom movement by voicing sectarian demands exclusively for the industrial workers and peasants 2) instigation of the peasantry to violence 3) open alliance with the British and 4) inculcation of fascist behavioural patterns among its cadres.

The book elaborately narrates how the disgruntled leaders first took asylum under the shade of CSP before emerging as full-fledged Communists. Congress Socialists opposed Gandhi’s constructive programs like elimination of untouchability as religious reform because it applied to Hinduism alone. In Kerala, they introduced class-war ideas to lure the industrial workers to buttress the party. Evolution of Congress Socialism to Stalinist Communism began in the latter half of 1935. The CSP stood for a democratic, flexible and realistic political line whereas the Communists articulated a doctrinaire, dogmatic, tough and violent strategy. But they were not ignorant of the cruel and brutal repression Stalin was unleashing on his people in the USSR and his rivals in the party. News of Stalinist repression was appearing abundantly in the Malayalam press too, but these heinous atrocities did not deter the likes of EMS or Krishna Pillai who termed them ‘bourgeois and imperialist lies’. In December 1934, K P Gopalan published an article titled ‘Three World Famous Russians’ featuring Zinoviev, Kamenev and Stalin. Within five days of its publication, Stalin arrested the first two and later executed them after a mockery trial. Still, the Kerala leaders stayed loyal to Stalin as they had developed a trait called ‘authoritarian submission’. While Congress brought all sections of the people together to fight against the British, Communists wanted dictatorship of only the working class. Labour unions became a pawn in the hands of Communist leaders for manipulation for political ends. The first political strike organized by the Travancore Coir Workers Union in 1938 demanded responsible government based on adult franchise in the state rather than better wages or relief measures for the factory staff. Former goons of jenmis (landlords) were accepted as activists in the peasant unions. This was the beginning of the instrumentalization of violence as a political tool. Meanwhile, indoctrination of volunteers and cadres in training camps was organized under the label of KPCC as the socialists had a majority in it.

The decade following the year 1935 was one in which the Communist party in India swayed with the ebbs and tides of the Russian political sea. When Nazis was against the Communists before World War II, they united with other parties to present a common front against fascism. But after the Hitler-Stalin Pact of 1939, Communist policy in India changed and they termed the war ‘imperialist’ and devised stratagems to defeat the British war machine which was arrayed against the Nazi-Communist combine in Europe. Violent protests were organized in Malabar on Sep 15, 1940 that led to police firing and many deaths of both the protestors and policemen. Riots, ostensible for the distribution of scarce rice, broke out in Morazha, Mattannur and Kayyur. Four men were sentenced to death for the murder of a policeman at Kayyur. Meanwhile, EMS transferred his properties to his wife anticipating its attachment by the government. However, the government, and in challenge the court also, struck down this transaction as bogus. When Germany treacherously invaded its Soviet ally in 1941, CPI again changed its policy. After the Soviets allied with the British, Communists did the same in India, betraying the independence movement. Ban on Communists was lifted in 1942. Execution of death sentence of the four Kayyur prisoners carried out at this point was the only awkward moment as far as the party was concerned. Anti-Japanese rallies were organized and Subhash Bose who sought shelter with them was abused in the foulest language. He was called a ‘rascal’ and ‘boot-licker of the Japanese’ (p.169). All peasant and labour unrest was called off to assist the British in their military effort, which was rechristened ‘people’s war’. Active campaigns were initiated to produce more in factories and farms. This cooperation was in spite of the biting inflation of 1943.

Balakrishnan neatly captures the dilemma of the CPI after World War II. Even though they wholeheartedly supported the British, the government sought to mend ways with the Congress and wanted to transfer power to them without much delay. On Dec 4, 1945, the Secretary of State informed British parliament that independence of India was its immediate goal. It was clear to all that total freedom was only months away. An interim government under Jawaharlal Nehru assumed power on Sep 2, 1946 to manage the transition. The Communists desperately wanted to do something big to usher in revolution, if possible, with Russian help. Sensing that time was running out for them, CPI called for resistance in its August 1946 resolution. They fully supported the Pakistan demand as well. Not only two, EMS was suggesting that India was a makeshift patchwork of sixteen nationalities! EMS exhorted Moplahs in Malabar to rebel in response to Muslim League’s call for ‘Direct Action’ in August 1946. Fortunately for Malabar, they did not pay heed to his call. But the Kolkata Muslims did and thousands were killed in the communal riots that ensued. The CPI also organized futile armed action, more in a bid to gain some martyrs for the party rather than effecting any meaningful change in the political scenario. Communists led thousands to avoidable death in Punnapra and Vayalar in October 1946. The author estimates the death toll at 2000, but the Communists concede only a tenth of the figure and calls them out as the only occasion in which a revolutionary party gave the number of its dead which was much less than the official estimates. Violence flared in Malabar as well. Three people were killed in police firing at Karivelloor and five at Kavumbayi. This book continues to point out the revolutionary confusion even after 1947. The Madurai Congress of the party in 1953 reiterated that the objectives of the party can be realized only through a revolution and overthrow of the current Indian state. The party still maintained that India had not achieved ‘real’ independence. The question of political independence of India was recognized only in 1956 in the party congress at Palakkad. The 1958 Amritsar Congress accepted peaceful evolution to socialism which waved the green flag for the party to contest elections.

This book clearly exposes the brazen adherence of early Communist leaders to their ideology even in the face of plain evidence that proved the authoritarianism of its practitioners in the Soviet Union. It includes a review of reportage of Stalinist repression in Malayalam and the national media. As noted earlier, they shrugged it off as an ‘imperialist lie’ and refused to countenance the truth. Propaganda was the lifeblood of the party on which truth was not an essential component. The book lists the newspapers and other publications as well as membership figures of the party and feeder organizations in their formation period. Balakrishnan also makes a comparison of AKG and EMS, the two founding stalwarts of the party. In the early phase of the Communist party, AKG was democratic and accommodative while EMS had a closed mind and treated people on the basis of social classes to which they belonged. A great drawback of the book is that it is solely focussed on Malabar with little or no coverage of party formation in Travancore or Kochi. Great Communist leaders of these two native states had reached the top echelons of the party in future but their trail is not visible here. The narrative is much subdued after 1947 and it feels that the author somehow managed to continue the narrative till 1959 when the EMS ministry was dissolved.

The book is recommended.

Rating: 4 Star

Faith and Freedom – Gandhi in History

Title: Faith and Freedom – Gandhi in History

Author: Mushirul Hasan
Publisher: Niyogi Books, 2013 (First)
ISBN: 9789381523315
Pages: 555

Gandhi wrote prodigiously in many formats such as letters, articles, telegrams, comments to friends and general audience alike. And there are no shortages of books on the father of the nation even after seven decades after his death. This book comes right at a time when discussions are on to examine whether Gandhi is still relevant after the social, economic and political landscape had undergone much change in the last quarter century. This book’s intention is to link Gandhi’s moments of greatness with his dependence on all his co-workers who facilitated his task in India and South Africa and who made it easy for him to spiritually transform into some kind of semi-divine personality. All events described in this book are suffused with a personal touch in the sense that the subjective factor seems to override all other considerations – even ideological – on some occasions. This book also attempts to connect with and discuss Gandhi’s ‘big moment’ through the lens of his relations with many people of diverse backgrounds who were around him and in different kinds of relations with him along these events. This throws light on emotions that drove events or that were at their background and helps to better understand what affected and shaped Gandhi’s politics and the role these relations played in it. Mushirul Hasan is an historian, author and former vice chancellor of Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi. He was the director-general of the National Archives of India. He was awarded Padma Shri by the Congress government in 2007.

Hasan enumerates the external influences that went into Gandhi’s metamorphosis into a nonviolent satyagrahi with rural roots, while residing in South Africa. Ruskin’s ‘Unto This Last’ transferred Gandhi from a city-dwelling lawyer into a rustic far away from Durban in a farm. Tolstoy furnished a basis for nonviolence and ideas of the moral value of physical labour and of natural diet. Kallenbach introduced elements of the Kibbutz movement and Kropotkin the idea of a country of village communes. In the final analysis, he shaped the country for his causes. Needless to say, this was highly subjective. He read treatises on religion which encouraged him to put into practice whatever appealed to him. One of them was to amalgamate ideas of quite different religions and cultural practices into a hybrid model. Gandhi’s choice of words and images inspired others because it contained ‘the rhythm of restrained emotions, self-abnegation, moral fervour and concern for the downtrodden’. He felt that politics bereft of religion kills the soul. He spoke freely in short, incisive sentences and listened as he spoke. The conversation with him took the form of question and answer and the interchange of opinions rather than rapid give and take. Mira behn – an English lady named Madeleine Slade – captured Gandhi’s engagement with the masses. The people were excited just to set their eyes on him as a holy man, a saviour on whom they had pinned all their hopes. They had no other thought than to obtain a darshan of him.

Gandhi’s total dedication to what he deemed to be true and just was legendary. He was willing to lay down his life rather than do something that negated what he regarded as supreme. Satyagraha symbolized the triumph of moral right over arbitrary power. The nonviolence creed revealed the possibilities of a new type of warfare to the millions. Even when Congress accepted office under the 1935 Constitution, Gandhi espoused utmost value to hand-spun khadi, Hindu-Muslim unity, rural education, decentralization of production and distribution rather than play with the instruments concomitant to power. His assertions or intellectual apprehensions on the goals and objectives of an industrial civilization require extensive research to prove or disprove them. However, their beauty lies in looking at life through the eyes of childhood with all its power of illusion and hope (p.80). That’s how the author weakly rationalizes what appears to be a crucial input in formulating national policy. Does such a critical thing can find traction on the flimsy bases of illusion and childish hope? Hasan prefers to leave the answer for the reader to find out himself. Gandhi was sometimes brutal in moral force to the others who argued for compromise on the issue of violence. He refused to approve the Karachi AICC resolution urging the government to commute the death sentence to Bhagat Singh (p.144). Motilal Nehru, who was always in thrall of Gandhi, went one step further and refused to allow even a motion of sympathy for Bhagat Singh and Batukeshwar Dutt, who threw bombs in the Central Legislature hall, at the July 1931 meeting of the AICC. This was glossed over on the excuse that it contravened Gandhi’s nonviolent creed. Gandhi endorsed this with his remark in Harijan that ‘Bhagat Singh worship’ had done incalculable harm to the country. Gandhi’s candidate for Congress presidency lost by 203 votes in the Tripuri session. Gandhi described it as his own loss which deepened intra-party factionalism. He eventually managed to eject Subhas Chandra Bose from the party. However, the author plays down the opposition to Gandhi in the Congress party.

The book’s prime focus is in describing Gandhi’s engagement with and developing attitudes towards Muslim nationalism, Islam, various Muslim leaders, politicians and intellectuals going back to his days in South Africa. Khilafat was the only issue in which Muslims sided with Gandhi. After he withdrew from non-cooperation under the pretext of Chauri Chaura violence, they turned enemies. Muslim theologians then regarded abstinence or self-denial as a form of ingratitude to Allah, unless there were compelling reasons for it (p.379). Deoband ulema was also friendly at first but their enthusiasm waned over time. They found his views on conversion, inter-community dining and purdah as unwarranted intrusion. They resented coupling the name of ‘Ram’ with ‘Rahim’ and of ‘Krishna’ with ‘Allah’. Gandhi’s opposition to religious conversion and affinity to Hindi language over Urdu further alienated the Muslims. But this did not mean that he was dear to the nationalists who addressed him as ‘Mahmud Gandhi’. The Mahatma engaged mainly with traditional Muslim theologians because he thought the liberal and modernist narratives in Islam were weak and not deserving of much political support.

Hasan provides a sanitized review of the teachings of Islam in this book along with how Gandhi understood them. Readers feel that Gandhi relied solely on hagiographies of the Prophet and his religion because he could not read Arabic. Hence, he saw only the noble facets. He looked up to the Prophet and remarked that his tenets are compatible with ahimsa (p.325)! Ali ibn-i Abu Talib, the fourth caliph, was presented as an exemplar of satyagrahis. In spite of this, many of Gandhi’s Muslim associates were first-rate bigots. His bosom ally, Muhammad Ali, professed in 1923 that he subscribed to the creed that “even a fallen and degraded Muslim is entitled to a higher place than that of any other non-Muslim, irrespective of his high character, even if the person in question were Gandhi himself” (p.345). In several places like Masimpur and Noakhali, Muslim audience walked out of his prayer meetings when Ramdhun was sung (p.376). May be it was due to all these incidents heaping one over the other in his mind that he remarked the Muslims a bully and Hindus as docile to the point of cowardice.

Mushirul Hasan rightly touches on some of the inconsistencies and contradictions in Gandhi’s ideology and character. The Mahatma disregarded the inequities of village life. He was interested only in the general picture which was idealized and mostly imaginary. Specifics did not figure in his expositions. He believed that the wealth of Indian cities was extracted from the blood of the poorest. This erroneous notion came from the fallacious socialist idea that wealth-creation was a zero-sum game or a see-saw. Meanwhile, Gandhi was feasted and accommodated by rich businessmen. He did not want to usurp zamindari and taluqdari tracts but asked only to regulate the relations between landlords and peasants because he did not want to kill the goose that laid golden eggs (p.236). His pursuit of goals was in alliance with the capitalists, big business and captains of industry. It was a combination of both dependence for resources and personal friendships. It’s curious how Jawaharlal Nehru coped with this open frolicking with capitalists. This book includes a section on the special relationship between the two. We feel that Nehru depended totally on Gandhi for furthering his career prospects. The Mahatma was the trunk on which the Nehru creeper clung and grew. Some of Nehru’s letters to his patron are included which are full of praise and flattery, even while appearing opposed to his action plans. The letter on page 227 contains wholesome praise of Gandhi such as ‘may I congratulate you’, ‘your magic touch’, ‘epic greatness’, ‘wonderful efficacy of nonviolence’ and ‘country has stuck to [nonviolence] wonderfully’. Each line is literally rolling in with fulsome praise! As a quid pro quo, Gandhi eased Nehru’s opponents out of the Working Committee of the party. Again, the author simply reproduces the original text and leaves the readers with the burden of joining the dots.

This book makes a short survey of the two-nation theory put forward by Muslim League which was the cornerstone for the creation of Pakistan. It also gives a polished view of Pakistan’s heroes, Jinnah and Iqbal the poet. Even though both were zealots at heart and caused much bloodshed, the author confines his research only to their milder political utterances. Even then, Hasan is forced to concede that Iqbal had a pronounced Islamic vision, but bails him out by the claim that much of what he said in his 1930 presidential address to the League should be discounted. However, he does not mention what Iqbal actually said and hence the readers reach the conclusion that he is sugar-coating poison. Some of Iqbal’s poems are also said to pass into the realm of fantasy and betray his emotional immaturity (p.408). Strangely, this book lists out only the atrocities committed against Muslims in Punjab during the early days after Partition. Hasan’s one-sided eloquence appears all the more galling when compared to his total silence on the horrible crimes perpetrated against Hindus and Sikhs in the same region. The ideological core of the demand for Pakistan was moulded in those provinces which stayed on in India. UP and Bihar were the regions where the cream of Muslim intelligentsia repeated the Pakistan demand vociferously. But when the country was actually partitioned, most of them stayed back in India. One Islamic scholar remarked them as ‘a sword of Islam resting on a secular scabbard’ (p.418). The Muslim League’s arsenal was formed of landowners of Sind and Punjab, the Awadh taluqdars, the zamindars of Bihar and the Aligarh students. In the end, the author comments presciently on Pakistan that ‘seldom in history did so few err so monumentally in using religion for the purpose of creating a nation’.

Prima facie, the book attempts to maintain an impartial perspective on the politics of the day which was marred by sectarianism into two distinct streams for Hindus and Muslims. In spite of this facade, the author masks the real causes of historical incidents if it sullies the Muslim cause. Lord Curzon is reported to have partitioned Bengal because of his disdain of the Bhadralok whose material interests were tied to land in East Bengal. This narrative is silent on the Muslim demand for a split. However, in the very next page, Hasan concedes that its revocation in 1911 worsened Hindu-Muslim relations in Bengal (p.59). If the partition was not effected according to Muslim wishes, why should its withdrawal create problems between the two communities? In many places, the author stresses on the reform measures urgently needed in the society. It is curious to observe that Mushirul Hasan’s craving for social reforms is limited to the Hindu community. Regarding the Muslims, he would settle for half-hearted measures and proclaim them as path-breaking. In 1937, NWFP ministry passed a significant law on women’s inheritance under which the daughter inherited a share equivalent to half of that of her brother (p.162)! It’s amazing that the author – writing in 2013 – has the nerve to pronounce this as revolutionary. This is nothing but what is ordained in Sharia law and had changed nothing. At the same time, the author also notes that Bombay enacted a law to remove disabilities on Harijan temple worship. Hasan’s sympathies extend to Muslim politicians of the last two centuries and even to medieval Muslim invaders as well. He falsely comments that Mahmud Ghazni’s saga of plundering raids to Somnath temple was in great part apocryphal (p.306).

This book includes some rare pictures of Gandhi. The accounts of many people on what brought them to the leader are narrated, the most prominent among them being Mira behn. Gandhi was not a member of the Congress in the formal sense, but he controlled the party as its vital force. The Congress placed him on a pedestal, listened to him respectfully, but bypassed him on serious policy matters. Even though the book runs to more than 500 pages, it has not done enough justice to its grandiloquent title. Gandhi’s unstinted loyalty to Hindu faith is prominently described, and this steadfast relationship is alleged to be the reason behind his allegiance to many of the religion’s outdated practices such as the caste system. Being a religious man himself, he allowed rival faiths to also enjoy the unquestioned loyalty from their adherents. A good part of the book examines his relations with Muslims, which appear to be non-committal in nature regarding expressing an opinion on its nature. The author seems to belong to the progressive section among the community; Gandhi always sided with the traditionalists and kept the progressives at an arm’s length. The progressives returned the favour. However, this inner tension is not covered in this book which should have been its prime reason for existence. The author also informs on some of the quirks of the great man. His experiments to test his ‘brahmacharya’ were notorious, but Gandhi stuck to it with a clear conscience. It is noted that Mira behn decorated Gandhi’s room to which he retired after a hectic day in Wardha ashram. Kasturba’s room was next to Gandhi’s (p.122). It is odd to observe that one who tried experiments by sleeping with other women to test his will and power of abstinence did not try it with one’s own wife!

The book is recommended even though it is very tiring for most readers.

Rating: 2 Star

A Crack in Everything

Title: A Crack in Everything – How Black Holes Came in From the Cold and Took Cosmic Centre-stage
Author: Marcus Chown
Publisher: Head of Zeus, 2024 (First)
ISBN: 9781804544327
Pages: 334

The strange thing about the concept of black holes is that even people with hardly any exposure to science writing are well aware of it and its propensity to gobble up anything that ventures near it. Black holes were predicted as a corollary to Einstein’s General Relativity, but they were physically traced only in the 1960s. Sophisticated instruments detected gravitational waves caused by merger of two black holes and new concepts have emerged in the last few decades that revise our understanding of these elusive celestial bodies. Latest research hints that black holes are not exactly ‘black’, but they are some of the most prodigiously luminous objects in the universe. They are not only holes down which matter is sucked in, but sources of immense jets of matter spraying outwards and extending to millions of light years across space. This book envelops the journey of black holes from the periphery of imagination into the very heart of science. Marcus Chown is a science-writer and broadcaster who was a former radio astronomer at California Institute of Technology at Pasadena. He is the author of several books and also launched the Solar System for iPad app, which won ‘The Book Seller’ Digital Innovation of the Year.

The first two chapters make a solid foundation on the theoretical concepts of black holes without appearing too scientific. The first hint of the possibility for existence of this intriguing phenomenon was made by the mathematical solution of Einstein’s General Relativity carried out by Karl Schwarzchild while fighting on the Western front in World War I. He died just five months later but the spark he lit caught on in scientific circles. Beyond a specified size, matter behaved strangely. Subrahmanian Chandrasekhar developed the theory while on a voyage to Europe by sea. Stars up to 1.4 solar masses ended up as white dwarfs when their nuclear fuel was exhausted. If the mass is around 2 to 3 times that of the sun, it may explode as a supernova but the core will turn into a neutron star. Even bigger stars collapse down to a point of infinite gravity. Space will fold in on itself and the star will vanish from view, turning into a black hole. This was hard to grasp for the conservative establishment and the book records the intellectual rivalry between Chandrasekhar and his superior Arthur Eddington which was also tinged with dark shades of racism. However, the threshold size of the star which becomes a black hole is now called the ‘Chandrasekhar Limit’, vindicating the Indian. Chown narrates some amusing effects expected at the ‘event horizon’, the fictitious surface that masks the point of no-return for matter and light falling in. To a distant observer, time at this surface appears to run slower and slower because the space-time is highly distorted. When in fact the matter had gone inside, the observer still sees that the fallen object is hovering on the event horizon. Stephen Hawking once quipped: “In space, no one can hear you scream; and in a black hole, no one can see you disappear”. If you accidentally fell into a black hole, you can be pretty sure that there will be no eye-witnesses.

Even though the discoveries of Schwarzchild and Chandrasekhar occurred much before World War II, the field lay barren and eventless till 1963. In that year, a New Zealand physicist Roy Kerr theoretically found the exact shape of the warped space-time around a spinning black hole by solving Einstein’s equations. The accepted opinion at that time was that when a crushing big star rotates, its centrifugal forces would balance at some point the push of gravity and prevent it from becoming a black hole. Kerr demonstrated that the centrifugal force of a rapidly spinning star could not prevent the formation of a black hole. He also proved that energy is also a form of gravity and the increased kinetic energy would add to gravity and enhance the formation of black hole instead of preventing it. The behaviour of mass and energy are weird when they are very large. The observational proof came just eight years later, in 1971. Paul Murdin and Louise Webster found a blue supergiant in Cygnus galaxy orbiting a black space every 5.6 days that was emitting X-rays. The first black hole was found – on circumstantial evidence. Many were found thereafter and astronomers estimate an astonishing 100 million to exist. Almost every galaxy has a black hole in its centre. Our own Milky Way certainly has a supermassive black hole at its centre. The few dozen black holes so far discovered are no more than the tip of an enormous iceberg.

Early theories of black holes posited them as truly black, set in a black universe and so impossible to identify. This was logical and shaped the minds of many enthusiasts. However, later investigations exposed the fallacy of this postulate. It failed to realise that black holes are likely to be embedded in an environment of interstellar gas and ripped-apart stars. In consuming the material, black holes would superheat it to such high levels as to emit even X-rays, apart from visible light. This idea suggested that, far from being black, black holes could be the most brilliant beacons in the universe. In 1963, quasars were discovered which emitted radiation hugely in excess of its size. These were found to be powered by spinning, supermassive black holes when matter swirls down into such a black hole like water going down a plug hole. This is also a source of energy in the universe. Nuclear fusion which powers the sun has a conversion rate of only one per cent whereas the new source provided up to 40 per cent. In the 1980s, better radio telescopes observed jets of matter stabbing out of the black hole core of galaxies into adjacent radio lobes. It definitively erased the idea that nothing comes out of a black hole. Another concept that changed along with the new influx of data was that supermassive black holes were a rarity that powered only one per cent of galaxies. Observational data from the Hubble Space Telescope proved the existence of many such entities. In fact, one is found to be present in virtually every galaxy, including our own.

Apart from the theoretical and observational aspects of black holes, the author investigates whether these have any significance for the human race. Supermassive black holes have an essential role in the birth and evolution of a galaxy. Through its huge outflow of energy, it transfers the energy into the surrounding galactic environment, gradually clearing the central regions of gas and throttling back star formation. If this did not happen, galaxies would have used up all their gaseous raw material soon after its birth. There would not have been time to produce higher elements which are very much required to sustain higher forms of life, like ours. In this sense, we owe our very existence to the black hole feedbacks that ensured that star formation continued at a sedate rate after the birth of our galaxy and that there was gas left over to give birth to the sun. Chown updates the readers of the recent revolutionary discoveries in relativistic physics such as the experimental detection of gravitational waves from merger of two black holes in 2015. In 2019, intense light was observed from the accretion disk of the merger of two supermassive black holes. Merger of such heavy-gravity stars churn up interesting material too. When two neutron stars merge, gold is generated in copious quantities. The book follows a diligent timeline of the major events related to black holes and the readers observe a conspicuous gap between 1963 and the launch of the Hubble telescope in the 1990s. The reason for this barren period – if it was not coincidental –is not elaborated. One is tempted to assign it to the manned lunar missions of NASA which riveted America’s attention and resources for the race they ran with the Soviets in a bid to reach the moon first. However, the Soviet Union did not make it to the moon.

The book is very agreeably written so as to be interesting to readers having no advanced training in science. Chown has taken care not to include any equations or unnecessary numbers. Hawking had one remarked that had he omitted the lone equation E = mc^2 in his epic book, ‘A Brief History of Time’, it would have doubled its sales. A lot of scientific facts are seamlessly interspersed with interesting biographical accounts of the inventers along with amusing asides. It appears that the nomenclature of ‘potential energy’ which we had studied in school has now changed to ‘gravitational energy’; just as kinetic energy is now referred to as ‘energy of motion’ in this book. A good popular book on physics was the need of the times as the old crop ended in the first decade of this century. This book neatly fits the bill. Latest findings and information till 2023 are updated in the book. However, the last third of the book seems to be full of somewhat uninteresting speculation and unnecessary elaboration of not very important ideas, some of which may never be discovered or disproved. They may remain just intelligent speculation for a long period to come. In spite of this minor hiccup, this book is a must-read for enthusiasts of physics, astronomy and cosmology.

The book is highly recommended.

Rating: 4 Star

Gods, Guns and Missionaries

Title: Gods, Guns and Missionaries – The Making of the Modern Hindu Identity
Author: Manu S. Pillai
Publisher: Allen Lane, 2024 (First)
ISBN: 9780670093656
Pages: 564

Hinduism is a constantly evolving religion. This characteristic is also a proof of its vitality. Contrary to what happened to Paganism in Greece and Rome at the end the classical period, Hinduism withstood the crushing impact of not one, but two Abrahamic religions one after the other and still survived to tell the tale. Hinduism is flexible enough to accommodate any number of gods or even to incorporate external deities somewhere on the branches of its vast mythology. It successfully employed this strategy to absorb strangers into its fold till the arrival of Islam which could not be reconciled due to its professed exclusivity and monopoly on divinity. The same thing happened with Christianity too. At the same time, the Hindus also felt compulsions of various sorts to convert them to the new ‘monotheistic’ faiths. Evidently, Hinduism had to change subtly to effectively engage with the new threat. This was felt more seriously on interactions with the Christian faith. Though the Islamic invasions were militarily brutal and materially exhausting, it proved to be intellectually bankrupt. It somewhat transformed Hinduism but never on the immense scale Christianity did. This book tells the story of how gods (reinvention of Hinduism by anchoring on its philosophical past), guns (colonial power) and missionaries (evangelical efforts at proselytization) completely reformed Hinduism in the last four centuries after the arrival of Europeans in the sixteenth century. Manu S. Pillai is a talented, young author and this is his fifth book. You can find reviews of all his earlier works here. This book’s title involves a little bit of plagiarism with Jared Diamond’s incredibly well-written book, ‘Guns, Germs and Steel’.

Pillai begins his exhaustive survey with the practical adjustments Hinduism made on the ground even before the arrival of Semitic religions. Brahmins acted as a repository of theoretical knowledge and provided the mechanism to bend it constructively to make life easier – at least for themselves and their patrons. Brahmins bypassed awkward corners between theory and reality through the manipulation of tradition. Kings of low birth changed caste and varna by a ritual in which they symbolically emerged out of an artificial gold cow. The four-fold division of varnas – which is often portrayed as rigid and unchanging – was only an idealized aspiration of the Brahminized world that never existed in such perfection anywhere in India. Hinduism is not what Brahmins actually wanted; instead, it is the story of their negotiations with a bewildering variety of counter-thoughts and alternate visions. Change is coded into its DNA (p. xix). This book is the study of Hinduism of the last four centuries. Its motive is to survey the historical setting and emotional stimulus empowering present-day Hinduism. The author also claims that it is not a history of Hindu philosophy or of the lofty ideas of ancient sages. It deals with human actions and reactions in the context of political conquest, cultural dominance and resistance.

Hinduism met Christianity on many fronts and in different time periods. In the pre-medieval and early-medieval accounts of European travellers and merchants, India was portrayed as a heathen country where the devil was worshipped and was home to revulsive sexual practices. Hindus didn’t care. They lay diffused across the country and were nonchalant as to be concerned with what was being said of them in distant lands. But with European powers establishing trade with India and meddling in internal politics by the seventeenth century, they sat up and took notice, but still in isolated pockets. It was in response to the European portrayal of Hindus that Hinduism took its contemporary modern form, drawing pride and confidence from certain aspects of its past and shame from others. The book describes the early interactions of missionaries with Hinduism. Hindus listened to them with genuine interest and was even willing to accept their precepts as true, but stoutly refused to concede that this was the only way of knowing divinity. Hinduism always made space for ideological diversity and could not acquiesce in to claims on monopoly of truth. The Hindu philosophers never accused Christianity to be false, but that it might be adapted to the missionary’s part of the world. Quite contrary to this expression of tolerance, the missionaries thought everything else as diabolical pretension of primitive paganism. Over time, the missionaries collected and began to study Hindu texts and were gradually compelled to admit some goodness in it. One scholar grudgingly remarked that ‘even though much reeked of the dung pit, Hinduism had pearls by which white men too could benefit’ (p.56). This attitude grew with further study. In the peak of Enlightenment in the eighteenth century, white intellectuals dismissed the Hindu society of the present, but romanticised its past. The formula would be amplified by Hindus in future. The Western philosophers, disillusioned with the religion at home, felt the need to idealize an alternative Hinduism which was presented as just the item with the mysterious Vedas.

The eighteenth century saw the dawn of a fresh chapter in Hindu-Christian relations with the entrenchment of British power in Bengal and North India. Warren Hastings and William Jones researched on Indian law and literature respectively. The aim was to reformulate ancient Hindu law so that the present society could be administered on its basis. But the law they painstakingly unearthed had no universal applicability. Customs of caste, region and sect were what guided people’s lives. It only suited the empire’s purposes to have a set of rules of whose legitimacy the subject people could not challenge. Intellectual emphasis focussed on scripture above custom and the enthroning of philosophical Hinduism as more legitimate than the ‘lower’ form. Pillai also amusingly notes how Victorian morals censored portions of open sensuality in Indian texts. While on one occasion Kalidasa describes Shakuntala as sweaty, it was translated into English as ‘glowing complexion’! When faced with such censure of their ancestors’ tastes, natives unnecessarily developed feelings of shame. All in all, Indian confidence ballooned as an unforeseen by-product of Orientalism. Its retrieval of past heroes and celebration of Indian accomplishments injected pride into the colonial subjects. Through the first half of the nineteenth century, the British oscillated between promoting traditional learning and introducing Western ideas through school education in English.

The nineteenth century saw another marked shift in the religious equation. Having successfully set up a colonial regime and also keeping internal security on a firm footing, the colonial masters again took on an aspect of complacent disdain on the native religion. Meanwhile, Hindus felt the days of Sanskrit education was over even though it was supported by the colonizer. A Hindu college to teach Western literature and science was set up in Calcutta in 1817 by Indians and dissenting British men who collected Rs. 1,13,000 locally, while the entire government budget for education in Bengal was only Rs. 1,00,000. The Orientalists objected to this, but the transition from Sanskrit to English was most pointedly expressed in the mid-1830s when state funding was reserved only for modern education in English. Meanwhile, the missionaries encouraged vernacular education, the only target being the conversion of pupils. The author cites a geography textbook in one of these schools that urged ‘the people of India’ to ‘accept the message of Christ’ and ‘endeavour to spread it’. By 1850s, British political power reached the zenith and even the son of the ‘Lion of Punjab’ Maharaja Ranjit Singh, named Duleep Singh, was converted to Christianity. Viceroy Dalhousie was restless to spread the Christian faith in India. It was he who cleverly stage-managed the conversion of Duleep Singh. A prominent cleavage in the conception of India among the British society became very evident at this point. Orientalists praised the glories of India, its ancient philosophies and Sanskrit literature, while the evangelists were producing material that cast Hindus as a class of ‘infant-murdering, wife-burning debauchees, in desperate need of reform’ (p.177). With the East India Company’s charter amended to accommodate evangelical work in 1813 and 1833, officials’ attitudes stiffened. Patronage extended to temples was withdrawn. In 1857, however, India responded with a full-blown revolt that forced the British to adopt a technically neutral stand on the issue of religion in future. In 1790 itself, Governor General Cornwallis had written that the company’s security rested on native troops and to meddle in the religion would jeopardize security. The book however keeps silent on the religious aspects of the 1857 rebellion's causes. The issue of greased cartridges was only the fuse that lit the fire, while the powder had been accumulating for years. Anyhow, I am fairly sure that the current breed of Indian secularists, including the author, would accuse the rebels of narrow-mindedness and communalism for their refusal to handle cartridges lubricated with the fat of cows and pigs.

After the Rebellion, the religious kaleidoscope shifted once again. Reform movements sprang up everywhere to give a facelift to the ancient religion. Demands for equality for the oppressed lower castes followed close on its heels. At the peak of these two, nationalism blossomed – both of the secular and cultural varieties. Pillai finds a strain of resemblance between the Protestant movement in England and the Hindu reformers. Like Protestants, Indian reformers placed scripture over custom and accumulated tradition. They parked blame for Hinduism’s decline from unparalleled purity on the Brahmins, just like the Protestant battering of Catholic priest craft. Ram Mohan Roy was vocal in denouncing Brahminic obfuscation of Vedic ideas on monotheism. This blunted the Christian threat to Hinduism as the Catholic Church’s liturgy differed not much from full-blooded idolatry. But very few Hindus practised what they preached and ordinary temple worship thrived as vigorously as before. Dayananda Saraswati’s Arya Samaj began venerating the cow as a formative rite to unite Hindus. The author deliberately hints here that cow worship began at this point, while in fact it was followed from very early times. Reconversion back to Hinduism through ‘Shuddhi’ was also developed. By the latter half of nineteenth century, untouchables began to assert their identity. Jyotiba Phule repudiated everything Hindu, from Vedas to idol worship, while Narayana Guru of Kerala accommodated some degree of Sanskritization, himself a Sanskrit scholar. Guru’s reforms lay in rejecting Brahminism as a social practice, while democratising Brahminic Hinduism (p.253).

The book’s final chapter, ‘Drawing Blood’, is reserved to heap scorn and mockery on Tilak and Savarkar, the two glowing figureheads of Hindu nationalism. A reasonably true biography of both are given, but interspersed with skewed and derisively paraphrased quotations. It seems the author’s pique against the duo is for the fact that they tried to unite the Hindus socially, perhaps for the first time ever in Indian history. This might be going against the grain of Western philosophical theory that could not comprehend the coming together of such diverse peoples under a common banner. This book is part of the anti-Hindutva movement and is relentlessly chipping away at its roots. Pillai does not mention this openly, in variance to what Charles Allen openly confessed in his recent book, ‘Aryans – The Search for a People, a Place and a Myth’ (reviewed earlier here). Tilak started the Ganapati and Shivaji festivals to gather people together as a means to move political work forward. Fun and play were the vehicles to impart political awareness among grumbles of turning faith into spectacle. The author nit-picks on Tilak’s speeches in order to find snippets against untouchables. With this in mind, he quotes a little known research paper at an obscure Canadian university to claim that Tilak made a disparaging remark about two communities as “which have no job avenues left other than thieving” (p.282). The source of this discovery is only a paper by Amar Khoday submitted at Manitoba University, but this information is concealed deep in the thick jungle of notes at the end of the book.

The book is very big at 564 pages, 238 of them nothing but notes totalling 2308 which are thoroughly researched entities that appears as a corporate effort rather than of a single person. However, Pillai has not acknowledged it. A very large number of books and papers have been consulted obviously but unusually for such an effort, no bibliography is given at the end. This is somewhat strange, forcing the reader to go through each and every note to find the sources. Quotes from Wendy Doniger and Audrey Truschke are given prime spots of accommodation though – or because of? – they are outspoken critics of Hinduism. Some parts of the book are recycled from the author’s previous works. The activities of the monk Roberto de Nobili who dressed, worked and lived like a Brahmin, wearing even the sacred thread, to convert Hindus can also be found in Pillai’s book, ‘The Courtesan, the Mahatma and the Italian Brahmin’ (reviewed earlier here) and stories about Serfoji II of Tanjore are in ‘False Allies: India’s Maharajahs in the Age of Ravi Varma’ (reviewed earlier here). The book includes early sketches of people and events starting from the sixteenth century and sourced from rare collections in Europe and the USA. Islam makes only a cameo appearance in the book, but when it does, the author treats it with kid gloves unlike what he does with the others. He remarks that Brahmins ordered the world into castes while Islam proposed egalitarianism. Instances of proper justice meted out to Hindus in the Mughal period, however rare, are unearthed from little-known works to generalize it. The sentence construction in the book is a bit laboured with lots of commas, hyphens, semicolons and brackets that affect readability. Of course, some may enjoy them. Even though the author’s views on the making of modern Hinduism are not agreeable to most readers, he has provided a lively survey of the encounter between Hindus and the Europeans in their various avatars as missionaries, orientalists and colonial administrators.

The book is recommended.

Rating: 3 Star