A R E V I E W O F B O O K S

VOL XIX NOS. 1 & 2 ● JANUARY - FEBRUARY 2014 ● PRICE : Rs 85

Battles Half Won: India’s Improbable Democracy by Ashutosh Varshney Deb Mukharji recommends two books on the Bangladesh War: 1971 by Srinath Raghavan and The Blood Telegram by Gary J. Bass Rajmohan Gandhi’s history of Punjab Prem Shankar Jha agrees with Deepak Nayyar’s Catch Up Ecology Economy – challenging the liberal-capitalist hegemony

● Courage and Conviction: General VK Singh’s autobiography Nishant Shah on The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon Shashi Deshpande revels in Filomena’s Journeys by Maria Aurora Couto

●

Fiction: Helium by Jaspreet Singh; Nilanjana Roy’s The Hundred Names of Darkness Githa Hariharan takes issue with Michelle Cohen Corasanti’s The Almond Tree C o n t e n t s

A REVIEW OF BOOKS Vol. XIX NoS. 1 & 2 36 pages JANUARY - FEBRUARY 2014 Founder Editors Dileep Padgaonkar Arvind N Das † (6.9.1948 - 6.8.2000) 6 Battles Half Won: India’s Improbable Democracy by Ashutosh Varshney Harish Khare Editor Rukmini Bhaya Nair 8 Punjab: A History from Aurangzeb to Mountbatten by Rajmohan Gandhi Ellora Puri Associate Editor Manisha Sethi 9 Partition’s Post-Amnesia: 1947, 1971 and Modern South Asia Shohini Ghosh Publisher & Art Director by Ananya Jahanara Kabir Brinda Datta 10 1971: A Global History of the Creation of Bangladesh by Srinath Raghavan Deb Mukharji Editorial Advisory Board: and The Blood Telegram: Nixon, Kissinger and a Forgotten Genocide by Gary J. Bass Tabish Khair, Amita Baviskar, Boria Majumdar, Alice Albinia, 12 Courage and Conviction: An Autobiography, General V. K. Singh Vipul Dutta Sukumar Muralidharan, Aveek Sen. with Kunal Verma

Subscription and Editorial 14 India at Risk: Misconceptions, Misadventures and Security Policy Anirudh Deshpande Address: 2204 Sector D 2, by Jaswant Singh Vasant Kunj, New Delhi - 110070. Tel: 91-11- 2689 7545 15 Indian Mujahideen: Computational Analysis and Public Policy Manisha Sethi Tel/Fax: 91-11- 2689 2429 by V.S. Subramanian, Aaron Mannes, Animesh Roul and R.K. Raghavan E-mail: [email protected] 16 Catch Up: Developing Countries and the World Economy Prem Shankar Jha by Deepak Nayyar Printed and published by Brinda Datta, 2204 Sector D 2, 18 Reimagining India: Unlocking the Potential of Asia’s Next Superpower Mohan Guruswamy Vasant Kunj, New Delhi - 110070. edited by Clay Chandler and Adil Zainulbhai for McKinsey & Company Printed at Archana Advertising Pvt. Ltd., C 78 Okhla Industrial Area, 19 Ecology Economy: Quest for a Socially Informed Connection Kaveri Gill Phase 1, New Delhi - 110 020 by Felix Padel, Ajay Dandekar amd Jeemol Unni Editor: Rukmini Bhaya Nair 20 The Almond Tree by Michelle Cohen Corasanti Githa Hariharan All rights reserved. Reproduction in any manner without the permission 21 Helium by Jaspreet Singh Stuti Khanna of the publisher is prohibited. RNI No. 65560/96 22 ‘A New Taj Mahal’ – a short story from Savage Harvest: Stories of ISSN No. 0971-8982 Partition by Mohinder Singh Sarna; translated by Navtej Sarna. An extract The views expressed by the contributors are their own and do 24 Filomena’s Journeys: A portrait of a marriage, a family & a culture Shashi Deshpande not reflect the editorial policy of by Maria Aurora Couto Biblio: A Review of Books 25 Servants: A Downstairs View of Twentieth-Century Britain Proteeti Banerjee by Lucy Lethbridge Forthcoming in Biblio 26 Nony Singh: The Archivist. Text by Sabeena Gadihoke and Aveek Sen Trisha Gupta

Fiction: 28 Unnatural Creatures. Stories chosen by Neil Gaiman Anita Roy Beloved Strangers by Maria Chaudhuri 29 The Hundred Names of Darkness by Nilanjana Roy Shalini Mukarji One Part Woman by Perumal Murugan 31 The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon by Brad Stone Nishant Shah Idris: Keeper of the Light 33 City Adrift: a short biography of Bombay by Naresh Fernandes Karishma Attari by Anita Nair Mirror City by Chitrita Banerji 34 Namdeo Dhasal (1949 - 2014): In Memoriam Kumar Ketkar Cities: COVER: ‘Protecting Democracy?’, Khirki Village, Delhi. Photograph by DINESH KHANNA. Capital by Rana Dasgupta Grand Delusions: a short biography of Calcutta by Indrajit Hazra Transforming Our Cities by read biblio online at www.biblio-india.org Isher Judge Ahluwalia The Destruction of Hyderabad by AG Noorani ● 1 year Individual online subscription: Rs 400 / USD 10 Non Fiction: ● Transforming India 2 year Individual online subscription: Rs 600 / USD 15 by Sumantra Bose Homeless on Google Earth ● 3 year Individual online subscription: Rs 700 / USD 20 by Mukul Keshavan Coolie Woman: The Odyssey of ● 1 year Institutional online subscription: Rs 1500 / USD 50 Indenture by Gaiutra Bahadur A Comma in a Sentence ● Subscription to the Biblio Archives: Rs 6000 / USD 500 by R. Gopalakrishnan A Life in Three Octaves: The Musical Journey of Gangubai Join us on Facebook Hangal by Deepa Ganesh www.facebook.com/web.biblio

B I B L I O : J A N U A R Y - F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 4

3 C o n t R I B U T O R S

KARISHMA ATTARI is a novelist based in Mumbai. She is the founder of The Super Readers Club, an initiative to get children reading. PROTEETI BANERJEE is a senior editor in academic publishing based in Kolkata. ANIRUDH DESHPANDE is Associate Professor at the Department of History, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Delhi. SHASHI DESHPANDE is the author of eight novels, three crime novels, a number of short story collections, as well as a collection of essays. Her latest novel is Shadow Play (Aleph, 2013). VIPUL DUTTA is a doctoral student at King’s College London. Shohini Ghosh is Sajjad Zaheer Professor at the AJK Mass Communication Research Centre, Jamia Millia Islamia. KAVERI GILL is a development economist based in New Delhi. MOHAN GURUSWAMY is a Visiting Fellow at the Observer Research Foundation and the Forum for Strategic Initiatives, New Delhi; and heads the Centre for Policy Alternatives, New Delhi, an independent and privately funded think-tank. He is the author of several books on policy issues, the latest being Chasing the Dragon: Will India Catch-up with China? TRISHA GUPTA is freelance writer and critic. Her published writing – on books, art photography, cinema and the city – is archived on her blog Chhotahazri (www.trishagupta.blogspot.com). She lives in Delhi. GITHA HARIHARAN is the author of several novels, including In Times of Siege and Fugitive Histories. A collection of essays on Palestine edited by her, entitled From India to Palestine: Essays in Solidarity, has just been published by LeftWord Books. She is a member of the Palestine Solidarity Committee in India and one of the convenors of the Indian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel. PREM SHANKAR JHA is the author of Twilight of the Nation State: Globalisation, Chaos and War, published by Sage, with an Introduction by Eric Hobsbawm. KUMAR KETKAR is a political analyst and former editor of Loksatta. STUTI KHANNA is Assistant Professor at the Department Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi. HARISH KHARE is a veteran commentator and political analyst, and former media adviser to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. He is currently a Fellow at Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial Fund. SHALINI MUKERJI is an independent writer, researcher and editor. DEB MUKHARJI was a member of the Indian Foreign Service (1964-2001). He served in Islamabad (1968-1971) and Dhaka (1977-1980 and 1995-2000). ELLORA PURI teaches in the Department of Political Science, University of Jammu. She works on South Asia, political violence, and gender. ANITA ROY publishes books for children and young adults under the Young Zubaan imprint. MOHINDER SINGH SARNA (1923-2001) was a much acclaimed writer and poet and recipient of many awards. He produced several volumes of poetry, short stories and novels, many of which have been translated into other Indian languages and made into tele-films. NAVTEJ SARNA is an Indian diplomat. He is the author of the novels The Exile and We Weren’t Lovers Like That; the short story collection Winter Evenings; the non- fiction works The Book of Nanak and Folk Tales of Poland; and a translation of Guru Gobind Singh’s Zafarnama. MANISHA SETHI is a Fellow at Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, New Delhi. Nishant Shah is the Director-Research at the Centre for Internet & Society, Bangalore.

JOIN THE CIRCLE OF REASON SUBSCRIBE TO BIBLIO: A REVIEW OF BOOKS

1 YEAR SUBSCRIPTION — Rupees Six Hundred A REVIEW OF BOOKS

2 YEAR SUBSCRIPTION — Rupees Eight Hundred

3 YEAR SUBSCRIPTION — Rupees One Thousand Mail the coupon to: 1 YEAR INSTITUTIONAL RATE — Rupees Nine Hundred SEAPIA BOOKS 2204 Sector D 2 1 YEAR FOREIGN SUBSCRIPTION (INDIVIDUAL) — US Dollars Seventy Five (or the equivalent in other currencies)

Vasant Kunj 1 YEAR FOREIGN SUBSCRIPTION (INSTITUTIONAL) — US Dollars One Hundred and Sixty New Delhi - 110 070 Please allow 28 days for delivery. India. All cheques/drafts should be drawn in the name of SEAPIA BOOKS

For Subscription NAME : OCCUPATION : enquiries contact: TEL : EMAIL: Tel/Fax: 91-11-26892429 ADDRESS : [email protected] Website: www.biblio-india.org PIN : Cheque / DD / MO No. : Amount :

Name of Bank / Branch : Date :

B I B L I O : J A N U A R Y - F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 4

4 ● ● ● p o l i t i c s ●

ideologically premised on a cultivated rejection of extreme partisanship and allurement of exclusion; on the other A refreshing hand, the pronounced emphasis on “inclusiveness” may be a clever electoral strategy but it is a ploy that nevertheless is democratic and is anchored in vague autonomy – almost John Rawls-type – notions and premises of fairness. And, that is ● why, as Varshney notes perceptively, the Bharatiya Janata Party will not be Battles Half Won – India’s Improbable Democracy able to do things vastly differently: It should be noted that the BJP By Ashutosh Varshney – should it return to power in an alliance – cannot entirely escape Viking/Penguin Books India, New Delhi, 2013, 415 pp., these inclusionary pressures. In Rs 599 (HB) search of votes, the BJP also has to move downward for support. That is shutosh Varshney is one ISBN 978-0-470-08426-7 where the biggest numbers of votes of the brighter sparks to exist. Unsurprisingly, the BJP did come out of the “Political not oppose the NREGA, nor did development” stable of HARISH KHARE it resist the 2006 affirmative action American Political Science. plan, nor the right to education and The Political Development food security bill. All parties are School assigned to itself subject to the rise of inclusionary the onerous task of initia- Ashutosh Varshney exudes a kind of intellectual self- pressures. ting the post-colonial academic elites into confidence that enables him to escape a familiar The very title of the collection theA “modernisation” project, educating suggests that there remain profound them on how to make a distinction failing of most professional political scientists, dissatisfactions with the way India between right and wrong constitutional especially those who research and analyse the Indian conducts its collective affairs in a principles, and, between desirable and political landscape, characterised by an inexplicable democratic idiom. But, all democracies – undesirable institutional choices as including the presumably super-perfect emerging nations undertook the task of inability to remain unintimidated by the political American democracy – produce their organising their collective affairs. This correctness of the week, which is invariably defined own share of absurdities, aberrations academic discourse ran a close parallel to and anxieties. Varshney’s labours carry the American foreign policy templates by the politician, the polemicist and the pamphleteer. a reassuring message: notwithstanding at the height of an all-consuming Cold It is this refreshing autonomy that makes this the greedy and hypocritical middle War. As it happened, Ashutosh Varshney classes’ clamour for an Indian version of earned his academic spurs just at a time collection of articles a sobering read the Chinese authoritarian arrangement, when the Cold War was petering out it would be difficult to turn our back ● and indeed was presumed to have been on the liberal Nehruvian legacy and concluded. And not unsurprisingly, on our democratic promises. “India is since then the American Social Sciences’ The book also becomes a sobering Given their political trajectories, one hyper-mobilised, much of it by political love affair with the emerging world, too, read at a time when India seems to be in shudders to think what kind of political parties.Hyper-mobilisation might make turned somewhat tepid. Under these the grip of its periodic self-doubts about system India would have evolved into Indian democracy very noisy, even circumstances, it was easy for him to how to sort out the mess produced if they had dominated the 1940s and chaotic, but in many ways, it also keeps saunter off the reservation. by its own democratic excesses; even 1950s. ” democracy going.” Also, the battle Varshney chose to the liberals seem unable to make up Varshney’s essays are remarkable on All this is very flattering to the fight – on behalf of democracy, with a their mind between the clamour for a another count. It is understood that argumentative Indian. However, Indian capital D, in India – was an easy fight; “strong and decisive” leader and the after all, scholarship is obliged to see democracy has yet to confront the but, he was willing to see before others romantic appeal of the anarchy of larger themes which may necessarily problem identified by James Madison could see “the exceptionalism of India’s mohalla republics, in complete rejection be at work beyond the daily grind of in The Federalist: “The inference to democracy with stunning clarity”. of Cicero’s caution against “the mad professional noise-makers in television which we are brought is, that the causes Though from an Indian point of view and irresponsible caprice of the mob”. studios and newspapers and even in of faction cannot be removed.” Our it is rather difficult to understand These confused souls may benefit from Parliament. Scattered through these national discourse, for understandably what all the fuss is about; evidently Varshney’s equitable analysis. essays is an important theme – a theme historical reasons, had sought to paper his quarrel is with his condescending Given the fact that a systematic for which there seems to be not many over differences inherent in existence of North American colleagues who had effort is on to delegitimise Jawaharlal takers in the present cynical days – of “faction” and its inevitable demands on to be necessarily sceptical about India’s Nehru’s democratic and liberal legacy, the centrality of the Indian National attention, resources and policy. Instead, experiments with democratic practices Varshney’s analysis on the Indian Congress in the consolidation of the somehow, we had sought solace in the and arrangements. Varshney proceeds democracy’s longevity does well to democratic arrangements, in particular presumed curative power of this or competently to dissect “in a highly highlight the historical significance of as one of the “institutions that have that “leader” to harmonise varying and counter-theoretical way”, why Indian that leadership. Asserting that “Nehru’s played a key role in generating all-India often conflicting interests and outlooks democracy has survived and, while he emergence as the topmost leader was loyalties, historically and currently”. of different factions. This fiction – of is at it, draws up a dhobi list of failures a monumental fortuity”, Varshney All said and done, the Congress a painless reconciliation – is becoming and successes. He rejoices in the fact invites speculation as to what would accent on the middle path and increasingly difficult to sustain; or, that Indian democracy has “defied” the have happened if Nehru had had to moderation remains the key to the at least, it requires a sophistication “standard democratic theory”. contend with Subhash Bose or Sardar overwhelming task of governing a in political dexterity that is not so This overarching theme holds Patel: “Bose dies in 1945, Patel in 1950. vast, continental polity. This accent is easily available. Varshney alludes to together nine previously published this dilemma in his concluding essay. ● (but updated) essays in Battles Half Making an eminently sound proposition Won: India’s Improbable Democracy. that “a nation’s politics decides what is A new introductory essay, clearly The very title of the collection suggests that there acceptable”, he identifies the nature of a bonus, sums up the argument, remain profound dissatisfactions with the way new challenge: elaborated in different shades in the Under such circumstances, a rest of the book. Varshney exudes a India conducts its collective affairs in a democratic universal-franchise democracy, kind of intellectual self-confidence that idiom. But, then, all democracies – including the where the deprived – defying enables him to escape a familiar failing standard democratic theory – have of most professional political scientists, presumably super-perfect American democracy – come to vote at least as much as, especially those who research and produce their own share of absurdities, aberrations if not more than, the privileged, is analyse the Indian political landscape, bound to feel inclusionary pressures. characterised by an inexplicable and anxieties. Varshney’s labours carry a reassuring Many more would like the fruits inability to remain unintimidated by the message: notwithstanding the greedy and hypocritical of the economic boom to come to political correctness of the week, which them. The greatest challenge for is invariably defined by the politician, middle classes’ clamour for an Indian version of India’s policymakers today is to the polemicist and the pamphleteer. It the Chinese authoritarian arrangement, it would be balance the new growth momentum is this refreshing autonomy that makes difficult to turn our back on the liberal Nehruvian with inclusionary policies. this collection of essays a sobering That elusive “balance” again. But so read. legacy and on our democratic promises be it. n

B I B L I O : J A N U A R Y - F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 4

6 ● ● ● ● ● H I S T O R Y ● ● P A R T I T I O N S T U D I E S ●

n this study, Rajmohan Gandhi In the same chapters, the reasons for n her work on cultural memory, Chai” which refers both to Darjeeling takes on the ambitious task the success of Sikh chief ’s campaign Marita Sturken (1997) reminds us tea as well as the desire for Darjeeling of tracing the history of pre- for political power, in comparison, are that memory is a narrative rather as the word ‘chai’ in Bengali means ‘to Partition Punjab over 240 years, A forced delineated much better. They were an than a replica of an experience Partition as a want’ or ‘to desire.’ Not only do the from the death of Aurangzeb active organised local force led mostly that can be retrieved and relived. chapters challenge a certain Indocentric in 1707 to the departure of by warriors from the countryside, which All memories are “created” in understanding of political and cultural the British in 1947. He gives a had acquired influence and territory tandem with forgetting because history but also urge us reflect on the chronological account focusing Punjabiyat via battles with their historical foes, to remember everything would process ‘methods’ by which cultural memory primarily on the political history of the Mughals and Afghans. Their symbols be to be overwhelmed by memory. could be excavated. Iregion, which he identifies as the area ● and beliefs were shaped through these IAnanya Jahanara Kabir’s book titled ● One of the inaugural epigraphs in in which the Punjabi language, in its encounters as well as the persecution Partition’s Post-Amnesia is about the the book is a quote from an interview various avatars, is spoken.The book is a Punjab: A History from Aurangzeb to Mountbatten that they suffered under latter-day excavation of memorial recall from the with Bengali vocal artist Firoza Begum labour of competent research that draws Mughal rulers. The militant fighting silence that had surrounded the post- Partition’s Post-Amnesia:1947, 1971 and Modern who says: “The Partition of these two from varied resources and duly offsets By Rajmohan Gandhi spirit and desire for political control Partition period. Moving away from South Asia countries dealt an irreparable blow to my the time-span that Gandhi aspires to was thus engendered, as was embodied the scholarly impulse of the “objective” singing. I became completely detached cover. Given the relative weakness of Aleph Book Company, New Delhi, 2013, 432 pp., Rs 695 (HB) in the nishan sahib with a double-edged and the “neutral”, the author implicates By Ananya Jahanara Kabir from everybody. The Gramophone historiography of Punjab, the book is a ISBN 978-93-82277-58-3 sword surrounded by a pair of kirpans, herself in the “participation” of this Company [of India in Calcutta] kept welcome contribution. and regal symbols in some Guru’s post-Partition memorial recall. Women Unlimited, New Delhi, 2013, 261 pp., Rs 475 asking me to record with them as a guest courts. Sikhs saw themselves as a single The events of the Partition artiste, but how could that happen? Gandhi seeks to address a number ISBN 978-81-88965-77-9 of issues in this book: what makes ELLORA PURI people, unlike the rest of the Punjabis. transformed entire generations but Where would I live? Who would stay for Punjabi distinctiveness; reasons These attributes aided the Sikh chiefs it took more than 50 years after 1947 with me? These thoughts preoccupied for the success of a century-long Sikh and gave them success. for the silence to be broken by those me so much that I became mentally rule starting from mid-18th century; Gandhi’s expertise in drawing who witnessed it. Reflecting on this SHOHINI GHOSH ill. I came to Dhaka, but didn’t like it explanation for the inability of the – is valuable as it skillfully outlines the region. This resulted in continued biographies is evident again in the long silence, Ashis Nandy (2003) one bit.” How does one read into this region’s Muslim majority to fill the a cohesive picture of the complex clashes between three forces – the chapter that he titles “Insaniyat amidst writes: “Those of us who saw it tried to ‘condition’? The excavation of cultural power vacuum at the end of the Mughal happenings of the period. The failure of Afghan rulers, Mughal governors and insanity” in which he records interviews forget what we saw; our imagination of its way through a diversity of cultural a Hindu majority regional demographic memory therefore must necessarily be empire; the achievements and failures the Congress to make headway in the the Sikh chieftains – becoming the of more than two dozen survivors of the evil failed to cope with it while others processes (and products) in order rather than secularist ideals”. These a reading into deep silences and gaps of the British rule in Punjab; history of province, the initial tepid response of order of the day. Gandhi fills these Partition and their life-saving acts. This sought to “jettison their memory and to understand how the monumental new insights, Kabir says, only heighten and an attempt to cull insights from community relations, its antagonisms Muslim Punjabis to the Muslim League chapters with minutiae, which though is his attempt to chronicle the history of history itself ” in order to restore a events and processes unleashed by 1947 the sense of the “enormous human fragments of pain and incoherence. and accords; causes of the Partition; and its demand for Pakistan, the rapid interesting, overburden the narrative, collaboration and humanity alongside moral world and reconfigure life. and 1971 could possibly speak to each loss” incurred by the Partition that was Kabir’s approach may remind readers and possible future trajectories. It is eclipse of the Unionist Party from and distract attention from exploring the more visible history of violence in Over the last 15 years, we have other. Kabir’s book asks how we might then followed by the long and bloody about Shoshana Felman’s important a tall order. It is to the credit of the the 1920s to 1940s, and the eventual the historical processes underway Punjab. In keeping with this agenda, seen, read and heard a diversity of proceed to remember 1947 given the war between East and West Pakistan work on Holocaust testimony where scholarly penmanship of the author coming round of all the parties to the during this period. Under the weight of the narrative of the book is interspersed material that has tried to address the events of 1971 and conversely, how we resulting in the creation of Bangladesh she argues for the elevated position of that he is able to touch upon each of idea that the province had to be divided detail, Gandhi is unable to adequately with anecdotes of cooperation between epochal events of 1947. This book might understand the events of 1971 which dismantled the “cartographic and literature because it acts as a specific mode these topics. are fairly well described. address the main question that he wants three communities — their similarities, contributes to this increasing body of given its relationship to 1947. How do political decisions of 1947”. Partition is of testimony. She says writers often feel Like any other work aiming to look Likewise, the reasons – particu- to address in this part of the book their common history, saints, poets, work but is driven by a new impulse: these cultural traumas – “processes that therefore understood not as an event, compelled to testify through literary or at such a wide range of issues, however, larly the role of the post-World War about why Punjab’s Muslim majority and folklore. The disproportionate one that challenges the Indocentricism damage the tissues of a community” but an ongoing process, where the artistic channels precisely because they Gandhi’s narrative is more confident II demobilised soldiery in a highly did not fill the post-Mughal void. His lack of focus on this aspect, however, that has dominated scholarship on the – impact on the “the reformation of creation of India, Pakistan and then know or intuitively feel that in the court and stimulating in particular areas than militarised province – for unprecedented explanation – the innate proclivity makes the argument for a shared cross- Partition in the subcontinent and the collective identity and the reworking of Bangladesh are inextricably entangled. of history (or in a court of law) evidence it is in others. This book is a testament violence that wracked the region are of a Punjabi to privilege survival over religious and denominational history many historiographic assumptions collective memory”? The book becomes Partition’s Post-Amnesia is divided will fail or will fall short. to the fact that biographical detail and explored. Given his focus on elite political power – borders on orientalist of the region underpinned by a notion that have informed such work. What an exploration into memorialisation; into two parts titled ‘Between 1947 In the same vein, Kabir has argued that modern-contemporary politics are the politics, Gandhi is, however, unable descriptions of Indians preferring of Punjabiyat look forced. In fact, it makes this book particularly unique an attempt to understand the self ’s and 1971’ and ‘Deep Topographies’ in order to understand cultural traumas author’s forte. The sketches that he makes the conflictual nature of Punjabi is that it links the Partition of 1947 to relationship to society (and the nation) with two chapters each titled and the fragmentary nature of pain, we draws of various protagonists, small or politics, which is presented more the Bangladesh Liberation war of 1971 and the individual’s “filial and affiliative” “The Phantom Map”, “Terracotta may have to move away from the mode major, are absorbing. He outlines the comprehensively, stand out. through the privileging of cultural connections. Memories”, “Archeogeography” and of the narrative or more specifically, the triumphs, peccadilloes and engagements Like any other work Overall, in his endeavour to memory over political history. Further, “scholarly preoccupation with narrative of the Mughal emperors, the Sikh aiming to look at provide a three centuries’ history of by foregrounding her own subjectivity ● modes of remembering Partition”. She Gurus, a one-eyed Ranjit Singh, the Punjab, Gandhi is more successful in the project Kabir is able to mobilise argues that the breaking of the silence Lawrence brothers and the Unionists, such a wide range when he details the high politics of ‘modernity’ as an analytical category in Partition’s Post-Amnesia is driven by a new around Partition in the early ’90s led as well as the machinations, scandals, of issues, Rajmohan intrigue and machinations and of the opposition to a fixation on religion as impulse: one that challenges the Indocentricism to the retrieval of oral histories and and tyrannies of the relatively less Gandhi’s narrative is interconnections of the persona grata. the “major axis of post-Partition self- narrative accounts that congealed into important Mughlani Begum,Sada Kaur, He is on weaker ground when he fashioning”. Kabir writes: that has dominated scholarship on the Partition a certain predictability because of its and the flog-loving John Nicholson. more confident and makes forays into cultural history and The post-memory of the holocaust in the subcontinent and the many historiographic “overwhelming reliance on narrative The chapters on the British Raj in stimulating in particular the interactions of the hoi polloi. The exemplarily constitutes the memory assumptions that have informed such work. What forms of memory” with oral history on Punjab compellingly construct a history emphasis might be deliberate since of memory, coupled with the re- the one hand and on the other, “novels, that shows how the Imperial army areas than it is in others. a cursory look at the bibliography telling of its telling; in contrast the makes this book particularly unique is that it short stories and films easily accessible and rural policies impacted Punjabi This book is a testament shows that he did not consult the politics of memory regarding 1947 links the Partition of 1947 to the Bangladesh to an Anglophone audience”. Kabir then society and politics, and were, in turn, scholarly work on socio-political and 1971 are characterized by an makes the useful suggestion that more affected by the societal realities. Punjab to the fact that history of Punjab like, for instance, intergenerational movement from Liberation war of 1971 through the privileging of than the material gathered, it is the became the main recruiting ground biographical detail and David Gilmartin on the British Empire retrieval of those affective and cultural memory over political history. Further, by perspective used to analyse them that for the British army, which faithfully and the making of Pakistan, or various cultural connections that amnesia needs to be innovative. But what does reproduced its rural social structure, modern-contemporary commentators like Swarna Aiyar on denied. This retrieval, I term post- foregrounding her own subjectivity in the project Kabir mean by narrative? She explains: while carefully dividing the regiments politics are the author’s Partition violence, or Kenneth Jones amnesia: a symptomatic return to Kabir is able to mobilise ‘modernity’ as an analytical The term indicates a text or along communal lines.The divisions that and Mark Juergensmeyer on socio- explorations of places lost to the representation that possesses temp- were already present were exacerbated forte. Overall, in his religious movements. immediate post-1947 and post-1971 category in opposition to a fixation on religion as the oral extent and bestows on its by these policies, which were logically endeavour to provide Chronologically, the chapters on generations through a combination “major axis of post-Partition self-fashioning” components a relationship of cause extended to other spheres as well. a three centuries’ history of Punjab, Gandhi British Punjab are more comprehensive of psychological and political and effect. Post-enlightenment Alongside, the Singh Sabhas, Arya in the way they draw out processes imperatives. ● modes of narrative typically rely on Samaj and the Anjumans, the popular is more successful when he details the high and linkages, than Gandhi’s preceding Taking the epochal moments of the concept of a singular perspective press also played up these differences. politics of intrigue and machinations and of the chapters that are heavy on detail. The 1947 and 1971, Kabir works through The political energy of Kabir’s book “The Enchanted Delta”. The chapters from which material is organised So, by 1940, when the Mahatma reasons for this might not just lie in his the connections between both and their emerges out of the insights gained from are journeys through a diversity of in order to produce the linear logic asked, “How are the Muslims of the interconnections of the persona grata. He is on relative strength in dealing with modern implications for an exploration of what a new body of “revisionist” work that cultural productions. “The Phantom of cause and effect. Narrative also Punjab different from the Hindus and weaker ground when he makes forays into cultural historical material than the pre-British Vazira Fazila Yacoobali Zamindar calls challenges an earlier understanding of Map” – focusing on the work produced privileges closure, a moment with the Sikhs? Are they not all Punjabis, sources. It might have to do with the the “partition effects or the ways in history where the onus of Partition has by authors from Bangladesh, India and enormous ideological potential, drinking the same water, breathing the history and the interactions of the hoi polloi fact that the modern history of Punjab which Partition is socially remembered rested squarely on the Muslim League Pakistan – invokes the spectral presence in order to complete the circuit of same air and deriving sustenance from is better studied and its strands better and retrospectively assessed”. The and Jinnah’s separatist Two Nation of East Pakistan; that historical aporia meaning-making. the same soil?” according to Rajmohan delineated. Pre-British Punjab, except book is mediated through the author’s Theory. To this impulse of forming a between 1947 and 1971. “Terracotta Competing narratives and a diversity Gandhi, “It was indeed the same water, to delve deeper into the question of despotic rule to self-government. The for Sikh history, is comparatively own family history that, after the theocratic state, the Indian National Memories” harks back to an earlier of closures, says Kabir, become yet Punjabis were usually drawing it why communal violence, which lead reason perhaps lies in the anachronistic under-researched. Rajmohan Gandhi “collective and laminated traumas” Congress, as Indian textbooks tell generation of cultural producers who “epistemological burdens” that lead to from different wells and taps. In the the British to call it the ‘Ulster of nature of his question. It projects a is thus opening up space for further of 1947 and 1971 found themselves us, responded with plans for a secular were active during the time of East the “mutual entanglement of nation and cities, the government has ensured that India’, was initially primarily an urban later-day communal identification on a historical explorations. All the dispersed “across the new nations India. More recent contributions to Pakistan. “Archeogeography” in ‘Deep narration” in the manner suggested by ‘Hindu pani’ was separately served at phenomenon, and engulfed the rural set of people who preferred their tribal, questions that he seeks to answer are of post-Partition South Asia and the Partition Studies has challenged this Topographies’ looks at Pakistan’s Benedict Anderson and Homi Bhabha. railway stations and other public places, areas only as the Partition drew near. caste and clan affiliations to the religious threads that can potentially lead to a cartographic arrangements created in historiography to argue that Jinnah’s invocation of a pre-Islamic past through In her study of texts therefore, she an arrangement that did not seem to The preceding chapters, which deal one. Indeed, the fact that this question book each. Along with that this book its wake. A “secularized Bengali Muslim desire for Pakistan was perhaps more in archaeological and geological evidence brings in a contemplation of paratextual invite popular protest.”(p 316) with the period between the death is posed at all is, in itself, strange in holds promise of separate biographies growing up in Nehruvian India” the the nature of “driving a hard bargain” while “The Enchanted Delta” looks at material like epigraphs, dedications, Gandhi’s account of the high politics of Aurangzeb and the British advent, view of the description that Gandhi of the scandal-prone Mughlani Begum, author finds herself to be “the point of than a desire for establishing of a the competing claims made by cultural acknowledgements, cover-designs, maps in these chapters – the confabulations mirror the chaotic nature of the times otherwise provides of the pre-British the manoeuvring Sada Kaur and the convergence of several maverick South theocratic state just as many members producers of India and Bangladesh and illustrations. More importantly, between the British, the Unionists, that they deal with, when the end of the Punjab of common Sufi saints, of zaat rather sadistic John Nicholson. Asian histories”. From this vantage of the Congress (in Bengal and over East Bengal. The personalised Kabir mounts a legitimate critique of our the Muslim League, and the Congress Mughal era lead to a power vacuum in loyalties and of composite armies. n point Kabir writes a book that navigates elsewhere) were “driven by visions of Conclusion is aptly titled “Darjeeling willingness to accept “psychoanalysis’s

B I B L I O : J A N U A R Y - F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 4 B I B L I O : J A N U A R Y - F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 4

8 9 ● ● ● H I S T O R Y ● reliance on models of narrative closure n the night of March 25, of the most crucial moments. There was If Nixon and Kissinger stand brutally exposed Pakistan, particularly in the East, had for the purported healing of traumatic 1971, the Pakistan army no question of whether the US should entirely indigenous motivation, roots memories without heeding the warnings commenced its undeclared intervene. It was already intervening on by Raghavan and Bass, their nervousness and and history. of historians of conflict who point to the and savage war against War of illusions behalf of a military regime decimating prevarication revealed, the patience and steely Known, but with India cautiously susceptibility of foreclosed narrative to its own citizens in East its own people”. avoiding the issue in 1971, was the focus the enhanced sense of a group’s ‘chosen Pakistan. Over the next ● Raghavan and Bass have different resolve of Indira Gandhi is a study in contrast. of the genocide on the Hindus of East trauma’ as the reason for its persecution nine months, uncounted interpretations of Indian intentions. Gandhi charted a course through perilous waters Pakistan. This is brought out starkly of a targeted other.” The continuing hundreds of thousands, 1971: A Global History of the Creation of Raghavan describes as “received by the authors, by Bass in particular. dependence on the models of Trauma perhaps millions, would be killed and wisdom” the “tenacious of all myths” with little support from the international community Eventually, some four fifths of the Studies, she argues, demonstrates how Ouncounted women violated. Where Bangladesh about Indira Gandhi’s desire to go and defied a super power with aplomb. Days after ten million refugees would be Hindu. inextricably narrative as a “cultural, entire villages are eliminated, it is early to war, based on the Army Chief her frosty November visit to Washington, Nixon was Bass details the concerns of Blood, juridical, and testimonial form is difficult to arrive at neat statistics By Srinath Raghavan Maneckshaw’s much publicised account and the assessments of US agencies, powerfully implicated in the creation and of a cabinet meeting. The general’s to wail to Kissinger they had been “suckered”. of the number of victims, but the Permanent Black, Ranikhet, 2013, 358 pp., Rs 795 that Pakistan was trying to eliminate sustenance of European modernity.” genocide was one of the bloodiest of memory was clearly embellished. As Indira Gandhi had won on more than one front all Hindus in East Pakistan as they As a legacy of Western thought the the 20th century. Ten million refugees ISBN 81-7824-380-6 Raghavan points out, there was an could not be trusted, and a Hindu-less narrative structure of beginnings middles took shelter in India. Bengali members “impressive increase in Pakistan’s armed ● East Pakistan may be more amenable. and ends, claims Kabir, turns a linear of the East Pakistan Rifles and the The Blood Telegram: Nixon, Kissinger and a might since her confrontation with India One must wonder if this fact may not sequence into a causal one. The logic police, peasants, university students in 1965”. Besides, hostile international have contributed to some extent to of the linear, forward-moving narrative, and professionals formed the Mukti Forgotten Genocide reactions had to be considered and the Pakistan resolution, which had called through a federation, Bhutto and Yahya the Western indifference on the issue, she argues, may seem to be illustrative Bahini to fight the Pakistan army and possibility of Chinese intervention in for one or more Muslim majority states. decided that a whiff of grapeshot would assuming that the Hindus could and of how narratives are shaped by time gain independence for Bangladesh. By Gary J Bass the summer months. Bass subjects The other issue is with regard to the take care of the Bengalis and the old would be eventually assimilated in when on the contrary, the experience Trained and armed in India, over the Random House India, Noida, 2013, 499 pp., Rs 599 himself to the “received wisdom” and West Pakistani attitude to separation. order would continue. India and the bonds of Islam would of temporality is shaped by narrative. months the Mukti Bahini inflicted posits that India intended to go to war The increasing tempo of resentment at Raghavan posits that the emergence reunite the two wings. Raghavan In such a situation how would one losses on the occupation forces and ISBN 978-81-8400-370-3 from the beginning and hence made economic disparity, starkly reflected in of Bangladesh in 1971 was not refers to a resolution which Canada react to narratives that do not bind the severed communications, eliminated the fullest preparations. He does not the Six Point programme, made it clear inevitable, but the result of multiple considered, but did not table at the UN, spectator to sequential readings? Kabir collaborators, their daring raids consider that any government in that that exploitation of East Pakistan was internal and external factors. This suggesting that the world community asks: What happens when, as in Indian infusing fear and uncertainty in the DEB MUKHARJI situation would need to make necessary no longer feasible. The draft Five Year is a truism, for, obviously, if the should “assist India to integrate those popular cinema, the linear unfolding of army of occupation and hope among a preparations for any eventuality, and Plan of 1969 had envisaged a substantial Pakistan ruling elite had acceded to the refugees as productive members of story is regularly interrupted by a song? people besieged and tormented in their that preparations do not necessarily net resource transfer from west to the legitimate demands of the East, there the community”. This provides an Kabir makes an argument for a dialectic own land. After war broke out between and Hindus by the Pak army and its was to come at a much later date when imply intent. east, to the dismay of Punjab. The would have been no separation. Or, interesting, and possibly significant, where two impulses play off against each India and Pakistan on December 4, collaborators. His cables continued the die had been cast, what was more There are two aspects to 1971 which results of the 1970 elections underlined indeed, if the international community, window into Western thinking.. It may other, the forward-moving narrative the demoralised Pakistan army in East to stream into Washington, eliciting significant was the US refusal to advise may have merited greater attention in the demographic advantage of the notably the US, restrained Pakistan in be noted in parenthesis that except impulse and the lyric impulse which Pakistan surrendered on December 16, no response. As they saw US supplied Yahya Khan when this could have made Raghavan’s admirable account. One, east and, hence, the shift of power in the early stages. At least, the separation for a Hindu member (Dhirendranath “lingers over moments and demands that 1971, to the combined forces of India planes and tanks being used against the a difference. As early as February, the that there may not have been unanimity any democratic system. In mid-March would not have occurred in 1971. Datta, then 85, tortured and killed by we linger with it”. She contends that the and Bangladesh. populace, Blood and 20 of his colleagues National Security Council had advised in India about any advantage resulting 1971 the editor of Bhutto’s (PPP) If India had not extended support the Pak army in 1971) standing up for study of non-narrative moments in films A comprehensive account of what sent a ‘dissent’ telegram charging the that though army action was unlikely, from the emergence of an independent mouthpiece had plaintively told me that and had absorbed the refugees, the the Bengali language in the Pakistan and literary texts as well as non-narrative happened in 1971 was not convenient government with moral bankruptcy in if it happened, “then the US had an Bangladesh. Not everyone believed, as India should take over these pestilential separation would have been delayed. National Assembly in 1948, the leading cultural production like lyric poetry, for many. Many books have appeared its support to the military government, interest both in avoiding violence and Raghavan assumes, that a Bangladesh Bengalis and rid Pakistan of them. An Where Raghavan seeks, perhaps, to figures and martyrs in East Pakistan’s photography, painting, sculpture, public in Bangladesh, from participants in would undercut the two-nation theory. East Pakistan with a separate identity find facts to justify his thesis is about struggle in the ’50s and the ’60s were monuments should become integral the War of Liberation, or those who After all, the very first clause of the was, therefore, to the advantage of both the global explosion of students’ unrest almost all Muslims, as were the freedom to Partition Studies. Here, one could survived the tortures, to tell future contentious Six Points of the Awami commercial interests as well as political influencing developments in Pakistan. fighters. suggest that the term ‘narrative’ may be generations of what happened in those League had called for a federation based aspirations in the West. However, This was not the age of Twitter and Raghavan provides details of the used to refer to a diversity of narrative nine months. But in the consciousness on the Lahore Resolution, the so-called instead of seeking accommodation Facebook, and the developments in dilemmas faced by India as the carnage form and structures which could also of the world at large, this is a forgotten include the lyric mode. In other words, chapter. Some considered it forgettable. one need not understand the term Pakistan remains largely in a state of narrative as one that is only linear and denial, anguished only at the memory forward-moving. of its humiliation. Indians recall 1971 In this review, I have chosen to pay as the great victory of its arms over more attention to the methodological Pakistan. In the United States facts approach than the details of individual have been air-brushed to exonerate chapters. This is because I feel two key figures at the time, Richard that notwithstanding the wealth of Nixon and Henry Kissinger, for their interesting material the individual complicity in genocide. In Bangladesh chapters present – some of which may itself, scars of 1971 remained raw as appear to some readers like me to be too the political kaleidoscope provided diverse, uneven and eclectic – the book is immunity to many who had committed made exceptional through its conceptual heinous crimes in 1971. framing. One of the difficult challenges In recent times there appeared a facing scholars who have taken the concerted move to downplay, if not affective turn is to figure how language distort, the depth and extent of the and ‘narrative’ in scholarship might adapt genocide in 1971, Sarmila Bose’s It is fortuitous, that even as Bangladesh attempts a to the affective impulse. To my mind, Dead Reckoning: Memories of the 1971 the book would have had greater sparkle Bangladesh War (Hachette, 2011) being process of closure and healing with the International had it accommodated in the mode of its a prime example. It is fortuitous that Crimes Tribunal, that two remarkable books on writing what the author describes as the at this moment, even as Bangladesh non-narrative, lyric impulse. But such a attempts a process of closure and 1971 by Srinath Raghavan and Gary Bass should stylistic shift takes time and may require healing with the International Crimes have appeared. They are similar in the depth of authors to spend more time sculpting Tribunal, that two remarkable books their texts than our professional lives will on 1971 by Srinath Raghavan and Gary scholarship and the terrain covered, even though allow. Ananya Jahanara Kabir’s work has Bass should have appeared. They are their approaches differ. Raghavan takes a wide-angle always sustained this reviewer’s interest similar in the depth of scholarship and view of political and diplomatic developments of the and therefore I look forward to future the terrain covered, even though their work that will do justice to the author’s approaches differ. While not omitting time. Gary Bass is more focused on establishing the own conceptual promise. But till such the details, Raghavan takes a wide- complicity of Nixon and Kissinger in the genocide time, this book has much to offer. angle view of political and diplomatic Endnotes: developments of the time. Gary Bass in 1971, anchoring his work on the remarkable Tangled Memories: The Vietnam War, The AIDS is more focused on establishing the telegram of dissent sent by the US Consul General in epidemic and the Politics of Remembering by complicity of Nixon and Kissinger in Marita Sturken, University of California Press, the genocide in 1971, anchoring his Dhaka, Archer Blood, and his men Berkeley, 1997. work on the remarkable telegram of ● “The Days of the Hyena: A Foreword” by dissent sent by the US Consul General Debjani Sengupta, in Map Making: Partition Stories from Two Bengals, Srishti Publishers and in Dhaka, Archer Blood, and his men. disregarding the atrocities and assault in checking its escalation”. This is Distributors, Calcutta, 2003. Archer Kent Blood was the US on democratic values. Blood was supported by Bass who demonstrates The Juridical Unconscious: The Trials Consul General in Dhaka when the withdrawn and US policy of support to that, despite the consistent Kissinger and Traumas of the Twentieth Century by military crackdown commenced on Yahya Khan continued with increasing line that the US should not intervene in Shoshana Felman, Harvard University Press, the night of March 25. Within a day vigour till the very end. an internal affair of Pakistan, the “White Massachusetts & London, 2002. he reported the systematic elimination Raghavan details that while the House was actively and knowingly n of Awami Leaguers, intellectuals ‘tilt’ towards Pakistan vis-à-vis India supporting a murderous regime at many

B I B L I O : J A N U A R Y - F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 4 B I B L I O : J A N U A R Y - F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 4

10 11 ● ● ● A U T O B I O G R A P H Y ●

started. Support to the Bangladesh the clinical scholarship of Raghavan. infamous “age issue” where he lashes just before he was due to take over as a the then Military Secretary (MS) and in promotions and appointments. freedom fighters was halting in the Bass wants to restore history mauled out at this particular office in the Army corps commander at Ambala. Maybe his the indictment of many other big fish. Singh’s repeated brushes with the MS beginning, picking up only in July, by Kissinger as Raghavan uses facts Headquarters (termed by Singh as the struggle which led him to court was not As if that wasn’t enough, the Adarsh Branch during the course of his career when initial concerns about the without judgement. They both Controversial “Sanctum Sanctorum of the Indian as rosy and selfless as he claims in the scam, which will now be reviewed by for instance is also the story of several resistance being taken over by leftist establish that it may well have been Army”, p 137) which goes by the name book. Singh could have readily quit and the Maharashtra government, threw other officers who have suffered for elements were overcome. There were possible for Nixon and Kissinger to rein of the MS (Military Secretary’s) Branch. made himself the ‘bigger man’ at that up names of two former Army Chiefs not being in their good books and will internal wrinkles within the Bangladesh in the murderous Pakistan army. They While I worked my way to get a more point but didn’t. However, his decision among other high profile names readily vouch for the Branch’s aptly government in exile which needed to be both place before the reader the deep commander solid grip on heavy military jargon used to use litigation instead of quitting and as beneficiaries of flats which were titled motto, if it ever gets one: “You addressed. The US effort to wean away racial prejudices that motivated the in the book and the way it christens its earning the temporary admiration of originally intended for the Kargil War show us the man and we will show you a part of the Bangladesh leadership US leadership. Bass becomes exposed ● offices in the Headquarters, it is the MS an earlier generation of soldiers who’d widows. To top it all, came scandalous the rule”, p 239). Singh’s account of had to be thwarted. India’s efforts to to criticism from Kissinger acolytes Branch that is easy enough to remember rather step on hot coals than face the charges of being offered a bribe by his many transfers (at first hyperbolic persuade governments to leash the Pak because of his focus on exposing Courage and Conviction: An Autobiography precisely because it is the most reviled in indignity of going to court, but who then a “middle-man” in the TATRA case and Khemka-esque) may not sound military met with little success, but the Kissinger’s fraudulent reputation Singh’s account. Non-specialist readers wouldn’t think twice when accepting (military vehicles). Leaving aside convincing and the castigation of the MS conscience of the people in the West and the flaws in his self justification. By General VK Singh with Kunal Verma of this book, of whom there will be ambassadorial and gubernatorial posts Singh’s own inflated sense of being Branch may be a bit exaggerated, but the was stirred by the atrocities and the Raghavan compels the reader to quite a few, will shut this book with a showed Singh as a citizen who firmly right (which appeared punctured story of unwarranted transfers in return plight of refugees. Public opinion – arrive at the same conclusions, but his Aleph Book Company, New Delhi, 2013, 263 pp., Rs 595 (HB) less starry-eyed account in their minds exercised his right to recourse to legal when he recently made remarks about for “new curtains and fresh upholstery” and the State Department – checked to detached recounting and analysis of of the way the Army functions at the remedy. A major reason why Singh “paying Kashmiri politicians”), there (p 192) has sealed many a fate. some extent the support that Nixon and facts leave no such room. ISBN 978-93-82277-57-6 higher echelons. This is actually one of shocked a lot of comfy drawing rooms has never been a barrage of corruption On many other issues Singh and Kissinger wished to provide Pakistan. Robert Blackwill, former US the basic points why Gen Singh’s book in Delhi was because India is yet to cases being unearthed by any of Singh’s Verma write with alacrity and furnish An Indo-Soviet treaty had been in ambassador to India and presently has acquired some acclaim from certain get used to having an ‘Erin Brokovich predecessors, some of which began their side of the story with aplomb. the coming for two years. When finally Henry A Kissinger Senior Fellow at VIPUL DUTTA quarters, which is generally reserved moment’ of its own. A great amount during their tenures. Why Singh is His account of the transformation concluded on August 9, it enhanced the Council on Foreign Relations, has for books penned by politicians or of moral opprobrium on Singh was reviled in some army circles today is study (in cold storage now) suggested Indian confidence in facing up to the defended Kissinger’s actions in 1971 statesmen. Of course criticism too – attributed to the fact that he dared to because he has managed to show what an overhaul of the services wing of nexus between Pakistan, the US and both of his tenure and his book – has step outside his office and seek legal help the army into a logistic corps that and questioned Gary Bass for placing eneral VK Singh’s auto- Keeping Force (IPKF) that went to Sri some corrupt individuals have done to China. Contrary to the fulminations also been well laid out in numerous (that he acted itself was problematic, could have made it more responsive “human rights concerns at the pinnacle biography has come Lanka in the latter part of the 1980s. the system as a whole and in doing that in the White House, the Soviet Union blogs and the print media, sometimes regardless of the issue), a lot of scorn to current operational needs. Singh is of US foreign policy, at least in this out at a time when the However, no combat experience could there has been a waning in the public consistently urged restraint on India. credible, while deeply personal and came from former officers themselves refreshingly honest about the miles crisis”. Blackwill is dismissive of the controversies surrounding have prepared the General for what he admiration of this institution which The major justification for the churlish at other times. some of whom equate India’s apolitical of red tape that strangulates decision abusive gutter language consistently him have outlived his was faced with in his years as the COAS was thought to be relatively cleaner blinkered US attitude to the 1971 At the centre of the age controversy armed services with a muted concern making in the Army headquarters and used by Nixon and Kissinger in tenure as Army Chief by (Chief of the Army Staff). History than other departments. genocide was the need to preserve was the refusal of the government to for legitimate rights. Pursuing the case the stranglehold of the MOD (Ministry their references to India, recalling a fair margin. It sets the might probably treat him kindly, but for Gen VK Singh’s memoirs will be Yahya Khan as the conduit preferred consider his date of birth (as recorded in the court and its denouement would of Defence) over the former (p 288) Eisenhower’s comments on the Soviet record straight on the the present, one would have to make do closely read, both by his admirers and by Beijing. As Chinese documents are in his matriculation certificate i.e. 1951 have perhaps cleared the air had it not through its own internal bureaucracy. Union. But this sophistry cannot passage of his career and on the many with this autobiography. his detractors. The book is acerbic not available, it is not possible to judge but erroneously recorded as 1950 in been withdrawn by Singh prematurely. There is also mention of the “cadre airbrush the intense distaste, if not controversiesG which affected it – of Singh, born in Rajasthan to a on many of Singh’s superiors during if they may not have accepted another, subsequent documents starting from the Singh’s tenure coincided with some reviews” and the impact they have hatred, for India, Indians and, above which the “age issue” which grabbed predominantly Army family (most his early service and is also perhaps if the US had so suggested. What UPSC) as the correct one. Even though of the most widely publicised incidents had on the officers and appointments all, Indira Gandhi, that permeates all headlines in the media overshadowed being commissioned into the Rajput symptomatic of the stresses and emerges from the accounts of Bass and Singh was apparently willing to give which portrayed the Army top brass in (p 321). Singh rues the fact that the conversations between the two. The the many other insidious ones – if Regiment), followed a typical “Army tribulations which several officers have Srinivasan is the almost craven attitude “a commitment” that he would demit less than favourable light. Until then, upgradation of several appointments racism is palpable and the Indians he is to be believed. A review of any kid” education at schools across the complained about over the last few of Washington, continuing its support office by May 2012 (his official date of people had been quite alright with as recommended by the Second Phase were clearly children of lesser gods. autobiographical/biographical work is country before being put into the Birla years relating to their tenure, service to Pakistan, even when it ceased to be retirement going by 1950 as his year of reading about one erring colonel here of the AV Singh Committee Report Blackwill crowns his arguments with a dual exercise — an assessment of a School at Pilani from where he got conditions and incentives. Careerism an intermediary, on the plea that Beijing birth), the government refused to budge and there, or at the most finding two skewed the balance between the civil and the self serving myth of US having life and of the mind which lived it. The into the National Defence Academy and the way officers have fought for would look out for American reliability. “successfully deterred a major Indian and the office of the Attorney General, or three corrupt generals’ names in top jobs is one of the worst kept secrets military levels of government which led A low point in American diplomacy campaign against West Pakistan”. then and still occupied by GE Vahanvati, their daily newspapers. However, when of the Indian Army in recent years. The to the “downgrading of the rank” while and statecraft was surely reached when, The United States did not initiate going by Singh’s account set down two reports of the Sukna Land Scam (p 280) side columns in our newspapers do not ostensibly upgrading the appointment. meeting in secrecy after the war had the conflict in Pakistan. But a series General VK Singh’s neat questions which are crying out for surfaced that signalled embezzlement do justice to the reams of litigation that The book is a rare example of Indian started, Kissinger pleaded with the of actions and abstention from action, autobiography is a rare a closer examination. The first question and covert land transfer, it became a bit is filed frequently in tribunals today military writing (if one can call it that) Chinese ambassador for a show of from failing to caution Yahya before asked if the officer could change his date too prickly and led to the sacking of by personnel relating to manipulations that also happens to be a page turner military strength to frighten India. On the crackdown when its own agencies example of Indian military of birth; the second one (even craftier in terms of readability and the quality their part, while willing to be abusive reported what the army intended, writing, that also happens to than the first) asked if it would disturb of its publication. Given General of the Indians in their discussions with to its eventual pleading with China the “line of succession?” (p 312). The VK Singh’s turbulent tenure, it will the US, and indicating general support to threaten the Indians as the noose be a page turner in terms of age issue acquires grave implications in add to its popularity (or notoriety?). to Yahya Khan, the Chinese did not tightened, made it complicit in the readability. It has gripping, the face of the allegations that Singh’s This book deserves to be read to get respond positively to American pleas genocide that intervened. It could be age was deliberately kept incorrect in a perspective on crucial milestones in for any military engagement. Zhou had argued from a counter perspective, crisp and moving accounts of order to ‘fix’ the next successor. Be that India’s history of which Singh was a advised Yahya in the early days of the that Nixon and Kissinger were acting the Sri Lankan insurgency and as it may, Singh’s winning bet would part. It has gripping, crisp and moving crackdown that “the question of East in the best interests of the United the liberation of Bangladesh. have been to stick his neck out when accounts of the Sri Lankan insurgency Pakistan should be settled according States as they saw it, that what they did the MS had stood firm on his date of and the liberation of Bangladesh. That to the wishes of the people of East – or, more aptly, did not – is what any That Gen VK Singh’s “courage birth as 1950 just before he was to take Singh’s “courage and conviction” came Pakistan”. powerful nation might, secure in the and conviction” came to over as Corps Commander and when to be derided as “conceit and careerism” Much has been made by Kissinger cynicism of its supremacy. The criticism warning bells had first sounded. Also is a fall out of his need to push with the about India’s plan to split up Pakistan, of the two may therefore arise not be derided as “conceit and the question of succession to the post of “age controversy”, which formed but and success in preventing this a prime from objective analysis, but what some careerism” is a fall out of his need to push with the the Army Chief has been part of a larger a small though significant part of his success of US policies. After his visit Americans, and other nations, expect debate that has generated immense heat tenure, and got too many skeletons out to Delhi in July he had reported that from a nation with its self-proclaimed “age controversy”, which formed but a small though but little light. With no set criteria in of the Army’s closet. the Indians expected Pakistan to adherence to democratic values, liberty significant part of his tenure, and brought too many place for promotions, the Army has Singh reserves his fiercest criticism disintegrate after the separation of etc. Thus seen, the Statue of Liberty become a flashpoint for top generals for the political class, whom he unfairly East Pakistan. By December he had may hide feet of clay, and that Nixon skeletons out of the Army’s closet to fight out for ‘earning their stars’ and blames as being paranoid about a decided that the Indian objective was and Kissinger merely acted with the ‘fixing others’ while they unwittingly military take-over of government since assault and destruction of Pakistan by same disregard for international norms inspire those below them to take a cue Nehru’s days. Naming top officers military means. “You see those people or human values as US establishments 17th century English poet Abraham (NDA) wishing to join the Air Force and chart a similar path for themselves. like Thimmayya, Cariappa, Thorat and welcoming the Indian troops when have on many stages from Vietnam to Cowley’s cautious quote on the practice but eventually getting commissioned All talk of appointing a collegium of more recently SK Sinha and perhaps they come in…why then Henry, are Chile to Iraq. of writing literary ‘selfies’ perched atop into the Army. Anyone close to Singh experts to appoint Army Commanders sub-consciously putting himself on par we going through all this agony?” asks If Nixon and Kissinger stand Jawaharlal Nehru’s An Autobiography during his years at the academy and and other top appointees has come to with these personalities, Singh seems Nixon. Kissinger replies, “We’re going brutally exposed by Raghavan (published in 1936) has managed to familiar with his subsequent career nothing and largely staid clerical issues to portray himself as one of the many through this agony to prevent the West and Bass, their nervousness and hold true to this day — it must have would not have been overwhelmingly (and hence susceptible to manipulation) individuals who could have gone on Pakistan army from being destroyed. prevarication revealed, the patience been a “hard and nice subject” for surprised to see his tenure as Army Chief are left to determine the successors to to change the face of the organisation Secondly, to maintain our Chinese arm. and steely resolve of Indira Gandhi is General VK Singh (and Kunal Verma) mired in controversy. At one level, his these vital posts. had politicians not been busy “looking Thirdly to prevent a complete collapse a study in contrast. Gandhi charted a to write of himself, but while “it grates description of events at NDA and IMA The age controversy was not merely over their shoulders” and “raising the of the world’s psychological balance”, course through perilous waters with his own heart to say anything of and the troubles he got himself into Gen VK Singh’s doing. To be fair to spectre of a military take-over…which which would follow if the Soviets and little support from the international disparagement”; it grates “the reader’s seem to be rather innocuous, at another the general, the error first crept up in always works” (p 335). Gen VK Singh their client state destroy a country. This community and defied a super power ears to hear anything of praise”. level they are curiously prescient of the his application to NDA (which had had the zeal to reform the system, exposition must rank high as an exercise with aplomb. Days after her frosty Gen VK Singh’s career of almost trajectory his actions took when he then delayed his joining the academy but he is missing the point that civil- in sophistry. As Raghavan comments: November visit to Washington, Nixon half a century saw him in action across scaled up the ladder. by a week) but then was rectified later. military relations mirror the workings “This was Nixon and Kissinger’s war was to wail to Kissinger they had been diverse theatres. Although not a part of So just what is it so wrong that However, it reared its head again at the of a democratic country like India where of illusions. In retrospect they come “suckered”. And as Pakistan unraveled the 1962 India-China war in which his Gen VK Singh did as COAS, that Indian Military Academy, where he was each passing day is a work-in-progress across not as tough statesmen tilting and Kissinger went into depression, regiment (better known as Kali Chindi has ensured his reputation to precede “made to enter the same date which he towards its meaningful evolution. Past towards their ally, but as a picaresque Nixon wondered if “Henry required which he commanded later) saw the him everywhere and which evokes had put in his application form to the conflicts between generals and politicians pair tilting at windmills.” psychiatric care”. Indira Gandhi had worst of the fighting, Singh went on such strong reactions? The answer is UPSC” (p 31) but then got corrected have only led to the strengthening of a The two books complement each won on more than one front. to take part in the 1971 war against provided soon enough. Singh starts later again for a second time only to Cadet VK Singh receiving a trophy from the Commandant at the Indian dialogue between the two sectors and other. Bass’s passion is moderated by n Pakistan as well as the Indian Peace his litany of complaints with the be arbitrarily and erroneously fixed Military Academy, 1970 not a renunciation of it. n

B I B L I O : J A N U A R Y - F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 4 B I B L I O : J A N U A R Y - F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 4

12 13 ● ● ● ● ● S t r a t e g i c a f f a i r s ● ● S E C U R I T Y ●

War is too serious a matter to entrust plane (IC-814) from Kathmandu ndian Mujahideen. Computation timed attacks been bombings. Further- to military men. to Kandahar (December, 1999) is analysis. Public policy. These are more, simultaneous/timed attacks have described in detail by Jaswant Singh. the three elements of this book, targetted public sites. But this isn’t a — Georges Clemenceau (1841-1929) A call to arms The description of these events is as the title clearly – if rather Embedded scholars book where one should expect clarity highly personalised because Singh was uncreatively – suggests. First, let’s of categories (even one titled “bad ● involved in them as a cabinet minister get Indian Mujahideen out of the ● acts”). t has become common in the NDA government. However, way. Announcing its existence The TP rules predict that an attack these days for publishers to India at Risk: Mistakes, Misconceptions and two things stand out in this narration. with an email communiqué Indian Mujahideen: Computational Analysis and by IM can be expected five months after produce attractively packaged First, we are not told how some of the mailed to media houses before a series thawing of Indo-Pak relations (‘bad mediocre books on fashionable, Misadventures of Security Policy well-equipped units of the Pakistani Iof blasts rocked courthouses in Uttar Public Policy men’ in Pakistan army will want to play pseudo-academic themes, Army came to occupy the heights of Pradesh in 2007, the Indian Mujahideen spoiler); four months after IM holds a endorsed by well-known By Jaswant Singh the Kargil-Batalik region of Kashmir. has been invoked with great frequency By V.S. Subramanian, Aaron Mannes, Animesh Roul and conference; three months before the foreign ‘experts’. India at Risk Raintree/Rupa, New Delhi, 2013, 292 pp., Rs 595 (HB) Singh skirts this issue to save the NDA by investigating agencies, their dossiers R.K. Raghavan interactions between IM members and by Jaswant Singh, soldier- government from taking blame for bulging with Interrogation Reports NSAGs would get pronounced and a diplomat-Right-wing-politician, is no ISBN 978-81-291-2907-9 the Indian intelligence failure in the of suspected IM operatives, lengthy Springer International, Switzerland, 2013, 173 pp., Price not public declaration is made about its Iexception to this trend. It is endorsed weeks preceding the start of the Kargil accounts of secret meetings and modus intent and future actions; and finally, a mentioned by none other than Stephen Cohen, operations. This from an author who operandi. Over the years, these secret month or so after members of IM are a venerable darling of the security ANIRUDH DESHPANDE does not tire of berating the Congress dossiers, chargesheets and reports have ISBN 978-3-319-02817-0 arrested. Chapter after chapter repeats establishments of India and Pakistan government’s intelligence failures in congealed a narrative about the birth and this same hypothesis, first for attacks both. Cohen’s certificate: “I recommend 1961-62. Second, the narration of the growth of IM in public consciousness. on public sites, then for bombings, this strongly for those who wish to sordid hijack drama focuses on Singh’s This book does no more than tritely M A N I S H A S E T H I followed by simultaneously timed understand a major and vital strand of Hindutva and a long-term member border in 1962. All this hardly makes role in it after the plane was allowed to reproduce that narrative. “The ‘source’ attacks. None of this of course can be of thinking that will influence Indian of the largest Right-wing Hindu for a “major and vital strand of take off from Amritsar having been on data for our study”, say the four authors, verified with any authority “without politics for years to come” stands out nationalist party of India – the BJP. thinking” promised by Cohen on the the tarmac there for quite some time. are primarily “an excellent book by access to the internal deliberations on the cover of the book. The prose The Muqaddimah asserts the role of cover. Chapter Six of the book is titled Singh does not explain why the fourth Gupta (2011) and work reported by in Mangalore, Karnataka) as well as of copy pasting from ‘official’ sources and planning processes within IM”. of the book makes it clear that either “critical investigation” in the narration “India’s Destructive Decades” (pp 140- largest army in the world could not Fair (2010)”, besides “a vast range in Bengaluru where numerous IM with no independent research. Why then go through all the trouble Cohen has not sampled the offering or of history but this book, predictably 163). On p 141 a table of important incapacitate this plane in Amritsar. The of other open source information, attacks have taken place. IM also Now, the computation analysis part. of creating elaborate mathematical he is being kind to an old friend or he enough, amounts to a weather beaten events is presented. This table begins fact that Singh flew to Kandahar in particularly from the Indian press”. has power bases in both the states of The authors claim to have collected models and fancy syntax if good old endorses the RSS-BJP view of Indian criticism of the Congress. It does not with the Pakistani surrender in Dhaka the company of dreaded terrorists to Shishir Gupta’s sources in turn are Tamil Nadu and Kerala. data on more than 770 variables on a intelligence groundwork is all that will military culture and strategic matters. I criticise the Sangh Parivar or the NDA in December, 1971 and ends with negotiate the release of Indian hostages mainly custodial confessions. Christine What the authors mean is this: monthly basis between January 2002 to eventually matter. Even within the am certain that this kind of American for having contributed even an iota to the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi in speaks volumes of the BJP’s charge that Fair has relied on Indian press reports “Attacks usually, but not always, occur December 2010, organising them along paradigm of unquestioned credulity certificate would be obtained by a similar the events, which have made its author May, 1991. The rath yatras of the BJP the Congress has converted India into and terrorism analysts, but concedes, in places where a group has at least the two axes of environment and action. that the authors are operating, these book written by a Pakistani general or sad and reflective. Jaswant Singh undertaken by LK Advani during the a ‘soft’ state. Further, it was the BJP- “It is nearly impossible to validate some support within the underlying Is 770 their lucky number? Because algorithmic conclusions – predictions politician. Another endorsement, by led NDA government which welcomed the authenticity of the journalistic population.” that was the exact number of variables for the intelligence and security the famous Air Marshal Arjan Singh, General Parvez Musharraf “the man accounts of the organisations and And just in case, we did not the authors gathered data on for their agencies to act upon – are sparse. calls the book a “treasure trove of In the Epilogue, Jaswant who had, during Kargil, been the chief their actions.” Further, she says, “The comprehend who the “underlying previous book on Lashkar. That IM did But deeming computation to be its views and opinions on all matters Singh holds forth on the of Pakistan’s army as also the chief most prominent Indian journalist on population” was, it further clarifies: not exist in 2002 is a minor problem USP, the book goes on to use integer that concern our national security perpetrator of the incursion” (p 219) to this subject is Praveen Swami, who Though support for fundamentalism solved by the authors’ recourse to linear programming to automatically needs”. Sadly, the enlightenment “double disarming of India in July 2001. This gave the dictator is exceedingly well-connected to the is common in some Muslim coding Asif Raza Commando Force generate policy options to counter the promised by the jacket does not India”. First, the British the legitimacy he desperately needed in Indian intelligence community…” neighborhoods, support for and Students Islamic Movement of IM. The policy recommendations are materialise in Singh’s anti-Congress the face of international disapproval In brief then, the IM chronicle is nothing short of dangerous — leaving narrative, which all too often slips out disarmed India after the at the time. Readers must note that largely an enterprise crafted by the ● one wondering what was fed to the of the thin academic sheath hiding it. Revolt of 1857 and then, these events happened when the NDA intelligence and investigative agencies. computers in the first place. Among The book has a Preface, a short was in power and their occurrence Though to be sure, there is not an All the rule syntax is unable to save Indian its key recommendations is setting Mahatma Gandhi brought seriously qualifies the allegations of Introduction, eight chapters which absolute absence of critical reportage Mujahideen from its own weaknesses: lack of up of “special counter terror courts”. reproduce well-known facts, an about the “other great strategic weaknesses levelled by Singh and writing, more cynical of the claims What, pray, are counter terrorism Epilogue and eight appendices familiar against the Congress leadership since courts? The task of the courts is to try disarming”. Gandhi’s of the agencies — but those don’t find primary research about the organisation the to historians and journalists in general. Independence. their way into this book. The farthest authors wish to speak of so authoritatively, the accused, weigh the evidence, and The book studiously omits chapters “attitude harmonized In the Epilogue, inter alia, Singh the book travels in its critique of arrive at a conclusion — not to become on the Hyderabad Police Action with the fundamentals of holds forth on the “double disarming the agencies is to refer to the dispute ignorance compunded by rank prejudice and the instruments of counter terrorism (1948), the Goa Liberation (1961) of India”. First, the British disarmed over the perpetrators of the Mumbai boilerplate language of national security. policy. Moreover, these are envisaged as and the annexation of Sikkim (1975). certain faiths, thus adding India after the Revolt of 1857 and suburban train bombings of 2006. That secret courts “out of the glare of India’s These events are examples of the yet another element to the then, to make matters worse, Mahatma one of its authors is an ex-director The window dressing of algorithm serves to energetic press”. The authors would strategic successes of the Congress- Gandhi brought about the “other great of CBI whose “years of experience reinforce rather than hide its blindspots also like to see the “elimination” of IM dominated Indian State – an anathema decline in India’s martial ethos, military expertise disarming” (p 236). Gandhi’s “attitude within an investigative authority” was operatives “if authorised by courts”. In to the Saffron critics of Nehru and his harmonized with the fundamentals of drawn upon by the research team only other words, they seek the legalisation and logic. To this, post-1947, was added a militarily ● daughter. The book also presents a certain faiths, thus adding yet another reinforces its insider-ness. It takes of encounter killings. selection of chronologically arranged illiterate and untrusting civilian control of the armed element to the decline in India’s martial the security establishment’s views The book further suggests closer familiar photographs which date from forces”. Thus the Westminster style of governance, ethos, military expertise and logic. To as unimpeachable truth, raising no Islamic jihad is limited and not India as part of IM. This relatively brief counter terrorism ties between India, the partition of India till the Kargil War this, post-1947, was added a militarily questions, offering no insights. rampant in urban centers. Islamic lineage, however, ought to be welcomed US and Israel (little wonder that it of 1999. in true BJP style, is taken to task by Singh, who does illiterate and untrusting civilian control But it does have some gems. In an fundamentalism is strongest in as the original source on IM, Swami, comes glowingly endorsed by Uzi Arad, Jaswant Singh tries to endow his not pause to examine the achievements and failures of the armed forces” (p 236, emphasis apparent bid to analyse the Indian some pockets of southern India has elsewhere insisted on tracing it to former National Security Advisor to narrative with a modicum of academic mine). Thus the Westminster style of Mujahideen – which lacks a head (such as Kerala and Karnataka) and 15th-century Malabar. the Prime Minister of Israel and Head, legitimacy in the Preface by quoting of modern nations guided by military cultures governance, in true BJP style, is taken office or a centralised structure, by northeastern India (particularly Employing what they call the Israel National Security Council). from Ibn Khaldun’s Muqaddimah in to task by Singh who does not pause to the agencies’ own claims – the book areas bordering Bangladesh and Temporal Probabilistic Rules (T-P There is one recommendation favour of pursuing objectivity, truth examine the achievements and failures provides us with a rapid overview of Myanmar), in the villages of Uttar rules) based on data mining algorithms, though which had me smiling: “security and criticism in the writing of history. accepts and regrets the wrong done to Ramjanmabhoomi agitation and their of modern nations guided by military their areas of operation. One could Pradesh, and in Jammu and Kashmir. the authors predict possible future organisations should put out deliberate Singh wants his narrative to “regain the Sikhs by the Congress regime in the communal consequences are missing cultures. Finally, the cat is out of the speak of power bases of LTTE, or Rajasthan and Orissa are hibernation behaviour pattern of the IM. “Simplified misinformation”. Do the authors realise balance” in a milieu of subjectivity 1980s. Almost immediately after the from this list of events. The congregation bag, when he asserts that no government Taliban, or Lashkar, with its head office grounds for Islamic militants and versions of TP-rules” have been used the probability (since TP rules are the characterising “our accounts of the Operation Blue Star (1984) the author of thousands of Hindu kar sewaks in can “possibly push Semitic religions in Muridke in Pakistan Punjab, but what they often escape to these places earlier by the authors to “successfully” favoured term here) of their book being security challenges that India has faced visited Amritsar in an “act of penance” Ayodhya in 1992 under the protection into becoming advocates of pluralism” precisely does one mean by averring: after perpetrating attacks.” (p 39) predict the behaviour of Hezbollah, the product of such a strategy? since Independence” and to remove the and to realise that the “nation cannot be of the BJP Chief Minister of Uttar (p 253). In Singh’s Hindutva world- In addition to regions like Sweeping prejudiced proclamations Hamas and Lashkar-e-Taiba. Chapter All the rule syntax is unable to save “debilities” of Indian strategic studies permitted to fragment merely because Pradesh Kalyan Singh is also missing view the inflexible Semitic and an Azamgarh and Saharanpur, IM also masquerade as observations. 3 lays out the impressive mathematical the book from its own weaknesses: (p ix). He admits that it is a “sad and we are trapped within the narrow from this selective list. The demolition accommodative ‘Sanatan’ ultimately has significant centers of action in “IM also has a robust media wing models which yielded 37,000 TP rules, lack of primary research about the instructive reflection, that in more immobility of our thoughts, and of of the Babri Masjid (December, 1992), appear as binaries sans internal Deobandi madrassahs in Bharuch responsible for issuing the emailed com- most of which the authors admit were organisation the authors wish to than sixty-six years of independent our preoccupation with the empty the killing of Muslims in large numbers differentiation. We are back to the (in Gujarat) and Ujjain (in Madhya muniqués under Mansoor Peerbhoy, either “uninteresting or repetitive”. speak of so authoritatively, ignorance existence, there have been almost the arithmetic of electoral advantage” following this traumatic event and the Clash of the Civilisations thesis. In Pradesh). which is headquartered in Pune, The more interesting TP rules are compunded by rank prejudice and the same number of internal and external (p 151). This sensitivity seems to have role played by the Shiv Sena in arousing any case, since Indians have no sense of In the north, one may also count Maharashtra.” (p 38) Headquartered? delineated in Chapter 4 -7. For all the boilerplate language of national security. conflicts or grave incidents of violent deserted the author in 1992-93 and communal sentiments in Maharashtra geography and civilisation, they must the states of Bihar and West Bengal One hopes that these authors – claiming pages expended on these interesting The window dressing of algorithm nature” (p x). Certainly this amounts 2002. find no mention. When it comes to an begin their journey into the future by as areas of considerable (current or to be experts on terrorism and counter rules, they can be summarised as serves to reinforce rather than hide to a failure of Indian statecraft. The Chapters One, Two and Three investigation of his own party’s policies arming themselves! Only then will they previous) IM activity. terrorism – understand what it means follows. First, there are three kinds of its blindspots. Reading the book I causes of this failure are complex and, comprise arguments which continue and active role in creating the internal regain a national martial ethos. On this In the south, IM has strong power to say headquarters of an organisation. ‘bad acts’ of IM: was reminded of the anthropologist therefore, cannot only be blamed on to resound in the living rooms of the security risks faced by India since the account Jaswant Singh seems needlessly bases in Maharashtra (within the Where precisely is this geographical and • Attacks on public sites; Robert Albro’s quip, “Im not saying Nehru who seems to have become Indian middle classes every day. While murder of Gandhi in 1948 the author anxious because India probably has urban centers of Mumbai, Pune, physical site of the media headquarters? • Bombings; that computational social science is a the favourite whipping boy of the Gandhi is blamed for having created conveniently abandons the lessons of the largest quantity of illegal personal Surat, and Nasik), in Andhra Pradesh In Peerbhoy’s laptop? Writing in 2013, • Simultaneous/timed attacks. voodoo science. Im saying that voodoo Indian security experts since the a strategically deleterious pacifism in his own erudition. firearms in the world today. Republican (where they have carried out frequent they allude to Peerbhoy and Pune How precisely can the three be science is all too frequently being 1980s. The assertion that the history India, Nehru is taken to task for almost The Kargil War (May-June, 1999) votaries of the Second Amendment and attacks in the city of Hyderabad), in in the present tense, forgetting that distinguished considering that attacks generated from computational social of Indian statecraft is a history of everything that went wrong in Kashmir and the well documented, infamous, their cousins in India might like this Karnataka (the Bhatkal brothers who Peerbhoy has been in Sabarmati Jail on public sites attributed to IM have science.” Albro’s caution describes this failure comes from a dedicated soldier in 1947-49 and on the Himalayan hijacking of the Indian Airlines book. n co-founded IM with others grew up since 2008. But such are the pitfalls been bombings, as have simultaneous/ book rather aptly. n

B I B L I O : J A N U A R Y - F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 4 B I B L I O : J A N U A R Y - F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 4

14 15 ● ● ● e c o n o m i c s ●

he subject matter of on the role of technological change. metamorphosed into an inquisitive Deepak Nayyar’s new This could be because of his desire to spirit that gave birth to remarkable book, Catch Up, is almost critique recent liberal explanations and marketing innovations like the as old as the science of The great stay clear of discussing the voluminous Venetian galere da mercato – vast Economics itself. It is the writing on this issue by Marxist scholars trading ships financed by the world’s perennial hunt for answers such as Braudel, Polanyi, Hobsbawm, first shareholding companies – to one question: How did Sweezy, Baran, Magdoff, Gunder and a rapid acquisition of existing Europe, a relatively small, divergence Frank, Wallerstein and the latest but technologies, notably the compass and climatically not very hospitable, not by any means the least of them, and the printing press from China and part of the world, and its offshoots Giovanni Arrighi. However without the Lateen sail, which allowed sailing T ● – the West, in short – get to rule a thorough discussion of the role that ships to sail into the wind, from the the world economy for more than technology has played in shaping the Levantine Arabs. two centuries? And why did that Catch Up: Developing Countries and the capitalist world it is not easy to bring This hunger to learn and absorb is dominance end so abruptly in just 30 World Economy both the Great Divergence from 1820 the ultimate reason for the birth of years after the decade of the 1970s? to 1980, and the partial convergence the Industrial Revolution in one of Economic historians, and Marxist By Deepak Nayyar of GDP and income after 1980 onto a the less hospitable parts of the world. economists, have sought answers to the single plate. Geography also played its part, but not first question for the better part of a Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 2013, 221 pp., Rs 595 (HB) If one brings technology into our solely in the sense that Jared Diamond century, but today as global capitalism analytical toolbox, it immediately emphasises. For at that time the sole – globalisation for short – enters the ISBN 978-0-19-965298-3 becomes apparent that start of The fossil fuel available was coal and most middle phase of its development and Great Divergence coincided with of the coal deposits of the world were the sun begins to set upon the nation- PREM SHANKAR JHA the rise of the nation-state, and located in the temperate regions of the state, it is the second that has gained Re-Convergence with the onset of northern hemisphere. salience. And this has begun a renewed globalisation and the weakening of Given these roots it was inevitable quest for answers amongst a growing the nation-state. Both these tectonic that the Industrial Revolution would legion of liberal economists as well. place solely through trade, so Europe’s have persisted to the present day. In shifts in the organisation of human create a predatory world order that Nayyar’s book does not so much try rise and Asia’s fall would have been 1999 David Landes argued that the society marked staging points in the would have to be maintained by to answer these questions as to survey, slower, but not less sure. Thus the Industrial Revolution came to Europe remorseless expansion of what Braudel force. Nothing could be further succinctly, the vast recent literature on real question is why did the Industrial because it had an edge over Asia in called the “container of capitalism” from the truth, or more self serving, the subject. As he himself emphasised Revolution take place in Europe first and terms of knowledge , science, culture, — the minimum size of market than the myth the liberal economists during a recent book launch in New not in Asia. Most of the recent writing politics and institutions. needed to accommodate an efficient are now trying to create that the Delhi, his purpose in writing it was to , especially by liberal economists, is The geographical argument boils production system at the existing level Great Divergence was not a product synthesise current knowledge into a devoted to showing that this was due to down in the end to climate and of technological development. The of war, conquest and a forcible de- readable account of the way in which the innate advantages, if not superiority proximity to markets. People living in expansion of capitalism’s container industrialisation of Asia and parts of the world has changed, and is changing that Europe enjoyed over Asia, Africa cool temperate climates with very cold was dictated by the progress of Africa and South America; that Europe again, during the past thousand years, and South America. They trace these winters enjoyed a distinct advantage technology. in a sense deserved its greatness and and give a fair presentation of diverging to three factors: culture, institutions over the rest because the cold winters The Great Divergence began not Asia its decline. The truth is that views where these exist. He has done with the Industrial Revolution in both China and India had all the pre- all this with extraordinary skill and a Britain, which actually took place in requisites of an industrial revolution: lightness of touch that makes the book three stages over more than a century, large integrated smoothly functioning easy to read. Perhaps the central but with the harnessing of steam national markets; a highly developed Catch Up is, however, more than question in the book is power, i.e the energy from fossil financial-cum-trading system and a just a survey of the current literature fuels, within this more prolonged close cooperation between the rulers on economic development. In every “how did Asia – China and diffused technology shift. Steam and this new mercantile bourgeoisie. section, Nayyar has carefully assessed and India in particular – power immensely expanded the scope While China was relatively closed the validity of divergent claims and which dominated world for mass production and economical to foreign influence and ideas, the views with the help of data culled transportation, thereby causing an principalities of the later Mughal from various sources, and arrived at production and trade explosive increase in capitalism’s Empire were far more penetrated by unambiguous conclusions on their for four millennia, sink container. By the same token the Re- foreign trade. Their rulers welcomed validity. The reader is thus given little convergence began when capitalism’s foreigners with open arms and chance to become, and then remain, so suddenly into poverty container became too large to fit within employed them in every capacity confused. and obscurity within the political boundaries of even the from physicians at court to trainers Perhaps the central question in the largest and richest nation-state — the and modernisers of their armies. Had book is “how did Asia – China and barely a century and US. Capitalism then burst the bonds there been no colonial annihilation India in particular – which dominated a half, between 1820 of the nation-state, rendering all the of that diverse India, it would have world production and trade for four political structures that had sustained been only a matter of time before millennia, sink so suddenly into and 1950?” Nothing it – high tariff walls, capital movement their powerful trading-cum-financial poverty and obscurity within barely could be further from controls and forbidding national bourgeoisies, which were already a century and a half, between 1820 borders – obsolete. At that point it financing ‘putting out’ production on and 1950?” The historians’ answer is the truth, or more self was the migration of technology and a large-scale to meet the demands of that it was caused by a combination serving, than the myth manufacturing, not foreign direct their own elites and of foreign traders, of four developments: the Industrial the liberal economists are now trying to create that investment and labour, to the low would have begun to absorb industrial Revolution in Britain followed by income countries that began the de- technologies as well. western Europe; a vast expansion of the Great Divergence was not a product of war, industrialisation of the West and the But the British take-over, and its international trade, facilitated by the conquest and a forcible de-industrialisation of Asia resurgence of Asia. financial, monetary, land ownership development of steamboats and the Once the role of technology is and other administrative ‘reforms’ telegraph; colonial expansion – notably and parts of Africa and South America; that Europe acknowledged, the only question that destroyed the indigenous banking in Asia – that created markets for cheap, in a sense deserved its greatness and Asia its decline remains to be answered is why was so system and prevented the imposition mass produced manufactures through much of its development concentrated of trade protection to foster local the barrel of the gun while depriving in northern Europe, and specifically in industry. Japan, which was not the local governments of the right to Britain? The answer, paradoxically, is the colonised did precisely this. protect their artisanal industries by and geography. The first two have more routinely killed off viruses and bacteria sheer poverty of its people. Northern The role that the denial of protection limiting or heavily taxing imports. than a racist tinge in them. Present- while the melting snows and warm Europe was cold and inhospitable, and played cannot be underestimated. As The key driver in this explanation is day Western economists start by summers provided ideal conditions its inhabitants were hungry for the Nayyar has pointed out in his data, the forcible de-industrialisation of Asia citing Marx, Weber and Hegel, among for agriculture. Geography, Europe’s affluence of their neighbours to the though not in his text, Latin America (and parts of Africa and Latin America) others to trace the causes of failure of configuration around three small, south. Till as late as the 12th century the was able to reach substantially high through the use of force to create space the Industrial Revolution to take root sheltered seas – the Mediterranean, only way they knew of acquiring some levels of income and industrialisation for the cheap manufactures of Europe. in Asia. These include everything Baltic and the North Sea – also facilitated of this wealth was through plunder. before its growth stalled in the 1930s, However, economists have argued with from the Asiatic mode of production cheap and safe maritime transport and That accounted for the incessant raids because it shook off the colonial yoke some justification, that colonialism which, Marx believed, involved hence an early integration of markets of the Goths, Visigoths and Huns upon in the 19th century. And Japan was only made the rise of the West and the rule by despots that constrained and development of exchange. Nayyar the Roman Empire, and the Viking able to give drastic protection to its decline of the East more swift. The root individual initiative and did not allow dismisses the first two explanations, raids and voyages of the end of the first nascent industry and banking systems cause of Europe’s rise to dominance representative institutions to develop, and accepts the third, but points out millennium. in the late 19th century because it was was the enormous burst of productivity to the absence of Weber’s “protestant that misconceptions apart, none of War is the extreme form of never a colony. We were. Therefore released by the Industrial Revolution. ethic” and therefore of instrumental them is capable by itself of providing competition and competition is although the modernisation of the Europe’s cheaper manufactures would rationality and a “capacity to reason”, an adequate explanation for “The Great the seed-bed of innovation. When Indian economy began ten years have found their way across the world to the absence of the “very concept of Divergence”. Europe replaced war with its civilised before Japan’s, by 1980 Japan was an through trade anyway. In the absence of a state” (India – Hegel). These early, If there is a lacuna in his critique it counterpart, international trade, industrial super power, and we were colonial control this would have taken in retrospect ill-informed, conclusions is the relative absence of a discussion the competitive spirit survived and nowhere. n

B I B L I O : J A N U A R Y - F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 4 B I B L I O : J A N U A R Y - F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 4

16 17 ● ● ● ● ● e s s a y s ● ● e c o l o g y ●

his book is a compendium could have been edited to synthesise of wishes and dreams of what are individual author chapters and a diverse cast of business lectures, is a must read. leaders, academics, writers Democracy functions, Our reality versus I end with a quote from Slavoj and journalists “reimagining Zizek’s intrepid Introduction to India”, put together by Mapping Ideology (1994): McKinsey and Company, Ecology, for example, is never an American global manage- governace does not your reality ‘ecology as such’, it is always ment consulting firm that focuses on enchained in a specific series of solving issues of concern to senior ● equivalences: it can be conservative T ● management. The firm now serves as (advocating the return to balanced an adviser to businesses, governments rural communities and traditional and institutions around the world. Reimagining India: Unlocking the Potential of Asia’s Next Superpower Ecology Economy: Quest for a Socially Informed ways of life), etatist (only a strong McKinsey is considered to be the most Edited for McKinsey & Company by Clay Chandler and Adil Zainulbhai state regulation can save us from prestigious management consulting Connection impending catastrophe), socialist firm in the world. Simon & Schuster, New Delhi, 2013, 400 pp., Rs 699 (HB) (the ultimate cause of ecological James McKinsey, a professor at By Felix Padel, Ajay Dandekar, Jeemol Unni problems resides in the capitalist University of Chicago’s Booth School of ISBN 978-1-4767-6333-0 Orient BlackSwan, New Delhi, 315 pp., Rs 795 (HB) profit-oriented exploitation of Business, founded it in 1926. McKinsey natural resources), liberal-capitalist has since then grown to become the ISBN 978-81-250-5179-4 (one should include the damage to biggest management consultancy in the MOHAN GURUSWAMY the environment in the price of the world. It employs 9,000 consultants in ocial scientists working on product, and thus leave the market 97 locations in 55 countries. Its former and in India cannot escape KAVERI GILL to regulate ecological balance), managing director Rajat Gupta, now introspecting on what is the feminist (the exploitation of nature serving time in a US federal penitentiary With that caveat lector Reimagining (professor of political economy at the Superpower” (pp 277-283) cricket role of the intellectual in follows from the male attitude for fraud and insider trading, explains India is like a ‘drinks by the dram’ MIT Sloan School of Management) commentator Harsha Bhogle chortles: actually changing the world of domination)….and so on. The McKinsey’s structure as follows: “It is whisky sampler set where you get a in “Overtaking the Dragon” (pp 74- “There is an element of pride also in they examine so closely. Is The book begins with the developmental discourse terms, the point is, of course, that none of very much, in many dimensions, like neatly labelled and compartmentalised 79) concludes that nevertheless “the the way India dictates to the rest of the it to tread bounded paths of simple but revolutionary question reality is a fierce struggle between those these enchainments is in itself an academic organization. We have case of various whiskies in 3 ml bottles. world is trending the Indian way, not world in cricketing matters. The Indian disciplinary rigour in method, of whether, contrary to routine literally living on and in a self-sufficient ‘true’, inscribed in the very nature senior partners who are very much To most, having the sampler set itself the Chinese. Indians should continue fan is today the most important entity and productive achievement in output, developmental rhetoric in capitalist common property resource world, and of the ecological problematic: like tenured faculty: they are leaders in becomes more important than sampling to seek solutions to their problems in world cricket.” These two lines Sin peer-reviewed publication spaces, no societies, growth, industrialisation those seeking to commoditise, privatise which discourse will succeed in their own right. We have about 80 to the wares. A small dram of 3 ml is too within a democratic framework and perhaps tell us more about ourselves: matter what the provocation to engage and their many imperatives “reduce and close off access to these commons ‘appropriating’ ecology depends on 100 performance cells — a geographic small and is soon gone. If you are the ignore both fellow citizens and well- the rather infantile longings to be a more immediately, and to intervene or massively increase” poverty for significant personal gains, at best the fight for discursive hegemony, office or industry practice or functional drinking kind, you just move on to the meaning outsiders seduced by overly “superpower” that have come to grip only indirectly, through teaching or (p 2)? The interdependent, though shared amongst distant outsiders. This whose outcome is not guaranteed by practice. They are very much auto- next one and before you can begin to simplistic notions about the ability of the imagination of India’s elite. Should the evolution of ideas? Is it to weigh in not always acknowledged as being is as true for abnormal profits (due to any underlying necessity or ‘natural nomous and they are not organized in savour it, it is gone. This book has that authoritarian governments to conjure we become a superpower just to dictate on pressing public debates, even entire so, triad of economy, ecology and monopolies etc. and state collusion), as alliance’. (p 12) any hierarchy beyond that. We don’t quality. rapid economic growth.” to the world? We seem to forget that and irreversible policy trajectories, but society, along with their disciplinary for the outcome of any “development”, As complementary to the two have any regional structures or sectoral Mind you, there are some very good the USSR was a superpower despite to do so using research and evidence as counterparts, sub-streams and for example, being able to have very different but synergistic recent ● structures. So all these performance drams here. Propagating “A Uniquely half its population living in primitive a basis for argumentation, as opposed movements, are then imaginatively electricity in subaltern tribal areas close publications, Churning the Earth units, in a theoretical sense, report to Indian Growth Model” (pp 17-21), poverty and several millions in its many to personal opinion? Or is it to jump discussed (pp 6-20), to demonstrate to power generation projects. These by Aseem Srivastava and Ashish me, which means they don’t report to Anand Mahindra wisely writes: “For Reimagining India is like gulags. We even seem to forget that the feet first into activism, which demands how a clash between economy and chapters, with their broad sweep of Kothari (Viking/Penguin, 2013) anybody, because nobody can have 80 India’s economy to expand as rapidly a ‘drinks by the dram’ USA became a superpower long before commitment and courage quite different ecology might be inevitable. But if the the political economy of key resources and Development and Sustainability: or 100 people reporting to them.” and yet more sustainably than China’s, it allowed Black people to ride in the to that required of an academic, and “two cultures” could be mediated by and their markets within and without India in a Global Perspective (Sarmila In September 2013, Simon & we need to make our differences into whisky sampler set where front of a bus, or enter a restaurant, or perhaps, some intellectual compromise society; if environmental sustainability the country, are an invaluable resource Banerjee and Anjan Chakrabarti (eds.), Schuster published a book by financial virtues rather than vulnerabilities.” you get a neatly labelled even to vote. to maintain the solidarity of ideological is privileged above all else as the “basis for anyone wanting to know about the Springer India, 2013), this book does journalist Duff McDonald entitled The Without saying it explicitly, Mahindra and compartmentalised Though the title suggests that the and social movements over time? Can of life on earth”; and if a holistic controversial and deeply contested a courageous job of challenging the Firm: The Story of McKinsey and Its suggests that rather than pretending notion of becoming a superpower is one combine these roles, without multidisciplinary approach giving reality on the ground. liberal-capitalist hegemonic articulation Secret Influence on American Business. India is a single investment destination case of various whiskies somehow desirable, the book is in losing footing in each sphere, given non-economic factors full weight The book ends with two highly of the ecological problematic, which The book examines the influence of or even a coherent, unified economic in 3 ml bottles. To most, most parts about how to become a that time is finite and craft particular? in decision-making is adopted, then original chapters on the dubious debt- dominates discourse today, with a quiet McKinsey over nearly a century: “The entity we should see the Indian States better nation and a better people. Aziz In a complex and unequal society such perhaps there is yet a possibility that financing underwriting corporate and much-needed socialist inscription, history of McKinsey, given its role as as varied from each other as the nations having the sampler set Premji in “India Rebooted” (pp 80- as ours, overlaid are considerationsof the capitalist economy will not crush power in India, as well as contrarian coming from an Adivasi viewpoint. For consigliere to the most powerful people of Europe. itself becomes more 85) dwells on the need to reboot the positionality and reflexivity, of authen- a fragile ecology and the marginalised legislation that negates with one really, a reasonable pause for thought in business, can be seen as a history of Indeed they are. India has about Indian system to lift millions of young ticity and representation, of integrity majority in its wake, as it is doing in hand what it promises with another about where India is and wants to modern business itself.” It has indeed 1.2 billion people, and the Union of important than sampling people left behind with no or more and humility, too, and in discussions India and globally at present. — yet more reality mirages. Non- go in years to come is called for, if as been a consigliere to many corporate India consists of 31 States and Union the wares. A small dram often now, inadequate education, and with numerous friends over the past The next chapter articulates why, fictional writing is often as good as a country we seriously still want to buccaneers, raiders and looters. Territories, with some more being millions whose productivity is blighted year, this is a question incessantly viewed differently, tribal societies might its bibliography, a teaser of authors’ bridge the widening gap between our Enron probably is an association currently midwifed. The biggest of 3 ml is too small and by poor health and whose sufferings dwelled on. be the sophisticated embodiment of orientation and comprehensiveness in privileged reality and multiple other that McKinsey would like to forget. of these is Uttar Pradesh with a is soon gone. If you are are magnified by inadequate health- It is therefore a pleasure to review a artfully balancing nature and need, for numerous dimensions, and so judged, subordinated, suppressed, displaced, The Guardian (March, 2002) wrote: population of 199.6 million or 16.49% care facilities. Premji squarely puts book that manages to traverse the tricky Homo Economicus – despite being a too, this collaborative work, which disturbing realities. n “Enron is the house that McKinsey of India’s. It is as big as Brazil. The the drinking kind, you this responsibility at the proper door terrain of diverse roles and perspectives dominant construct – is not necessarily rebuilt. The brightest minds at the smallest political unit is Lakshadweep just move on to the next — the government’s. Quite clearly above, by authors – an anthropologist, a a universal totem pole. On the world’s most prestigious consulting which has just 64,000 (0.01%). one and before you can India needs to spend much more on historian and an economist – who don’t internal logic of capitalism, however, firm helped turn the lumbering old- Clearly, a monochromatic central plan health and education. This is obvious, take themselves too seriously, and yet the pursuit of relentless growth economy gas distribution dinosaur administered by a central dispensation begin to savour it, it is but we see little of this enlightenment are the opposite of dilettantes. Ecology has disproportionately devastated into a new-economy success story will not work any more. We need to gone. This book has that in business leaders. Premji’s fellow Economy deftly overturns conventional these peoples, whose survival like envied by every corporation in locate decision-making in the State Bangalore billionaire, Nandan Nilekani, wisdom on its head, by asking the right earthworms (to use their own evocative America.” Led by Jeffrey Skilling, a capitals. Mahindra advocates a creative quality is less altruistic when he touts “A first-principle questions. Based on a language), is intrinsically bound to Harvard Business School graduate, competition between the States to Technology Solution for India’s taught course at the Institute of Rural land, forests and ecosystems, and yet, ● who honed his skills at McKinsey for attract investment for industrialisation. Identity Crisis” (pp 199-203). With Management, Anand, and Mumbai these resources are what “investment- 11 years, Enron transformed “from He advocates a similar competition the delinking of Nilekani’s Aadhaar University, it sets out to “reclaim induced displacement” demands. being a company that simply piped between cities. When the units compete, Where there are drams of pure delight from the direct transfer of subsidies on the meaning of basic concepts such Globalisation has only intensified stuff around the US to a giant market the nation as a whole benefits. there are drams of rotgut too, many of LPG cooking gas cylinders, the biggest as development, growth, democracy such logic. Repeatedly, the book uses place in which companies could ‘cherry In “Parsing the Grammar of which come under the chapter ‘Culture national boondoggle in recent times and freedom through the experience the chilling phrase, “reality gap”, to pick’ commodities such as oil and gas Anarchy” (pp 68-73), historian Patrick and Soft Power’ . In “Fixing the Fourth has effectively been laid to rest. It has of people living close to nature” reiterate the yawning chasm between contracts, seeking out new suppliers French pinpoints the crisis in India’s Estate” (pp 312-316) McKinsey turns cost India over Rs 6,000 crores and (p xvi), Adivasis in particular. And what development, projects supposedly and cheaper prices over the web. Enron democracy with the observation: “The to Suhel Seth. The Outlook magazine millions of headaches. But Nilekani is yet, it continually doubles-back advancing development, and “the made its money from trading on their problem in Indian politics is not that Seth so approvingly quotes in his still plugging it as a panacea. As a wag to juxtapose their worldview, with company” selling such ideas promises behalf and offering a range of additional the leaders are unelected; it is once they contribution had once famously listed in Bihar said: “khana nahi diya, makan prevalent mainstream hegemonies of Adivasis and what actually traverses on high-margin services, which brought in are elected, they are unaccountable until him as one of India’s top lobbyists. Seth nahi diya, naukri nahi diya, par number thought and practice, and their different the ground. The East India Company far greater returns than its old, vertically the next cycle of voting. Democracy bemoans: “Over the past two decades, de diya!” epistemological foundations: that of appears to have been replaced by integrated model of producing and functions, but governance does not.” India’s press has become entangled in a The book’s structure dooms it to be economics over other disciplines; the many internal colonisers of hitherto shipping gas”. It was a big hoax and The French economist, JJ Boillot in his corrupt nexus of politics and industry. like froth on a cup of cappuccino. Stir elites over the subaltern; the ‘educated’ relatively peaceful and pristine places billions were stolen and thousands of new book Chindiafrique, a look into the Political pandering and commercial it and it’s gone. Serious topics cannot and the written, over the everyman and and ecologies. individual lifetime savings went down future of trajectories of China, India pressures have transformed our once- be discussed in short op-ed style the oral, the First World over the World The following four chapters com- the pipelines and pipedreams that and Africa and the shift of the world’s valiant fourth estate from a watchdog pieces. Would I buy it? No. Would I of the Third (as Anjan Chakrabarti et al prehensively explore the status of McKinsey engineered. This digression economic growth into these three for the public interest to lapdog for the keep it? Yes. For, as I mentioned earlier, term it), and so on. To do so, without resources most necessary to the from the contents of the book is so that regions recently very pithily remarked: rich and powerful.” Indeed it has. But Reimagining India is like a collection of romanticism or a patronising tone, and growth and accumulation project: we are aware of who is behind this latest “India has a democracy, China has a whom do we owe this to? drams — it’s a good collection to have without fear of being labelled utopian water, mining, power, and land, as attempt at “reimagining India”. government.” But Yasheng Huang In another poor essay, “Cricket on the bookshelf, but not to imbibe. n dreamers, is a difficult feat. well as labour. Framed in nationalist

B I B L I O : J A N U A R Y - F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 4 B I B L I O : J A N U A R Y - F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 4

18 19 ● ● ● ● ● F I C T I O N ● ● F I C T I O N ●

any years back, I decided The novel begins with a long litany of primary mechanism(s) of the problem.” I would only write sufferings; but throughout, resistance Statements such as these have, to my about books I admired. is absent, except as caricature. Just as mind, no place in a novel, unless there My reviews would pay The politics of Golda Meir famously said, “There are Atonement is a good narrative reason for them. tribute to such books no Palestinians” to explain away the For a creative work has the ability, the by analysing what they Zionist tenet of “a land without people ● prerogative, even, to deploy language as taught me about how for a people without a land”, this novel well as the spaces between/within it in life gets lived, or can be making peace seems to say that there is no struggle Helium a way no other kind of writing can do. lived. Not far into my reading of among the Palestinians, except for It is the doing, however, rather than the MMichelle Cohen Corasanti’s first novel a few misguided, warped, violent By Jaspreet Singh telling, that is the onus on literature. The Almond Tree, it was clear that the ● individuals who stand in the way of Singh’s novel ‘tells’ us these things novel challenged this old resolution. “leaving the past behind” and moving Bloomsbury India, New Delhi, 2013, 290 pp., Rs 499 instead of ‘doing’ them, in what comes Sometimes a mediocre novel needs to be The Almond Tree on toward “peace”. The novel simply ISBN 978-93-82951-72-8 across as somewhat forced attempts discussed because it sparks debate about does not face up to the fact that if it to be theoretically savvy and with it. troubling questions. By Michelle Cohen Corasanti is about Palestine, it has to be about As also in the name dropping, and the “My purpose in writing The Almond Fingerprint/Prakash Books, New Delhi, 2013, 352 pp., Rs 295 the last bastion of colonialism — a S T U T I K H A N N A longish descriptions of works of art Tree, says Michelle Cohen Corasanti, particularly virulent form in which the that do little more than describe those “was to shine a light on Palestinian ISBN 978-81-7234-487-0 Nakba of 1948 continues to this day. works of art. suffering and help bring about peace”. If you make Palestine merely another Perhaps the novel’s biggest Corasanti’s story about suffering “troubled” place where the two sides aspreet Singh’s Helium is an of Advanced Studies. Traumatised by across as laboured and over-wrought, weakness is that it fails to find its voice. and peace: Ahmad, a Palestinian, GITHA HARIHARAN can negotiate as if they are on equal important novel. At its centre the very thought of visiting Delhi, “the with a sentence-structure that can Generically, while existing within the gets a break, studies in an Israeli ground, it is possible to create a story is the horrific brutalisation and wounded city, the psychotic city” again, be clumsy. To pick one from several space of a work of fiction, it seeks to university, and proves to be smarter where peace comes with collaboration. massacre of innocent Sikhs she is yet hopeful of starting an oral examples: “As I was replacing the book trouble the boundaries of that space by than everyone. Every time the Israelis The past and present can be laid aside in the aftermath of Indira history project, interviewing survivors on the shelf two tiny photographs not just the fact of being based upon ill treat the Palestinians, Ahmad a game changer.” A “game changer”, everything possible to make this all- because the future means neither a Gandhi’s assassination in of the 1984 massacre and documenting fell out of the pages. Like perennial actual events, but by setting itself in consoles himself with calculations -- of because Corasanti means to offer a pervasive loss a functioning system of Palestinian state nor an Israel in which November 1984 — one of the their stories. In that sense, both Nelly’s migrants, the photos were impatient and constantly referring to ‘real’ spaces problems in physics or mathematics. “roadmap for peace” by educating apartheid policies put into practice. all its citizens are equal. It means distressingly frequent shameful proposed project and the novel as such and keen to reveal the twists and turns – IIT Delhi, Cornell, IIAS Shimla, the He becomes research assistant to a people, Americans in particular, about And this system has had the support of “moving ahead” and normalising the episodes of organised mob seek to redress the near-silence and fog of their odyssey” (p 66). Further, Golden Temple in Amritsar, the Rock Zionist supervisor; Ahmad converts Palestinian suffering. A campaign of the pre-eminent military power in the essentially abnormal relationship Jand state violence that have scarred of obfuscation around the systematic the photo “for some strange reason garden in Chandigarh – complete the Zionist heart. They become best sorts has been built around the novel, world, the United States. between coloniser and colonised. It our ‘secular’ nation in recent years. In barbarity of those two or three days reminded me of Chardin’s Boy with their photographs. There are friends and collaborators, all the way to an “Almond Tree Project” that will But the loss and damage that also means feeding into the myth that that alone the novel does something following Indira Gandhi’s death. Blowing Bubbles, […]”. The reference also photographs of people – meant, America, and then Stockholm, to pick reinforce this education, and make accompany colonialism, particularly democracy, and the very identity of the well worth doing, something that The loose, meandering narrative appears once again without any one presumes, to be photographs of up their joint Nobel Prize. Ahmad, the efforts to “reconcile” the Israelis and the settler form of colonialism, is an Israeli state, is “normal”. has not been done enough, perhaps structure does not, however, fully narrative justification, without adding the characters – Professor Singh as a exemplary Palestinian, says at one point Palestinians, and promote “peace”. incomplete story. History shows us It’s not surprising then that cannot: forcing us to confront the work. There are abrupt transitions from anything to the narrative, or to an young boy, Nelly. (More puzzlingly, in the novel: “The last thing I wanted In 1948, the Palestinians went that occupied subjects resist; and their Corasanti has been accused of horror, the horror of the things we one thought to another, which refuse understanding of the narrator, except there are pictures of Nehru astride a to do was talk politics.” As reward for through what they call the Nakba, the resistance forms movements. The normalising Israel, and Israelising the are capable of doing to one another. to be recuperated by the technique itself as reference. Other laboured, horse, of long-dead people petrified being politically comatose, he gets to catastrophe. They lost home when suffering of the colonised is a partial, Palestinian story. Palestinian writer The 1984 pogrom against the Sikhs of stream of consciousness — they clumsy sentences abound. In Shimla, at in volcanic ash at Pompeii, of a pair of live the American dream. Israel was created. Palestinian villages even pointless narrative, if the inevitable Susan Abulhawa, author of Mornings – all Sikhs – in retaliation to Indira are simply sudden and inexplicable. A the venue of the Hindu Party’s annual hands, presumably of the composer Ahmad’s brother, Abbas, is the were razed to the ground; Palestinians fights for freedom, all kinds of fights in Jenin, wrote in Al Jazeera that to Gandhi’s assassination by her two meditation on the Golden Temple and meeting, “there was a huge security Rachmaninov of whom the narrator “political” brother. He is as twisted want to expose “injustice” through Sikh bodyguards, has not been written Indira Gandhi’s hubris – Operation cordon, the circle of heavily armed happens to be thinking.) The narrative as his body becomes after an accident fiction is fine. But “when coupled with about as much as it needs to: fiction Blue Star – is followed immediately guards refused entry. Come after the tone shifts from journalistic and when building settlement homes for The Almond Tree racist assumptions or lack of emotional and cinema have, for the most part, by a comprehensive list of the books conference is over, they barked, staring, documentary to existentialist and the Israelis. He goes underground, begins with a long comprehension of a people’s culture, chosen not to dwell upon this ghastly arranged on Nelly’s bookshelves as if my left hand was a cathode and my hallucinatory. The attempt seems to be down the path of resistance. He works the result is often muting of already episode, while the legal machinery (p 64). Speaking of books, there seems right hand an anode and my body all to dissolve boundaries between fact and for George Habash, the founder of the litany of sufferings; marginalised voices, theft of their continues to hedge the issue as well its to be an almost anxious attempt by set to hug and explode a senior Hindu fiction, reality and imagination — as well Popular Front for the Liberation of but throughout, narrative, stripping of their agency, perpetrators, some of whom are high- the narrator to establish his erudition. party leader” (p 88). A woman with as leap over that other great divide, that Palestine (PFLP). Even worse, he and caricaturising of their humanity.” profile politicians and bureaucrats still Lengthy lists of ‘important’ books “voluptuous calves” mysteriously pops between science and art. The narrator refuses Ahmad’s offers of sponsoring resistance is absent, Corasanti’s response to this review in active service. As a creative literary inhabiting the bookshelves of characters up at regular intervals in the novel, with is after all a scientist, a student of his family for a better life, preferably except as caricature. (http://mondoweiss.net/2013/12/ construct, however, I found the novel abound, frequent references are made little more to offer the protagonist or rheology, fascinated, like his professor in America. When his son turns suicide corasanti-palestinian-suffering.html) wanting, and somewhat disappointing. to various art-works, without it ever the story than the aforementioned before him, with the ‘noble’ gas helium, bomber, Abbas realises his mistake. Just as Golda Meir is telling: The drifting, angst-ridden protagonist being clear what they are adding to the calves (p 20, p 106, p 181). There are after which the book has been named. Somewhere in between, Ahmad famously said, “There Ask yourself, what is more powerful, around whose journeys, inner and outer, narrative. See, for example, this, worth instances at which the narrative seems Primo Levi and his The Periodic Table marries the perfect Jewish American one hundred books written by the the book is structured, lacks definition quoting in full: over-keen to display its familiarity with become the appropriate guiding spirits woman, not only beautiful and are no Palestinians” victims of oppression describing and ultimately fails to be compelling. On the train to Shimla a strange post-structuralist theories: “The gap of of this attempted marriage of so-called intelligent, but also a human rights to explain away the occurrence after occurrence of The same weakness extends to the image had flashed in my mind. A years has not even helped determine opposites. The attempt is undoubtedly activist. She dies in Palestine, exactly as Zionist tenet of “a loss, hardship and suffering or one book as a whole: it is unable to draw little girl more or less like Red Riding the ‘why’ of my troubled relationship interesting, and worth undertaking. In real life American activist Rachel Corrie book described as Kite Runner- together its own multiple evocations Hood was playing with a predator of with Father. […] to move ahead, it is this instance, though, it seems to fail, did, run over by an Israeli bulldozer. A land without people esque and predicted to be one of – history, memory, science, art, guilt, a bird. […] Now and then the little essential to venture near the interstitial mainly owing to the lack of a central heartbroken Ahmad is later coaxed into for a people without a the best sellers of the decade by an passion – and ends up floundering girl stared at a painting by Amrita spaces of language. I must unravel the confident voice. n an arranged marriage with a Palestinian. author perceived to be a member without being able to offer a clarity of Sher-Gil. But the wolf stared at the He is miserable; but he grows to love land”, this novel seems of the ruling, oppressor class line, voice, or vision. girl with murderous rage. To protect her, especially since she cooks well, bears to say that there is that condemns the unjust, cruel Structurally, Helium is arranged herself, the girl entered the painting children, loses weight and generally oppression by the ruling class and along a familiar trope — that of return … Little Red Riding Hood walked learns to fit into his American life. no struggle among the Palestinians, except for a extols the virtues and the legal to the homeland, to the father and the slowly and safely into the labyrinths Why bother with this mishmash few misguided, warped, violent individuals who and moral rights of the subjugated past that the protagonist has long ago of raven- coloured hair, confessing of cardboard and saccharine, the sort class?... Just look to the criminal run away from in an attempt to escape strange theories about her ‘wicked’ of concoction we know from so many stand in the way of “leaving the past behind” and justice system of any country for his own guilt. Facing the demons of grandmother. Something trembled Hollywood and Bollywood films? moving on toward “peace”. The novel simply guidance in this matter. It’s well the past becomes necessary for the at the edge of my hallucination. Mainly because this is a book that plays established that the confession of disaffected narrator-protagonist in Three Women, the painting, never both the marketplace of sales and the does not face up to the fact that if it is about the accused party is always more order to be able to live, and love, in the fails to stir me. Three women, marketplace of opinion-making. Palestine, it has to be about the last bastion of powerful, more persuasive than the present. That this past is defined by the three ‘saviours’, enduring what The Almond Tree has arrived in colonialism — a particularly virulent form in complaints of a victim.” (Emphases anti-Sikh violence of 1984 in which the comes from outside the frame, and bookshops and the social media in the mine.) protagonist’s favourite professor at IIT the bigger pain woven or braided way packaged books are wont to do in which the Nakba of 1948 continues to this day As long as the Palestinian story is burnt to death before his eyes, is a within. Big bird-like eyes averting our market-driven times. The author is one about voiceless victims, the courageous and significant choice made the surveyors’ gaze, vividly coloured has even hired a Palestinian actor to oppressor’s narrative may indeed be in the narrative. His father’s – and to dresses, perfect locks of black hair. play Ahmad in an interactive website, fled to refugee camps or were forced under all kinds of leadership, are not in more “powerful”. Corasanti wants to some extent his own – complicity in The longer one stares at those and there is a video trailer online. Much into exile. Those who remained in ‘48 some way part of the story. show us how a “Palestinian and Israeli the murder of his professor is a fact delicate faces, this one thought has been made of some breathless Palestine, what became Israel, became This is the historical and political could overcome obstacles and work he must face and come to terms with. precipitates: those three must be out predictions: that “this novel will be a “present-absent” aliens. After the 1967 territory The Almond Tree tries to together to advance humanity”. She Atonement takes the form of searching of their minds. Moving backwards bestseller”; that it “can do for Palestine war, Israel occupied the West Bank travel. The novel has two broad plans: does this by contrasting the benefits for Nelly, the professor’s wife with or forwards or sideways offers and Israel what The Kite Runner did and Gaza. Since 1948, the Palestinian one is to recount the years of suffering of collaboration and the futility of whom he has also, as a student, had an little help. Whenever I encounter for Afghanistan”. Corasanti herself has experience has encompassed every by the Palestinians; and the second is to resistance. affair — one that was cut short abruptly reproductions of the painting in art said that “part of [the book’s] appeal is possible form of loss, whether it is show “the way to peace in this troubled Fiction, despite appearances, or by the riots and the Professor’s murder. magazines and even in newsprint I that it is a novel written in the voice of loss of land or control over their day- region” by forging links between the the author’s protestations, is deeply After the double tragedy of losing her get the feeling that perhaps I, too, a Palestinian Muslim male by a Jewish to-day lives. Even their past, their two sides in “conflict”. This may seem political. And this is inescapable when husband and young daughter in that must be out of my mind. (p 53) American woman... Major publications memories and their history, have a worthy motive; but as all readers and writing about the oppressed past and genocide, Nelly has retreated to the Such gratuitous references are also state that The Almond Tree is a been systematically eroded. For more writers know, the motive is only as present of a people, and their hopes for Shimla hills, living a quiet life as a accompanied by several infelicities in Kite Runner-esque novel and can be than six decades now, Israel has done worthwhile as the text. the future. n librarian-archivist at the Indian Institute the writing itself, which often comes

B I B L I O : J A N U A R Y - F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 4 B I B L I O : J A N U A R Y - F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 4

20 21 ● ● ● e x t r a c t ●

ran into the young Englishman ‘Certainly, but not in money. With a brass nail into its smooth body and ‘Yes, I have come to meet you,’ I bookcase. On the bottom two shelves again as I stepped out of love. This pair was not intended for placed the shiny red top in my hands. repeated in a hesitant tone, ‘and to see lay a treasure trove of Punjabi books, Rawalpindi station. We sale. It was meant to be a gift for a ‘Where is Sattar?’ I repeated my this house of yours where I have spent tracts, magazines and newspapers. had travelled in the same The new Taj Mahal loving customer like you.’ question. my childhood, teenage years, college These contained the writings of Bhai Vir He shook his hand as if to say, ‘He Singh, old issues of Khalsa Samachar and compartment from Amritsar I saw that an assistant had brought days and my youth.’ A series bringing the best to Lahore and got along very in a tray with tea, a cake and pastries. isn’t here any more,’ and looked down ‘Your name?’ he asked. Phulwari, and editions of Bhai Charan writing from one of the most well, despite our differences of ‘If you want to pay for the shoes, at the ground. Something broke inside I told him my name. Singh’s newspaper Mauji. My father age, country and community. then you can do so by accepting me, and I got up from the stool and sat ‘You are a poet,’ he said. had gathered together this literary and exciting regions and literatures Occasionally we had got lost in this tea, which Shafiq has already in front of him. ‘No,’ I replied. ‘I mean, yes. In a cultural storehouse, and it was from in the world. Writers who have Iour separate reveries but whenever brought without my asking,’ said Sabir ‘What are you saying?’ I asked, way. But how do you know?’ poring over it that I had developed an been published to wide acclaim we emerged from them, we had Hussain. putting a hand on his shoulder. ‘Doesn’t A mysterious smile appeared on his interest in writing in Punjabi. are presented here, either in begun to talk like old friends. After finishing tea, I hugged Sabir he live with you? Has he abandoned lips as he continued, ‘You’re welcome. The old man was speaking. ‘When translation from Arabic or in The Amritsar–Lahore Express on Hussain and Shafiq in farewell and you at this age?’ Please do come in. This is your own we came ravaged from Amritsar to this original English, often for the which we’d travelled had restarted invited them to visit Delhi. I told The old man raised his finger house.’ house, we found it ravaged too. Only first time. the rail connection between India and the waiting tonga-driver to take me towards the roof. An abyss opened up A grey-haired woman peeped in these books remained, and they too Pakistan after about eleven years. Much straight to Teli Mohalla, where my inside me. from the bedroom and then vanished were strewn, upside down, half-open all had happened in these eleven years. childhood friend Abdul Sattar used to ‘Sattar has gone to Allah. In the behind the door. over the floor. The looters might have Two wars had spilt blood needlessly on live. battle of Chhamb in ’71. People say he ‘Shabir’s mother!’ the old man called gone through each book in the hope of the soil of the subcontinent, opening Rawalpindi’s Teli Mohalla was became a martyr. Whatever, as long as it out. ‘Come see! A poet has come to finding hidden currency notes. Whether up fresh cuts even before the wounds famous not for its oil-dealers, as its pleases God.’ visit us from Delhi.’ they found them or not I don’t know, left by the Partition riots had healed. name would suggest, but because of I sat stock-still for a long time ‘What are you saying?’ I pleaded, but they left the books behind. These Then the Simla Agreement was signed. its spinning tops. What wondrous holding his trembling hands in mine. I nearly frantic. ‘I’m not a poet or books held no value for them.’ Prisoners of war returned home. The things these were can only be realized couldn’t say a word in the face of his anything. Not of any standing. Nobody Naheed said, ‘Grandfather, those taut strings that held our hearts eased a by those who have spun them in their bottomless grief. knows me as a poet.’ who value books aren’t capable of bit and calls for friendship began to be childhood. To others it may seem Then the bamboo screen over the The mysterious smile appeared again looting another’s house.’ heard on both sides. Then the embassies an exaggeration that those spinning back door moved and a boy of about on his lips, and he said, ‘We know.’ My lips were silent, but my hand opened, and one blessed morning the tops, the round ones and the flat fourteen came in. He had wide innocent By this time the lady had tidied her spoke to bless Naheed. Amritsar–Lahore Express performed ones, would spin for at least fifteen or eyes and curly hair. For a moment I felt loose hair and covered her head with a Shabir’s mother took a notebook its maiden journey as the vanguard of Savage Harvest: Stories of Partition twenty minutes with a single pull of I was a child again and Abdul Sattar was thick muslin dupatta. I joined my hands with a brown plastic cover from the middle shelf and started wiping it friendship and cooperation. By Mohinder Singh Sarna; translated by Navtej Sarna the string. They would appear to be standing in front of me. in greeting and bowed towards her as Seeking Palestine The young Englishman and I were perfectly still for ten minutes or more, ‘All he’s left me as a legacy is this she stepped out into the courtyard. with her dupatta even though it was Jenny Johnson & Raja Shehadeh (Eds.) among the 151 passengers who had Rupa Publications, New Delhi, 2013, 249 pp., Rs 295 almost as if they had fallen asleep, boy,’ the old man said. ‘May Allah grant ‘May you live a long life, son,’ she already spotless. Then, handing me the pp.202, Rs 395 (HB) boarded that train. With bursting hearts when in fact they would be spinning him a long life.’ said, both her hands raised in blessing. notebook she said, ‘Here, son, here’s WINNER OF THE 2013 MEMO PALESTINE and moist eyes, a large and happy crowd ISBN 978-81-291-2487-6 at their fastest. There were five or six I got up and hugged the boy and I don’t know what magic there was your poetry.’ BOOK AWARD had seen us off at Amritsar station. families of Muslim artisans in Teli kissed him on the forehead. On my in her blessing that my eyes filled with I began to cry. This was the Another crowd had been waiting at Mohalla who would fashion these tops asking, he told me that his name was tears. manuscript of my first poetry Attari station, laden with good wishes. out of rosewood blocks on their lathes, Sayadat and he was studying in class A young man of about twenty and collection. Most of the poems were There was a crowd outside, and a crowd commandant of the 7th Baloch I said by way of condolence. ‘You look fix steel needles in them and decorate nine. an innocent-looking girl of sixteen from my college days. within: a crowd of yearnings that the regiment.’ like your father. When I saw him last, them with German colours. That night I ate at the house of or seventeen emerged from the other The old man patted my back and handful of passengers had brought with ‘It is touching that you have such he must have been about the same age I had loved these tops since my Abdul Sattar and slept there. room. The young man stepped forward said, ‘Now let’s have some tea.’ them. There were fathers who were regard in your heart for your grandfather. as you are now. When I stepped in here childhood and, though I hadn’t played The flat roof was bathed in and shook my hand. He was a fair and When we went into the other room going to meet their sons after years, Evidently, the new generation in the I was almost certain that it was him with them after my schooldays, I had moonlight. Staring at the faint stars I goodlooking youth, with an air of clean to have tea, I saw an even bigger miracle. grandmothers who were going to see West has not forgotten to respect its sitting here, as if these twenty-eight always praised them sky-high to my was lost for a long time in memories of freshness about him. Our family photographs were still on grandchildren born in the last fifteen elders.’ years had not passed, as if time had children. One major reason behind the old days. I must have fallen asleep ‘That’s my youngest son, Naeem,’ the wall—just as they were hanging years for the first time and brothers ‘I was only going to see the Taj Mahal. come to a standstill at this shop.’ my close friendship with Abdul Sattar sometime after midnight. As soon as the old man said. ‘He is studying for when we had fled the house. We had who treasured within their hearts But before I departed my grandmother ‘I’m delighted to meet you,’ he had been the fact that his father and that happened, Abdul Sattar came and his MA. And this is my granddaughter missed these photographs so much the intense desire to see their sisters, insisted that I should also visit Pakistan said. ‘My name is Sabir Hussain. And grandfather were master artisans whose stood next to me. Both pockets of his Naheed, the daughter of my eldest son over the past thirty years. Among them nephews and nieces. America and and put flowers at my grandfather’s yours?’ spinning tops were impossible to beat. jacket were stuffed with spinning tops. Shabir. He has a business in Chakwal, was one of my grandfather in a golden Canada had become accessible, while grave.’ I told him my name and began to I would often stop in Teli Mohalla on We roamed around Paharganj bazaar but she stays with us. She is doing frame, which had been especially dear this country just across the Ravi may as ‘How nice that you should have such take my wallet out of my pocket. my way back from school and spend and bummed around Khari Baoli and her Senior Cambridge at the Convent to my father. My eyes were going from wall to wall, well have been on another planet. regard for your elderly grandmother’s ‘Actually I’ve come to repay an old hours watching Abdul’s father and Chandni Chowk, but there was no School in the cantonment. And meet Golda SLEPT HERE and my head was spinning. I couldn’t My eyes had been yearning to see wish.’ debt. In August ’47, I bought a pair of grandfather create their colourful place for us to spin our tops. Finally him,’ he said to them. ‘He is a poet By Suad Amiry get a hold on myself for a long time. All this land across the Ravi. When the train The welcoming crowd at Lahore had shoes from your shop and promised marvels at the lathe. we began to spin them on the platform from Delhi and the real owner of this pp.171, Rs 300 (HB) left Attari station, a strange sudden been larger than the crowds at Amritsar to pay on the first of the following When I reached Abdul Sattar’s of Delhi railway station. A crowd of house.’ I wanted was to be alone somewhere ache rose in my heart. There was a large and Attari. We were to change trains month. But before that date, I had to house, I saw his grandfather busy coolies and passengers formed a circle I was slowly realizing that the elderly and cry to my heart’s content. stretch of uncultivated land between at Lahore, and in the process we lost leave the city.’ at the lathe where a beautiful round around us. Abdul Sattar tried all his man was bent on dragging me through In the evening when I went to Attari and Wagah that belonged to each other and the young Englishman His mouth fell open and he glanced spinning top was taking shape. tops, the flat ones and the round ones, the thorns that day. Naheed was Abdul Sattar’s house to pick up my neither India nor Pakistan. This was ended up in another compartment. But disapprovingly, first at me and then at ‘Salaam aleikum, Grandfather.’ but my shining red top beat them all. greeting me. I saw that her face was like baggage, his father handed me a heavy what is called ‘No Man’s Land’ in the I ran into him again as I stepped out the money in my hand. When he was The old man lifted his head from Soundly defeated, Abdul Sattar said, a bright lotus and her eyes had the glow khaki cloth bag. I saw that it was full of language of international relations, a of Rawalpindi station. He waved and able to speak again, his voice betrayed his lathe and I realized my mistake. ‘Never mind! Even a dog behaves of a narcissus. She looked towards me spinning tops in every colour. place to which no man can lay claim. smiled as he put his bags into a taxi. He his emotion. It was not Abdul Sattar’s grandfather like a lion in his own lane. Come some and smiled in a manner that reminded ‘What’s this?’ But what if roses could be planted on told me that he was going straight from ‘You’re no stranger to this shop. I but rather his father, who had grown as day to Teli Mohalla in ’Pindi, and I will me of my daughter. ‘For your son, a gift from ’Pindi.’ this land, roses of a thousand colours the station to Murree. would be highly obliged if you put the old as his own father in the last thirty take your measure.’ ‘On seeing them,’ I said, ‘this house ‘I only have one son. What will he and a thousand varieties? Yellow, I didn’t take a taxi but hailed a fine money back in your wallet.’ years. I had come today to Teli Mohalla seems doubly lit up.’ do with so many tops?’ touched with the first ray of dawn; Peshawari tonga instead. I wanted to ‘How can that be? I’ve carried the ‘Do you recognize me?’ in ’Pindi, but the man who was to take ‘There, you see, you have spoken ‘Never mind. May God give him a white, unspoilt virgin white; crimson, enjoy the beloved lanes and streets burden of this debt on my conscience The old man stared at me through my measure had himself vanished many like a true poet,’ the old man said, ‘even long life.’ like some bride’s festive dupatta; and of my city properly from the back of for so many years. I want to be free of his thick spectacles. From the glassy years ago. as you remonstrate against being called I was to catch the night train. then those roses that can only be seen the gently swaying tonga. I asked the it.’ look in his eye I could make out The next morning I took Sayadat one.’ Sayadat saw me off at the station. When in dreams. There was a valley of flowers driver to stop and wait for me at the last ‘But I cannot take this money. If my that he’d probably had surgery for with me and roamed around the bazaars I stayed silent. If he was happy I changed trains at Lahore station and in the Himalayan heights; if only turning in Raja Bazaar, then I stepped father had been alive, he too would not cataract. and lanes, the gardens and walkways of in calling me a poet, I didn’t want to boarded the Lahore–Amritsar Express, Dreaming of Baghdad another valley of flowers could bloom into the shoe shop that used to have a have accepted it.’ ‘No,’ he said softly, shaking his the city. It was late afternoon when I snatch that joy away from him. the young Englishman was sitting in By Haifa Zangana between Attari and Wagah, a unique board announcing ‘Flex Shoe Co.’ but Somewhat embarrassed, I put the head. found myself outside the house where ‘Come then.’ He led me by the hand the same compartment as before. pp.170, Rs 375 (HB) fragrance would spread through the was now called ‘Frontier Boot House’. money back into the wallet. ‘I am Sattar’s classmate. I used to I’d been born, and where I’d spent the to what had once been my bedroom. I asked after his grandfather’s grave. subcontinent. On seeing me, the owner of the His face eased and he said, ‘Now come to your house as a child.’ first twenty years of my life. Knocking ‘Let’s put the evidence of your poetry When he had finished telling me about The young Englishman’s question shop, who had been sipping his tea, tell me how I can serve you.’ I saw darkness descend over the old on the door, I experienced a strange into your own hands. We have guarded it I said, ‘It just so happens that I visited had woken me from my scent-filled started and stood up. He was wearing Glancing at the worn-out shoes on man’s eyes. He switched off the lathe feeling, as if at that moment someone your possessions for many years. Today a grave too.’ reverie. He wanted to know why I was a white cotton salwar and a silk kameez my feet, he continued, ‘Size eight, I’d and motioned me to sit down on a cane was knocking on the door of my heart. God has given us a chance to return it.’ ‘Which grave?’ he asked with some going to Pakistan. with silver buttons. He was fair- say. I’ve got a fine Italian shoe in kid stool with his trembling hand. An elderly man opened the door, and What I saw upon entering the room surprise. ‘I’m going to see the city of my complexioned with a full face and thick leather in size eight.’ ‘Where is Sattar?’ I asked. I was struck at first sight. The prayer was nothing short of a miracle. The ‘The grave of India–Pakistan dreams,’ I replied. ‘Rawalpindi, where lips, and his receding hairline made his Despite my remonstrations, he The old man looked at me once. beads in his hand, his white beard, his books I had bought thirty years ago enmity.’ I was born, in whose lanes I spent my forehead look unnaturally broad. made me wear the shoes. They were Then his eyes began to wander in all dress and his personality all pointed to were arranged in a very orderly fashion Seeing disbelief in his eyes I childhood and youth.’ ‘Today I’ve come to this shop after such a marvellous pair, gripping my directions. His eyes fell on the half- his decent and God-fearing nature. in my bookcase. Their firm bindings and continued, ‘Yes, yes, I’m telling the ‘I, too, am going to Rawalpindi,’ he about twenty-eight or twenty-nine feet so perfectly that I couldn’t have finished spinning top and he started ‘You!’ golden titles showed that someone had truth. I have seen this enmity buried said happily. ‘From there I will go to years,’ I said as I sat down on the taken them off even if I had tried. I had the lathe again. It was as if he had He couldn’t say anything more than taken care of them lovingly and not let with my own eyes. And that day is Murree.’ cushioned bench. ‘I would like to meet been searching for such a pair for many forgotten all about my question and, that, so startled was he to see a turbaned even a speck of the dust of negligence not far when we will construct a new (an associate of Kali for Women) ‘It’s a fine hill station, Murree,’ I said, Abdul Rahim sahib.’ years, but had been unable to find it in fact, my existence. and bearded man standing at his door. settle on them. Taj Mahal on the grave of this enmity 7/10, First Floor, Sarvapriya Vihar glowing with childhood memories. A shadow passed over his face as he anywhere in Delhi. Finally the spinning top popped ‘Yes. I’ve come from Delhi to meet Shabir’s mother picked out a key in the valley of flowers between Wagah New Delhi - 110 016 ‘I am going to see my grandfather’s replied, ‘My father has passed away.’ ‘These I will pay for. You’ll have to out of the lathe like a seashell from you.’ from the bunch hanging from the and Attari.’ Tel: +91-11-26866596 / 26524129 grave there. He was Colonel Smith, ‘May Allah grant heaven to his soul,’ accept money for these.’ the mouth of a serpent. He hammered He kept looking at me in silence. corner of her dupatta and opened the n

B I B L I O : J A N U A R Y - F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 4 B I B L I O : J A N U A R Y - F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 4

22 23 ● ● ● ● ● B I O G R A P H Y ● ● s o c i o l o g y ●

he two beautiful pictures on and for Chico as well — a decision she wo months ago, a friend “which would mean that she had aged the front and back covers of took despite Chico’s violent rejection posted as her Facebook a miraculous sixteen years in a single the book seem to convey of the plan. She went alone to Dharwad status: ‘Housekeeper threat- decade” (p 12). the essence of the story told Out of the shadows to check out the place, went on ahead ening to leave. Beloved The subaltern While indoors servants were privy within the covers. The young with all the luggage to set up house, and nanny just up and quit. to their employers’ most intimate woman on the front cover is then went back to bring the children. Fridge, washing machine moments, the “invisible line between looking at the camera with Something very unusual for that time and dishwasher all blow familiarity and over-familiarity” was a shy sideways look, a look when women rarely travelled alone, up at the same time.’ I was studied never crossed even in the most congenial which belies the poise and the almost never without a male escort. to be reminded of this message while relationships. (The camaraderie bet- Tsophistication she otherwise shows. Yet this is stated by Maria Couto in a Treading Lucy Lethbridge’s Servants: A ● ween Wodehouse’s much-loved Bertie Contradicts too, the firm line in which remarkably matter-of-fact manner, as Downstairs View of Twentieth-century Wooster and his butler, protector and the delicate lips are set. In the picture on if it was the norm for any woman, and Britain, a detailed account of domestic Servants: A Downstairs View of confidant, Jeeves, exists firmly in the the back cover, the same woman, much no great achievement. service, with all its rules, quirks and realm of fiction.) Rosina Harrison, a older, is laughing heartily, released, it When Maria Couto wrote Goa … desperation, in 19th and 20th-century Twentieth-century Britain lady’s maid and constant companion, seems, from whatever had inhibited her Goa, it seemed, had found its ideal Britain and the erstwhile British remembers: “My opinions were never earlier, giving a hint of the journey she chronicler. Now, with her second book, colonies of India and Africa. By Lucy Lethbridge sought or given on her music, or the has travelled in the years in between. Maria Couto has invented an entirely Lucy Lethbridge’s well-written, people we met or on anything that was Filomena’s Journeys is Aurora Maria new genre, a mixture of memoir, vibrant account of domestic ser- Bloomsbury, London, 2013, 385 pp., Rs 499 personal to either of us, nor did I expect Couto’s second book. Her first, Goa: biography and history, resulting in a vants, and their role in keeping the ISBN 978-1-4088-4270-6 it or miss it at the time” (p 119). Even A Daughter’s Story (Viking/Penguin, fascinating tapestry of human lives and comfortable, well-ordered life of when the British feudal order began the 2004) was a remarkable book, which, relationships, showing, almost as an middle- and upper-middle class Britain slow – and still unfinished – process of through a mingling of personal and aside, how human lives are impacted running, will be familiar to those PROTEETI BANERJEE desuetude in the years preceding World family histories with the larger history by historical events. Her painstaking among us brought up on a diet of War II, some large, traditional country of Goa, gave the reader a picture of a research about the places Chico and British fiction – Enid Blyton, Agatha houses stubbornly enforced strict Goa most of us did not know. A Goa, Filomena lived in – Raia and Margao Christie, PG Wodehouse, Ngaio Marsh separation, even down in their air-raid that, through long years of Portuguese Filomena’s Journeys: A portrait of a marriage, a – about their families and family – and those entertaining ‘Cookies’ and and which Lethbridge returns to often, inaudible while going about their shelters: rule, was set apart, both from British connections, about the way they lived, ‘Nannies’ and butlers and parlourmaids lists the disciplined day-to-day running work”, as “gentlemen fifty years ago In one large country house, air- India and the areas ruled by local family & a culture the food they ate, the clothes they who peopled those pages. Lethbridge’s of Walter Baldwin’s businessman’s did not care to see her [the housemaid] raid arrangements in the spacious wore, gives us a clear picture of their often”. They were relegated to “their rulers. Filomena’s Journeys has a much By Maria Aurora Couto account, however, is a world removed household (he ran a family paper mill, network of cellars were organised smaller canvas, being the story of Maria lives. Thankfully, the book does not sag from the air-brushed, happy characters and thus inherited entitlement, though own warren of sculleries, washhouses, along strict lines of precedence: Couto’s parents and their marriage. Yet Aleph Book Company, New Delhi, 2013, 290 pp., Rs 495 under the weight of the facts it carries, whose sole joy lay in cooking delicious not a title), provides a glimpse into attic bedrooms … kitchens, pantries, “First cellar: for the elderly owner this book, too, by combining the story though at times the reader, wanting goodies for perpetually hungry rigidly-classed Edwardian life (even as larders and storerooms” (p 20). So and her guests …. Second cellar: for of two people and their marriage with ISBN 978-93-82277-04 to go on with the story of Filomena children, tidying a house, or rescuing Old Britannia itself was being consumed disconnected were the worlds of female servants …. Third cellar: for the history and culture of Goa, goes and her Chico, may find some of the their hapless masters from myriad by suffragettism and industrialisation), family and servitor that sometimes chauffeur, boot-boy, gardeners and way beyond the just personal. details, like the lists (of the food eaten “scrapes”: Servants presents the and – through Rectory Farm House’s the latter were not even addressed by stray neighbours...”. (p 252) It is hard to write about oneself, SHASHI DESHPANDE and the music played at parties and (often unrealised) hopes, dreams and increasing troubles at finding (and their baptismal names. Footmen, for These cellars were furnished keeping about one’s family. Harder still to see during weddings) a little tedious. So aspirations of those invisible presences keeping) good servants – an insight into instance, might have generic names. in mind the social status of their one’s parents as people, to enter that too the plethora of families and their “below stairs”, responsible for keeping the slow but drastic upheavals in British Margaret Thomas, a former cook, putative occupants, but this one, prohibited sacred space of our parents’ the story of two people and their had given Goa and did not want to names, which at times tend to leave the British home, and by extension the writes Lethbridge, quoting from marriage. For the truth is that all marriage. Her careful detailing of the be part of the new independent India the reader a little confused. British way of life, running smoothly another book, came with “an electric families have their secrets, dark rooms two families, Filomena’s and Chico’s, (“Liberation! It was invasion”) and of Feminism has questioned the while their “employers held on to their As a sociological treatise, bell connected with the first cellar in which have been kept firmly closed. makes it as much a story of contrasts those who fought for liberation. invisibility of women in history. gentility”. case owner should wish to summon Yet, like she did in Goa … when she as of conflicts: Chico belonging to In telling the story of her parents’ Virginia Woolf, speaking of the As a sociological treatise, Servants Servants is iffy, not because masculine moral support ...” unflinchingly told the painful story of a class of people used to inherited marriage, Maria Couto often eschews Elizabethan woman, says, “One is iffy, not because of shoddy work but of shoddy work but because The rigid hierarchy was not the forced conversions in Goa, here, too, wealth and prestige, “not conscious of the personal and speaks of herself knows nothing detailed, nothing because of lack of detail. Structured sole preserve of the employing classes, Maria Couto opens the door to the hardships and deprivation in their own in the third person as “Chico’s/ perfectly true or substantial about her. into various periods of British history of lack of detail. The however; the stratification percolated dark rooms in her family; she tells the backyard”. And Filomena’s family, a Filomena’s oldest daughter”, keeping History scarcely mentions her.” This and social change – late-19th and early- problem with this subject downstairs. The butler, who presided truth about Filomena’s father’s death, a rural one, where “women’s lives were herself in the background. The only is true about all women everywhere 20th century; World War I and the over the service hierarchy, was always man lying in “an unmarked grave”, she connected to the rituals of the Church time she comes out of the shadows and at all times. And though it would societal flux it brought in its wake; is located precisely in its addressed as “Mr” by the other servants; speaks openly of the alcoholism that and the agricultural calendar”. Chico, a is when she speaks of what living in be unfair to speak of feminism in the domestic life in the colonies; the pre- invisibility. Belying the in the servants’ hall, he destroyed a family, and of the gradual pampered and indulged child; Filomena, Dharwad, a small town, did to the context of Filomena’s life, or of her war in-migration of fleeing Europeans sat always at the head of the table: disintegration of a marriage. Her great who lost both her parents very early, family, to her especially, opening out a daughter’s account of it – that was, and Jews; and the irrevocably changed promise of its title, the when carving the Sunday roast, he strength is the manner of narration — responsible and hard working. This is larger world to her than she would have after all, another era, it was a different society (and status of women) that book is not quite able to would serve first the housekeeper, as she is never just telling, she is probing, also the story of contrasts in Goa, of seen in Goa. Otherwise, she achieves world – there is no doubt that Maria led to a complete transformation of provide a “downstairs view” his equal in the servants’ hierarchy, questioning, trying to understand. And class and caste differences in a feudal a rare objectivity. A remarkable Couto gives us certain truths about the household after World War II – then move down the ranks to the by knitting the story together with society, of those who were afraid that example is the way she brings back a women’s lives: of the difference in the the book tells the story of a society in of British society; on the odd man, the scullery-maid and the memories, surmises, conversations, the end of Portuguese rule would mean memory of cruelty and violence, telling way girls and boys were educated, of transition, not in the usual politico- contrary, the view remains hall boy. (p 52) both real and imagined, and documented that they would lose the distinctive the story through the eyes of the the loneliness of the wives of migrant economic terms, but in those of the Unlike in Osbourn’s case, in landed facts, Maria Couto goes way beyond culture that Portuguese colonisation frightened child she was then, giving an men who went out of Goa to earn sub-surface, unacknowledged tradition firmly entrenched in the estates and aristocratic families, upward impressionist picture of anger, raised money, of women who lived privileged of domestic service. But the problem “upstairs”, outside the mobility was a real possibility among voices, broken plates and blood and of lives but were unable to cope with with this subject is located precisely servants; most butlers had worked children cowering together fearfully a changing world, of women like in its invisibility. Belying the promise “green baize door”. While Lethbridge’s research is their way up from being hall boys or on a bed. The author’s objectivity Filomena’s mother, who brought up of its title, the book is not quite able undoubtedly detailed, the quotes she employs from footmen. In middle-class households, does seem to desert her at times. “Why her grandchildren after her daughter’s to provide a “downstairs view” of however, in the stringent years after should he deserve understanding?” death, as also managed the land that British society; on the contrary, the various domestic servants – butlers, cooks, kitchen World War I, domestic help was she asks, speaking of the father. Then gave them their livelihood. Apart from view remains firmly entrenched in the maids, gardeners – do little to flesh them out. Each downsized to the charwoman — and quickly adds, “If she (Filomena) had its undoubted literary value, there is “upstairs”, outside the “green baize the ‘char’, on the lowest rung of the compassion for him, how can her no doubt that in writing this book, door”. While Lethbridge’s research is one is individuated and unswappable in real life, ladder of servitude, couldn’t dream that daughter not?” Her comment, “Chico and bringing one woman’s life out of undoubtedly detailed (as evidenced in the book, however, they remain, until the end, “scrubbing, scouring and mopping is a is a mystery to be lived, rather than a the shadows, Maria Couto has given in the exhaustive Bibliography at the interchangeable voices — the Other means of ‘bettering’ yourself, for the problem, a tragedy to be explained,” is us a glimpse of how the chronicling end), the quotes she employs from char could never progress upwards, but indeed a compassionate one. of women’s lives can fill a large empty various domestic servants – butlers, was stuck forever … with the drudgery Though this is the portrait of “a space in history. Long back, Isak cooks, kitchen maids, gardeners – do of her work”. (p 232) marriage, a family & a culture”, there is Dinesen wrote a short story ‘The little to flesh them out. Each one is society. Osbourn is also unusual in that tells Lethbridge, “In one house they In Lethbridge’s account, this no doubt that this is really Filomena’s Blank Sheet’, about Princesses, whose individuated and unswappable in real she is among the few (in Lethbridge’s were William and another Henry, and starchy hierarchy found a resonance in story. She is the heroine of it. Orphaned marriage sheets, with the bloodstains life, in the book, however, they remain, account) who develop a non servus where there were three, the first was the servants in British households in early, she married a man full of promise, which declared their virginity, were until the end, interchangeable voices relationship with their employers. John, the second William and the third colonial India: a man who belonged to one of the elite publicly displayed. Only one sheet — the Other. Affectionately called “Obbs” by the was always Henry” (p 47). Employers … Indian nations (sic) had a families of Goa. And yet within a short stood out among all these stained The only servant – a word today family, she grows close to her beloved “controlled the historical record” of tradition of complex hierarchies and time their life together began falling sheets — a sheet which remained outmoded, replaced with the politically young charge, Daphne (whom she servants, so that, since the employers a rigid caste system that proved to apart and she had to take on the entire white and pure, giving rise to various palatable ‘domestic’ – who stands out is later unconventionally refers to as interfaced between servant and state, be highly compatible with British responsibility of the growing family. surmises about what that Princess’s Alice Osbourn, who was housekeeper “Daph”, or ‘Old Daph”) — enjoying even their officially documented lives traditions and social order …. An Maria Couto’s unstinting admiration story could have been. There is no /administrator for the Baldwins at evenings at the cinema, convivial were “rendered indistinct” and hazy: aristocratic household in Delhi of her mother is always controlled, doubt that books like Maria Couto’s Rectory Farm House in the tiny village drives and shopping spells with the Alice’s designation changed with every was run with the oiled efficiency preventing the book from becoming a Filomena’s Journeys, whether it was the of Taplow, in Buckinghamshire in adult Daphne when she, like so many census, from “nursery governess” in of the English country house, its hagiography. There is the way she speaks author’s intent or not, try to do away southeast England. Alice’s cryptic carnet “modern” young British women, buys 1901 to “cook” a decade later, despite retainers the necessary cogs in of Filomena’s decision to move away with the blank sheet and give women de vol (Lethbridge calls them “journals” a car in 1926. Going by Lethbridge, her role remaining the same; but, the vast machinery of the home. from Goa, to settle down in Dharwad their legitimate place in history. or “diaries”, and they are neither), Osbourn is a rare anomaly: in general, mystifyingly, she went from 21 years (pp 102-03) for the good of the children’s education n which she began keeping from 1906 servants had to remain “invisible and old in the 1901 census to 37 in 1911, But this is a simplistic take on

B I B L I O : J A N U A R Y - F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 4 B I B L I O : J A N U A R Y - F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 4

24 25 ● ● ● P H O T O G R A P H Y ●

domestic service in India — it ignores entry visas effectively excluded most slipper meant for it. A bicycle is lover, the bidi-smoking gangster, one major societal differentiator: that, working-class refugees. In effect, parked behind her, and something the white-suited, sunglasses-wearing in contrast to the inviolable separation Britain became home to middle-class about the picture’s sense of in medias businessman all appear. Nony’s between master and servant in England, German and Austrian professionals All in the res makes one imagine she might get cinematic referents, though she tells servitude in Indian households, while who, unaccustomed to running their up any moment and ride off. us she loved Nargis, Meena Kumri, subject to the vagaries of feudalism and own households, were now being Nony Singh’s very particular Nimmi, Madhubala and Dilip Kumar, paternalism, permitted a kind of emploi pressed into domestic service in persona – whimsical, playful, sensual – are as often as not from Hollywood: sympathique that sometimes spanned British homes — where, given who family is imprinted upon most images in The Sophia Loren, Gone With the Wind. generations and joined entire families. the nominal enemy was (nobody Archivist. The book is full of moments At a more fundamental level, As those of us who have grown up in doubted that there was a war coming), ● of impersonation, of dress-up. The Punjabi’s images are of people for bustling households people by the latest were viewed with suspicion and first person to have been subjected whom the constricted, constructed generation of family retainers know, in embarrassment. Lethbridge mentions Nony Singh: The Archivist to Singh’s staging instinct was likely space of the studio was the only India Lethbridge’s “necessary cogs” the “unthinking anti-Semitism” that her mother, Mohinder Kaur. The photographic space available, while often cross over without fuss from greeted these “sad-eyed newcomers Text by Sabeena Gadihoke and Aveek Sen first photo she ever took was of her Nony Singh’s subjects seem to servantry’s place to that of much-loved with their histories of loss and terror”, mother at a 1943 picnic on the way roam freely through the world, family member — the keeper of the their loneliness in a strange country Dreamvilla Productions, 2013, 114 pp., Rs 1500 (HB) to Koh Murree: a picture of feminine with her camera being allowed into housekey. But the English memsahib and their painful realisation that most grace, her eyes lowered, her crinkled almost intimate moments. Striking was, naturally, uncomprehending of British people just didn’t want to ISBN 978-93-5126-859-8 dupatta draped over her head just so. among such images are the Kasauli the “complicated web of transactions” know about the Nazi problem. The other image Nony created of her photograph of her sister Rajman, that could exist between servants, and Lethbridge liberally peppers TRISHA GUPTA mother is a stark contrast. In perhaps “newly married and in a romantic between servants and tradespeople; the book with anecdotes, some of the most astounding image in the pose” (balanced rather beautifully suspicious of her staff, she often them entertaining, especially those book, Mohinder Kaur is dressed in on her husband’s lap), the image of acquired a reputation for being “a shrill highlighting the utter helplessness of drag. And not just any drag — with a male cousin, bare-bodied on a rock harridan”. Nonetheless, life in the the British mistress when it came to a false moustache and a policeman’s in the Lacchiwala river, Dehradun, colonies, with its armies of deferential the simplest housework. The British baton, she is to play her IPS officer and the 1979 one of Dayanita looking servants, ended up spoiling the British suspicion of and reluctance to adopt husband. stunning in “the halter her father had irrevocably. Having got accustomed to labour-saving appliances is amusingly The easiest person to dress up was, forbidden her to wear, except for the being waited upon minutely and “ruined ironic: the Industrial Revolution of course, herself. In a series of images photograph”. forever for hard work”, returning might have started in their backyard, from 1951 to 1955, the teenaged But as always, that assumption colonials and their families found the but why use a boiler or put in central Nony poses in different costumes: of freedom, and of the camera as transition difficult, given the changing heating when there are three servant a khaki uniform with a toothbrush mere documenter, is too simple. The domestic service scenario and their moustache, a full-length white dress photograph of Dayanita in the halter girls to carry the hot water and light Nikita dressed as Queen Victoria, New Delhi, 1968 meagre pensions “that could barely the fires? Indeed, servants themselves befitting of a nun, in a burqa. A is one stark instance of the camera stretch to a cook and parlourmaid”. marvelled at their employers’ disdain decade later, the desire for playacting being allowed to see what the rest Deference was just one of the many for “new-fangled” machines, and is transferred to her daughters. Nixi of the world was not. In two images things in short supply in post-war proper lavatories with flush loos: (Dayanita) and Nikita appear in frilly image is something that Gadihoke’s disciplinarian to completely keep films from 1960 we see Nony herself Britain. War-work, and the financial and “The gentry were not altogether frocks, but also as a Maharashtrian essay speaks to when she talks of film out of the home. dressed in a way that perhaps only the psychological independence it brought, fussy in their habits … I’ve known woman, as Sita, Mother Mary, an magazines as the place where film- The cinema is, in fact, one of the camera could be privy to: first in an instilled in women – for whom “going them go past a lavatory to get to their angel, a gypsy. Sometimes the same goers “learnt to recognize star poses ways in which the rather privileged off-shoulder top and shorts, and then into service” had previously been the bedrooms to use one of those things costumes and props appear over the and gestures”. “With three single world of Nony Singh’s book – picnics midstream in the same Lacchiwala only option – new confidence and [chamberpots].” Besides, as the many course of the years: the jewellery aunts and four sisters, it was a family in Koh Murree, holidays in Srinagar, river, only her bare shoulders visible aspirations. For many, though, the Woosters must have known, these worn by Nixi “as a Kashmiri girl in dominated by women and they all cousins who go to Doon School – above the water’s surface. In another, changes were fleeting: they were forced appliances needed servants to operate the wheat fields of her father’s farm” loved the cinema,” writes Gadihoke. overlaps with the very different India from 1955, we see three young women to return to domestic service, “because them and were always in danger of (1966) reappears on her sister Nikita But “Nony’s father was strict, and that emerges from another recent sitting on the branch of a tree, with in a post-war economic depression there blowing up. That embodiment of a decade later, “as a princess from access to magazines and films was book-archive of portrait photographs: Nony’s caption: “Climbing trees, was simply no other work available English femininity, Mrs Caroline the Arabian Nights, Modern School, restricted.” Similar stories abound in Artisan Camera, Christopher Pinney’s though great fun, was not meant for to them”, and because “women of all Miniver, the fictional character created New Delhi”. Sabeena Gadihoke’s many upper- and middle-class Indian tribute to Suresh Punjabi’s 1970s girls those days. I asked them to sit on classes were encouraged to give back by Jan Struther, who made her first short biographical piece in the families: I grew up hearing of how my studio photography from the small the tree to make an unusual picture.” their jobs to former servicemen and appearance in The Times on 6 October book tells us that the photographer, grandmother and her sisters sneaked town of Nagda in Madhya Pradesh. Of All these images are real — but their concentrate instead on creating the 1937, complained about irritants looking back at the Arabian Nights out to watch films without telling course, the largely lower-middle-class reality is the creation of the camera. nurturing, comforting home that had familiar not only to her readers, but to image, “is satisfied with the ‘Arabian’ their disapproving father (and later, men who come to be photographed During the making of the book made the war worth fighting” (p 150). all of us: “Everything went wrong at face veil but feels that Nikita’s my equally disapproving grandfather). in Studio Suhag model themselves on Artisan Camera, Pinney writes, he But changes stayed: some of these once; chimneys smoked, pipes burst, ornaments are distinctly Kashmiri”. Clearly, it was hard for even the sternest Hindi film heroes: the alcohol-soaked discovered that most of the original women returned a very different class vacuum cleaners fused …. Nannie Her investment in her daughters negatives of Suresh Punjabi’s full- of servant from the earlier ideal of the sprained her ankle, the cook got Nixi [Dayanita] on her way to study at the National Insitute of Design is expressed in the imaginative length photographs contained all the obedient, decorous, invisible maid. tonsillitis, the house-parlourmaid left stitching of clothes and in the careful ‘noise’ of the studio, the part that had Joyce Storey, who reluctantly went into to be married …. (p 221)” — a litany staging with which these images are been cropped in order to produce the service in a grocer’s household, soon of woes uncannily similar to the one produced. The photographs are a centrally framed human body that was rebelled: that opened this review. ony Singh is not a newly wedded couple, taken from an record of their childhood, but also of all that was considered to be of interest This is the last time in my entire Research can often be a double- professional photogra- angle, with a scattering of wedding Nony’s motherhood. to the customer, or to Suresh. When bloody life I will ever be on my edged sword — it never is really pher. Born in 1936 in guests seated on the carpeted ground Another persistent inspiration Pinney made fresh prints from the knees with my nose to the ground, enough, but one usually never knows Lahore, she happens to around them. But Singh’s face as she for Singh’s images is the cinema. negatives, he was thrilled to be able to for I belong up there with my eyes when to stop. Even more relevant: be the mother of one stands beside her husband is hidden Her sister Rajman poses for her restore the “silent Brechtian margin” to the light, and walking upright and should one publish every minutia of of India’s most feted completely, her head bent under the “like a village woman”, her sister that had been sitting there, “awaiting tall. (p 154) one’s research? Especially bothersome professional photogra- heavy gota-edged veil of her lehnga. Guddie appears as “Sophia Loren recovery”. Fascinatingly, Dayanita Competition arrived in the early in this book is that it doesn’t anticipate phers, Dayanita Singh. The only part of the young bride not in Srinagar”. In one of my favourite Singh, describing her adult ‘discovery’ 1930s, when a British domestic the readers’ obvious curiosity: for The photographs that have been swaddled in yards of heavy fabric are pictures, Guddie looks out into the of her mother’s images on the book recruitment agency opened a branch instance, Lethbridge tells us that the Ncollected in The Archivist were taken her hands, held up to her chest in a distance: her hands folded in her lap, jacket of The Archivist, describes a in Vienna, leading to an influx of various ranks of servants not only ate for personal pleasure, either by Nony clasping gesture that echoes that of dupatta slipping off one shoulder. very similar process: “Many years Austrian and German maids, meaning separate from one another, but also Singh, or of Singh – or members of her husband beside her. There is a stillness to her and yet a later, I had contact sheets made of all that British households were no longer had different foods according to rank. her family – by others. The Archivist The bashful bride of that 1960 certain yearning restlessness to the her work. I saw how much the lab had dependent on the dwindling supply of Since the lady of the manor wasn’t is thus an archive of Nony Singh’s picture would perhaps seem less image, whose origin becomes clearer cropped off each image. Printed in full English maids. Although the Ministry likely to be interested in servant hall life. At one level, then, the book’s carefully constructed if the book had when you read Singh’s caption: frame, they turned out to be stunning of Labour, keen to encourage more victuals, who did, indeed, daily draw up pleasures lie in its closeness to the not placed her next to a photograph “After secretly watching Gone images. They were more about the British girls into service in the middle their menus? Also, Lethbridge never form in which most middle-class from 1961, the year after Singh’s with the Wind, I asked Guddie to backdrop and the setting, rather than of an economic depression and high mentions in either the Notes or the people in the 20th century grew marriage. In the second image, Singh pose as Scarlett O’Hara”. What is about her children.” Having read unemployment, placed restrictions on Bibliography, where Alice Osbourn’s up looking at photographs — the looks out at us without the slightest remarkable is that unlike so many these words, one starts to wonder the free entry of German and Austrian “journals” are to be found. Are they family album. But this is no standard trace of shyness, one insouciant of the other pictures here, ‘posing what the angel and gypsy would look domestics, these were lifted by 1933 part of archival material, or have they family album. It does contain the finger in her mouth, having just tasted as Scarlett O’Hara’ does not involve like without the other child in fairy in the light of the political situation been published in a scholarly text? expected portraits of sisters, parents, whatever’s just been cooking on dressing up. No pert little bonnet or wings being led away by the hand in in Germany. In 1936, the number of My biggest issue with Servants, children and husbands — but it is the chulha in front of her. There is a tight-waisted ball-gown or Mammy- the background, or whether Nixi as incoming foreign domestics was 8,849; though, is one of engagement: it is the departures from expectation that relaxed, almost tomboyish air about like figure is needed to be Scarlett. Sita would work without the creeper- a year later, it was 14,000. In 1938, an ostensibly objective but involved give The Archivist its piquant quality. her, perched sideways on a chair in an It is the feeling that is sought to covered trellis and straw-covered shed after the horrific events in Germany of examination of social change in Britain Singh’s wedding, for instance, open verandah, wearing a loose white be emulated — though Guddie’s behind her. I’m not certain I agree Kristallnacht, block visas were issued through the study of master-servant makes the requisite appearance, but kurta-pyjama that one speculates dreamy-eyed gaze into a possible with Dayanita Singh’s last claim. To to all women prepared to take up any dynamics. But if this is a part of not in the form of the usual shaadi might belong to her husband. Her future seems quite different from the me, Nony Singh’s images seem very domestic work. Unfortunately, the subaltern studies, it is neither studious photo, the husband and wife with hair is in a long loose single plait, childish determination with which much about the people in them. contacts necessary to obtain a domestic enough nor subaltern enough. faces framed in tight close-up. Instead somewhat rumpled, like her clothes. Scarlett sets out to shape hers. But of course, most of all, they are job, and the paperwork required for n we get a full-length image of the One dangling foot has escaped the That hankering for the cinematic Nony Singh, 1960 about herself. n

B I B L I O : J A N U A R Y - F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 4 B I B L I O : J A N U A R Y - F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 4

26 27 ● ● ● ● ● F I C T I O N ● ● F I C T I O N ●

arly on in this collection a cast of characters like this, you could or many readers, The Hundred When the monsoon rains slowed, of the bizarre, the strange hardly fail to enjoy the tasty spread, Names of Darkness (TNOD) the last of the rain and the wind and the impossible, we are and Gaiman falls too like a man starved will fulfill the prophecy that caressed her ears, and she heard introduced to a character Wierder, wilder of language and sinks his teeth right in The Wildings augured, for The other side about the friendly house-stoves called Sir Henry Mandifer, a with some deliciously chewy sentences. Nilanjana Roy’s sequel revels in the mountains, where there man who, having made pots Reminiscing on their past conquests in journeying, storytelling was always room for another cat of money as a writer, had (including flash-frozen mammoth and and the immensities of the or three… She found a berth in a “taken to spiritualism” and and more Patagonian giant sloth, not to mention universe, and it’s as spirited of darkness train… The bearers on the train was at the top of his game. On his way panda-steaks), Newhouse at one in celebrating freedom, the bonds of made her a pillow from some old to investigate another intriguing piece of point sums up their motley crew: “We friendship and community, the familiar torn sheets, and let her curl up to E F ● paranormalia, he congratulates himself have become cosmonauts exploring as well as otherness and the courage to warm her belly on the flasks of tea that this particular call had come from undreamed-of worlds of delectation imagine a path/life other than the one when they reached the colder slopes a straight-laced, prim and proper old wondrous and gourmanderie.” It’s such a meaty you know. The Hundred Names of Darkness of the hills. school friend who, in the normal course and satisfying tale, you end up feeling Still others could find in TNOD ….And so it went on for many years; ● By Nilanjana Roy of things, wouldn’t stand for such pleasantly stuffed and in need of a good the cautionary wisdom and affirmation the cat’s whiskers would twitch after nonsense. “It only showed you,” Sir old burp. packed into the Delphic maxim Aleph Book Company, New Delhi, 2014, 313 pp., Rs 495 (HB) the turning of the seasons, and the Henry ruminates, “that the tidiest lives Unnatural Creatures As in any collection, there are some ‘Know thyself ’, for, set in a winter of winds would rustle the names of far- ISBN 978-93-82277-77-4 have nothing but quicksand for a base. Stories chosen by Neil Gaiman stories that work better than others, dislocation and difficult choices, the away places until it had smoothed The snuggest haven’s full of trapdoors not all will be to every reader’s taste. plot concerns the coming of age of them into her fur, and her paws and sliding panels, unsuspected attics Bloomsbury, London, 2013, 462 pp., £12.99 Apart from Gaiman’s own story, I’d the green-eyed kitten Mara and the would uncurl and take her where she and suddenly discovered rooms.” No particularly recommend E Nesbit’s shuffling fledgling Hatch; the twist in SHALINI MUKERJI needed to go. wonder Neil Gaiman chose to open his ISBN 978-1-4088-4544-8 charming ‘The Cockatoucan’ (1900) the tale hinges on creatures realising This tortoiseshell traveller cat, whose selection of stories with this particular which made me want to immediately their potential and upon the hope that stray adventures Beraal comforts Mara one. I suspect Sir Henry is a man after go back and re-read her children’s even a worm will turn. … Your Bigfeet must be good And there’s the curious cat that, with one long, cold winter’s night, is his own heart — possibly wielding a ANI T A R O Y classics starting with The Five Children But all “Bigfeet” (humans beings people; but do you not miss your Mary Poppins-like, stays someplace the core of TNOD. You’ll find that if stake to shove through it. and It, to enjoy again her inimitable in Roy’s parlance), whether they love own kind? Does your blood not until the wind changes: the surprise and adventures of first paw- With multiple awards, bestsellers and Edwardian style. In this story, as in animals or are indifferent to nature, will sing to you to climb the trees and Once, there lived a cat who liked explorations and whiskered linking, or a bibliography as long as your arm, Neil many others of this particular genre, find themselves more circumspect, less race along the rooftops, to challenge to follow her whiskers: when they the bloodied drama of the battle with Gaiman is something of a cult figure. that the wasp nests of Yiwei, dipped and fearsome-looking creature, with the child at the heart of it is locked in urbane, while glossing over our (in) every other young queen who claims twitched at the breeze, when the the ferals kept you hooked in The There’s a reason why on the cover of this in hot water, unfurled into beautifully talons and wings, a wickedly sharp deadly battle with adults who Think human impact on the world. this park as territory, to find a tom scent of something new and strange Wildings, it’s travellers’ tales in TNOD particular book, his name is about two- accurate maps of provinces near and beak and a long, curling tail, gets to They Know Better: “Matilda was quite TNOD returns us to the same of your own to mate with under the murmured to them from the back that hold you most in thrall. The heart hundred times larger than the words far, inked in vegetable pigments and hear about his likeness on the church, right in believing that savage children clumsy, thoughtless Bigfeet world silver moonlight? of the east wind, her paws would of the book lies in the textures of travel ‘stories chosen by’. It’s not actually by labelled in careful Mandarin that could he decides to pay a visit — much to do not wear frocks that hurt. It is that Roy alerted us to in The Wildings, Cheels thrill you with their daring, twitch too, and she would go where it brings alive and the wanderlust it Neil Gaiman, see, but the publishers be distinguished beneath a microscope.” the consternation of the townsfolk. also true that savage children are not only, it’s harsher and more directly in joyous flight and TNOD creates her whiskers and paws carried her. taps into, crystallising beautifully the clearly hope that by the time you’ve Fleeing from the map-plundering Echoing the old ‘Beauty and the Beast’ overwashed, overbrushed, overcombed, conflict with the stray and homeless on such a fierce, glowing moment when When the spring winds spoke to enchantment of elsewhere that both realised that, you’d have opened it, and humans, the wasps make off in a boat, fairytale, we are left wondering who is gloved, booted, and hatted, and taken the streets. In the winter that’s come, Tooth recalls his and Claw’s mating, her of fish with silver mouths and travel and stories entice us with and, been seduced by the deliciously baroque in an omnibus to Streatham to see Nizamuddin’s clan of cats, along with not least, the degrees of kind(ness) typography – each story is prefaced by a their Great-Aunt Willoughby. This was the pigs, cheels, babblers, street dogs, layering our world that Roy’s narrative black page, designed like an invitation to With multiple awards, intended to be Matilda’s fate.” bulbuls, mice and other wildlife, need invites us to consider. the funeral of someone terribly posh – The stiff upper-lips of Nesbit’s tale to scavenge for food in a shrinking The tortoiseshell traveller The puns are in place: a squawking bestsellers and a make a nice counterpoint to the drawly and are already reaching for your wallet. habitat circumscribed by “high rooftops cat, whose stray adventures parrot pair are called “Chancha” And the book is, definitely, worth bibliography as long as Americanisms of ‘Or All the Seas of the forbidding new buildings in and “Meechi” (one word in Bangla, buying. The title page beckons you With Oysters’, sci-fi author Avram Nizamuddin proper” and “frozen Beraal comforts Mara with ‘chanchameechi’ means noise/clamour); your arm, Neil Gaiman is like a moustachioed impresario into his Davidson’s tale set in small-town iron bars of the gates that blocked one long, cold winter’s bandicoots answer to “Poonch” and freakshow: “The Museum of Unnatural something of a cult figure. America some time in the early 1960s. off many of the colony’s roads”.Lives “Mooch”; the naming of the cats History Presents... a number of It’s full of ‘doggone it’s and ‘well, I guess are lost to traffic, asphyxiating smoke night, is the core of locates a Jalebi at Chandni Chowk, There’s a reason why on unnatural creatures along with several so’s and the contrast between Ferd and from bonfires of rubber, refuse and dry The Hundred Names of Umrrow Jaan at Mehrauli, Spook at the other creatures who are either unlikely, the cover of this particular Oscar’s hokey dialogues and the sinister leaves, poisoned traps, dog catcher vans embassy area, and His Excellency Billi Darkness. It’s travellers’ impossible, or do not exist at all.” It’s a book, his name is about two- behaviour of some of the bicycles, coat and other meanness as a neighbourhood Bunter Singhji (Diplocat for short) great ploy: a kind of ‘enter if you dare’ hangers and paperclips that are lying sterilises itself. Southpaw turns cat- tales that hold you most at the Delhi Golf Course. Roy has threat that pulls the reader in. hundred times larger than around, is rather delightful. Here’s a burglar (and falls into danger); Beraal, Tooth dismiss pigeons for what they in thrall. The heart of the Sixteen stories, a mix of previously the words ‘stories chosen telling snippet: Hulo and Katar, like the Dargah cats, are:“winged rats”; and the Golf Course published and new, by 16 writers, some “Maybe they’re a different kind slip around lanes they once strutted book lies in the textures of has its pecking order of the peacock long-dead (E Nesbit, Saki, Frank R by’. It’s not actually by of life-form. Maybe they get their through, lean shadows of themselves. patrol led by Thomas Morand the rank- travel it brings alive and Stockton, Anthony Boucher), some very Neil Gaiman, see, but the nourishment out of the elements in They need Mara to show them a way out, pulling, smug colonial cats devoted much alive (the youngest, E Lily Yu, a the air. You know what safety pins since her extraordinarily long whiskers the wanderlust it taps into, to their bundobast of permits and publishers clearly hope that are — these other kinds of them? mere 23 years old), with a fairly decent lead her on incredible journeys from crystallising beautifully the honorifics, and an incurably romantic gender ratio (9:7 to the boys). Taken by the time you’ve realised that, you’d have opened Oscar, the safety pins are the pupa the comfort of her basket (a bit like kooky koel given to shairi. And yet, together the whole thing is reminiscent of forms and then they, like, hatch. Into how internet clicks take us elsewhere), enchantment of elsewhere the magic of this cat-fable feels a little it, and been seduced by the deliciously baroque the display cases of exotic or marvellous larval forms. Which look just like and the cats need her to roam further that both travel and stories entice us with and, not blunted, the story’s pacing a trifle curios: the precursors of the modern typography and are already reaching for your coat hangers. They feel like them, than their paws can carry them. Except, sluggish, because this sequel references museum. Open up this particular cabinet even, but they’re not. Oscar, they’re Mara, a year older since we met her last, least, the degrees of kind(ness) layering our world the preceding story too often and wallet. And the book is, definitely, worth buying and you’ll encounter mermaids and not, not really, not really, not…” He still hasn’t been outside, hasn’t really that Roy’s narrative invites us to consider labours over re-creating characters and wolf-men, hamadryads, phoenixes and began to cry into his hands. met the clan and is terrified by the providing context for first-time readers unicorns — not to mention (because you It’s of course impossible to do justice world at large. An accident changes all unfamiliar with the world of The can’t: it’s unspellable) the nameless blob “provisioned with fallen apricots and more monstrous: the creature or the to all the stories in this collection, but this. Mara crashes into wheels spinning Wildings. One wishes there were more of the first story. squash blossoms” to establish a new humans? the publisher’s description of James towards her, encounters snarling dogs that the next time you hear a pair of fat juicy bellies to be found in the of Prabha Mallya’s chiaroscuros to Gaiman clearly had a lot of fun putting colony. The tale unfurls, much like the Gaiman’s own contribution to Thurber’s The 13 Clocks would do and unexpected mutt-headed devotion; cheels calling, you’ll but hear Joycean frog-speckled silt of the mangrove animate the textures and emotions of this anthology together. He’s a big fan of wasps’ maps, in miniature such that the this collection is told in characteristic just as well for Gaiman’s Unnatural has a run-in with the warrior mongoose affirmation: forests, her paws took her to a Roy’s world: tenderness, gore, whimsy, James Thurber’s The 13 Clocks (1950), reader is left gazing up in wonder at swashbuckling style. Here’s how Creatures: it is a work of “dark and Kirri who admonishes Mara to act … and from behind the clouds, river boat, a light, lean craft, whose terror, curiosity, longing, homesickness, which he says “may be the best book in the stained glass windows made of bee he introduces it: “Lightning bugs, delicate whimsy for all ages”. Buy it — more like herself; is counseled by other bursting out and upwards at a speed planks she warmed for the length of friendship, freedom, light and dark. the world”, and selected a story inspired wings in the wasps’ council chamber. dolphinfish, dung beetle, unicorn flank mainly for the reason that this collection senders special like herself; pits her that almost froze my beak, my mate the summer. Quite a few readers (like me) might by Thurber to include in this collection. Frank R Stockton was an American steak... the intrepid members of the of stories weaves together so many wits against a ‘thuggery’ of bandicoots answered! “Yes!” she cried, “yes, I When the summer sun of the river feel disloyal, as if betraying the clan, Samuel R Delany’s ‘Prismatica’ (1977) humourist whose children’s stories Epicurean Society have eaten every delicious elements: the macabre, the whose oiliness will make your skin will, yes.” deltas walked its fingers through her because we couldn’t unreservedly shares the same sing-song, poetic stood out for their refusal to moralise kind of animal. Or have they...?” What fantastical, the lyrical, and occasionally crawl and whose overrun of burrows There are the Goan interludes with fur, whispering to her of the rains delight in this world Roy creates as we syntax of Thurber’s classic. He echoes and sermonise, but who used gentle follows is a Rabellasian quest by a the downright silly. But buy it also might bring on a comparison with the formidable sender from Paolim, that drummed on the red tile roofs did in her previous one. But like me, Thurber’s trope of repeating phrases, humour to explore human foibles and coven of adventurous eaters: Augustus because the proceeds will go to the how humans indiscriminately build Magnificat, fierce huntress, queen of of Goa, the plump crabs and frogs I’m certain they’ll give thanks for the almost like an incantation – “a wizard flaws. In this collection, ‘The Griffin TwoFeathers McCoy, “big enough for very fantastic non-profit organisation, and tunnel across open spaces, “the the roofs, who thrills to the “silver that swelled the paddy with their tortoiseshell fable cat who, seeking an so great and so old and so terrible that and the Minor Canon’ (first published three men, who ate enough for four 826DC which was set up by novelist way the yellow ropes of ambarbel, the and blood fragrance” of battles, hunts croaking, the cat listened to the answer blowing in the wind, ventures you and I need never worry about him,” in 1885) tells the tale of a lonely Griffin men and who drank enough for five”; Dave Eggers to foster students writing strangling creeper, would sometimes and fishing. In fact, like any fantastical sun’s whispers. Soon she was stowed to the other side of darkness. And, for example – and also has a wonderfully and a gentle clergyman who strike Professor Mandalay “small and twitchy skills. With any luck, the book will cover and then choke a tree”. Along adventure worth the telling, TNOD safely in the back of a truck, perched in spite of her bloodied paws and her Thurberesque ear for onomatopoeia up a strange and tender friendship in and grey as a ghost (and perhaps he was a help the real Museum of Unnatural with the other wildings, Mara too faces begins with cat and cobra stalking each high on its bales, sleeping snugly in uncertainties, and the immensity of the (onvbpmf, glumphvmr, fuffle). the face of the townsfolks’ fear and ghost; stranger things have happened)”; History, at the 826DC headquarters in a stark winter of being hunted, hungry, other across red-tiled rooftops made the thick knotted coils of the ropes unfamiliar, lets her whiskers reach out E Lily Yu’s story, ‘The Cartographer prejudice. It opens on an entrancingly Virginia Boote, the food critic, who Washington DC, to restock the bottles homeless and homesick. slippery by rain. This “dance” as Roy that trussed its cargo, sharing the to befriend the night. For: Wasps and the Anarchist Bees’ might read fairytale-like note: “Over the great “had once been a great beauty but was of unicorn farts in their gift shop, and Roy’s narrative pleasures in an likes to phrase her face-offs between truck drivers’ milk and meat until The night hides more than predators like an Orwellian parable of masters and door of an old, old church which stood now a grand and magnificent ruin”; and do whatever it is that they so brilliantly elemental world; as when Kirri asks predator and prey or between ancient they had reached the other coast, until we know it so well that we can slaves, but the real delight in the story is in a quiet town of a far-away land there Jackie Newhouse a direct descendant do to make life a little wierder, wilder Mara on her first night out in the adversaries, fascinated by the brutal where the skies roared and the dark speak its many names without fear; the imagery. Take this, from the opening was carved in stone the figure of a large of “the great lover, gourmand, violinist and more wondrous for the kids (and world(unutterably bereft and lost), if ethics of survival, is what Mara must clouds lay with their full bellies and yet, we live most keenly under section: “In this way it was discovered griffin.” When the real Griffin, a huge and duelist Giacomo Casanova”. With their parents) that pass through. n she can pad past her fears: learn. pressed against the green land. the wing of darkness. n

B I B L I O : J A N U A R Y - F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 4 B I B L I O : J A N U A R Y - F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 4

28 29 ● ● ● B I O G R A P H Y ●

he Age of Amazon’ is not up and spit you out. And if you are just the title of a book, it good, he will jump on your back and is a retrospective on the ride you into the ground.” Or as Stone history of e-commerce The internet way himself suggests, that is the way the as well as a prophecy for company is going to grow “until either the shape of things to ● Jeff Bezos exits the scene or no one is come. In his meticulously left to stand in his way”. This policy of reported book, Brad The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the taking everything from its employees Stone takes us through the roller and channelling it to the relentless ‘Tcoaster ride of the ‘Everything Store’ Age Of Amazon growth of the company accounts for that Amazon has become, building a not only the high attrition rate of gripping tale of an idea that has become By Brad Stone top executives but also the growing synonymous to the world of online Bantam Press/Random House Group, London, 2013, 372 pp., controversies about work and labour shopping in just over two decades. conditions in Amazon warehouses and The book reads well as a biopic on £12.99 on-the-ground delivery services. the visionary lunacy of Jeff Bezos, ISBN 978-0-593-07046-8 Stone’s book does not go into great the founder of Amazon, as well as a detail about the new work force that gripping tale of how ideas grow and companies like Amazon produce — a develop in the digital information age. NISHANT SHAH work force that is reduced to being a Stone is an expert storyteller, not only cog in a system, performing mechanical because of his eye for the whimsical, tasks, working at minimal wage, and the curious and the enchantment of without the protections that are the seemingly banal, but also because he wanted a company to be “loved not with a sense of the adventure and the offered to the white collar high-level of his ability to question his own craft. feared” but also used the metaphor of a excitement that is a part of the dot technology executives that are the pop- At the very outset, Stone warns us that “cheetah preying on the gazelles” in its com world; it is also patiently and up children of the digital trade. Stone the book has been compiled through acquisition of smaller businesses; a man pertinently critical of the horrifying reminds us that behind the incredible conversations with friends, family and who thought of himself as a “missionary work conditions that Amazon has to platform that Amazon is, is a massive workers at employee, but not Bezos rather than a mercenary” and yet built offer. Stone avoids the easy comparison physical infrastructure which almost himself. This helps Stone separate the a business empire that embodies some with Jobs, but makes it unequivocally reminds us of the early industrial days maker from the brand — unlike Steve of the most discriminatory, exploitative clear that Bezos had you going in and where the labourer was in a state of Jobs who became the cult icon for and stark conditions of adjunct, adhoc, coming out. He pulls out a company exploitation and precariousness. And Apple, Bezos himself has never become underpaid and contract-based labour of joke that was quite popular in Amazon: even as we celebrate the rise of these the poster child of his brand, allowing our precariously mobile worlds. “If you’re not good, Jeff will chew you global behemoths, we might forget Amazon to become not only an that behind the seductive interfaces everything store but everybody store. ● and big data applications, that under But it means that Stone’s task was to the excitement of drone-based delivery weave together the personal biography Stone is masterful as he segues from Bezos’ systems and artificial intelligence that of Bezos, his dramatic journey personal life and ambitions into the monomaniacal will start delivering things even before through life with the tumultuous and you place the order, is a system that adventurous inception and growth and turbulent trajectory of Amazon. Amazon is pushes more and more workers in of Amazon, and his skill lies in the not a simple success story. It tried and failed at unprotected and exploitative work meeting of the twines, which he does conditions. with style, ease and charm. many things, but what remains important is how, All in all, The Everything Store is One of the easiest accusations to it failed at the traditional way of doing things and a little bit like Amazon itself. It is a throw at a book like this is to state that love story of a man with his ideas, and it reduces the murky, blurred, messy and succeeded at the internet way of thinking. So when how the rest of the world has shifted, incoherent set of events into a narrative Amazon failed, it was not a failure to succeed, but tectonically, to accommodate these that establishes causes and attributes eruptions. In its historical retrospective, design and intention where none a failure that resulted because the infrastructure it shows us the full scope of the ideas existed. However, Stone was confronted needed to make it succeed was not yet in place. and possibilities that inform Amazon, with the idea of ‘Narrative Fallacy’ — Stone’s narrative that effortlessly takes us through and thus the future that it is going a concept coined by Nassim Nicholas to build for us. And with masterful Taleb in his Black Swan, referring to the the economics, trade, policies, regulation, craftsmanship, Brad Stone writes that tendency of human beings to reduce administration and struggles of Amazon, shows it is as much about the one man and his complex phenomenon to “soothing company, as it is about the physical and but oversimplified stories”. In fact, how it was a company that had to invent the world affective infrastructure of our rapidly the challenge to not reduce the book it wanted to succeed in, in order to succeed transforming digital worlds. to a series of connected anecdotes was posed by Bezos when Stone pitched the ● n book to him. And what has emerged is a book about accidents, serendipity, risk, redundancy, failure charting the Stone is masterful as he segues from ineffable, inscrutable and inexplicable Bezos’ personal life and ambitions ways in which digital technologies are into the monomaniacal and turbulent shaping the worlds we live in. trajectory of Amazon. Amazon is With the rigour and journalistic not a simple success story. It tried inquiry that Stone has displayed in his and failed at many things, but what regular writings in The Businessweek, remains important is how, it failed at The Everything Store has stories the traditional way of doing things which are as memorable as they are and succeeded at the internet way of unexpected. Stone does a fantastic job thinking. So when Amazon failed, it of charting Bezos’ life — from tracking was not a failure to succeed, but a failure down the lost father who had no idea that resulted because the infrastructure what his son, who he had abandoned at needed to make it succeed was not yet in age three, has become, to the chuckle- place. Stone’s narrative that effortlessly worthy compilation of Bezos’ favourite takes us through the economics, trade, quotes (Stone calls it his ‘greatest hits’), policies, regulation, administration and the book is filled with pointed and struggles of Amazon, shows how it poignant observations and stories that was a company that had to invent the give us an idea of the extraordinary life world it wanted to succeed in, in order of Jeff Bezos. But unlike the expected to succeed. In many ways, the book character creation of a mad genius, becomes not only about Amazon and what you get is the image of a man who its ambitions to sell everything from lived in contradictions: wedded to his A-Z, but about how it built prototypes internal idea of truth but also ruthless for the rest of the world so that it could in his business policies which were become relevant and rule. predatory and competitive to say the But the book is not a Martin- least; a businessman who once wrote a Scorsese-type homage to the scoundrel memo titled ‘Amazon.love’ about how or the villain. While it is imbued

B I B L I O : J A N U A R Y - F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 4

31 ● ● ● B I O G R A P H Y ●

ombay presents a winning dirty, too crowded and too haphazard. muse for an author in search A relative of the author’s who published of a sweeping theme. It is a a book in the 1920s on Bandra, (known pulsating, populous, financial On shallow ground as the ‘queen’ of the suburbs outlying hub that happens to host the Bombay) noted: “The housing famine country’s celluloid dream ● is acute.” Fernandes also describes factory. Naresh Fernandes’s his own family’s past in Bandra as he biography is a short and City Adrift: a short biography of Bombay sorts through “the eleven kilogram engaging guide to the evolution of the stack of letters and court petitions” Bcity, from its origins as a set of tidal By Naresh Fernandes that his grandfather had preserved in swampy islands (of dubious value as a an attempt to get justice when his land dowry), to its current ironical existence Aleph Book Company, New Delhi, 2013, 155 pp., Rs 295 was requisitioned; the story of how his as financial capital of the country, ISBN 978-93-822-7720-0 grandfather’s 1,715 square yard plot of where one in five residents lives below farmland is swallowed up appears to be the poverty line. There’s undoubtedly a part of how the farmlands of Bandra enough material here for several tomes, KARISHMA ATTARI eventually came to be absorbed during yet Fernandes deftly sidesteps the call the town’s rapid urbanisation. of the ponderous to select the events Fernandes’s research into the that most tellingly defined and continue literature available on early Bombay to define Bombay. communalisation of Bombay that earns be thought of as offering something suggests that the city always struggled Using lucid prose that, in the best the greatest ire. exclusive and isolated from the general with its density and that it was a factor journalistic style, is a whisper short Fernandes was a journalist on the beat throng of street life. This form of “re- in how trade flourished. Even as early of breezy, and never bogged down by during the riots and his account of the islanding” as Fernadnes calls it is bound as 1673, a visitor remarks that the detail, Fernandes is well aware of the sights he has seen is well supplemented to damage the fabric of the city that is diversity of the town was staggering, challenges that come with attempting by his subsequent research. He quotes meant to be inter-dependent as all vital “in which confusedly lived” a strange to write a biography of a city in one slim an associate professor at the Tata cities are. mix of people of all communities and volume. He splits his narrative into two Institute of Social Sciences in his work Its origins as a set of islands aside nationalities, and Fernandes says, parts; there appears to be the shared on the aftermath of the riots in recently Fernandes notes: “Strangely, Bombay “Already, the incipient city carried the assumption that despite the amusing Muslim-dominated areas like Mumbra, has few official monuments to its slushy promise of equal opportunity that minutiae presented in Part One, Part Jogeshwari and Dharavi, to conclude: foundations. But in the cartography of would make it different from any other Two will serve weightier issues. “Space and identity have combined to everyday life, the ocean is rarely far settlement India had known. Tolerance The first part is an origins and become a deadly zone of exclusion.” away. It sloshes around in the names of was the hallmark of Bombay…” The evolution story: a story of Bombay’s Bombay’s Muslims are pushed to the landlocked neighbourhoods like the fig ambition of allowing citizens to live almost mythic geneses. The Indian peripheries while building societies in tree creek of Umerkahdi, washes against “without fear or favour” as a feature freedom movement as it made its affluent areas accept only “vegetarian” the vanished pier of Bori Bunder and of the new British law was one that way to Bombay, and Bombay’s role residents or more categorically do not surges at high tide through the drainage Bombay followed. After all, this was in supporting Mahatma Gandhi is accept Muslim residents. The result is nallahs of Null Bazaar.” Bombay, “India’s most cosmopolitan outlined. There are plenty of period increasing ghettoisation of the city. City Adrift proceeds chronologically. city, an oasis of amity whose only particulars, retrospective ironies and business was business.” a tallying up of the losses and gains ● This situation would change as of policy decisions over the years, Fernandes ominously remarks in a particularly those with respect to City Adrift makes no play at being a definitive build up to the communal riots when “it the mill district as it developed into a suddenly turned its back on its history “locality, the resonant word Bombayites guide to everything that has to do with Bombay. in the 1990s”. Bombay was reclaimed use to refer to the web of relationships It concentrates on fixing a sense of history to and reorganised for the credo of making and institutions that makes a place money, but the turn of the century home”. Part One also mentions droll Bombay, even as it rejects the fierce Shiv Sena-type has stripped it of the cosmopolitan it trivia such as philanthropist and China politicisation that went into it being renamed as held dear. The age of philanthropy and trader Jamsetjee Jejeebhoy in 1834 was equal opportunity may well be past, the first person to serve ice at a dinner Mumbai. The narrative’s main thrust is to provide and Bombay is witnessing the era of party, “though the Bombay Samachar testimony to how the confluence between indifferent selfishness, greed and illegalities, where reported a few days later that the host even the average citizen seems to accept and many of his guests caught colds”. government agencies, corrupt politicians, land that the law is to be interpreted “as per Or that the abundance of East European sharks, the selfish affluent and the “slacktivism” of individual convenience”. women who worked as ladies of the the public have resulted in a city of greed cut off City Adrift makes no play at being night meant that the Kamathipura red a definitive guide to everything that light district would be known as “safed from its moorings and dangerously adrift without has to do with Bombay; there is little gully or white lane”. However, the common cause and common ground about Bollywood, barely a glancing moment the last Englishman steps off mention of Bombay’s distinctive street the Gateway of India the sepia tone of ● food and its multilingual traditions of the diminishing past is replaced by a theatre or other forms of celebratory harsher and newer reality. and communal street culture. Each Part Two opens with the great stain If it is not religion, then it is class Fernandes is correct in his persuasion of these subjects could easily attract in the once cosmopolitan fabric of that is proving another great divider that eavesdropping on conversations is a biography dedicated to them. City Bombay’s story: the communal riots and slum rehabilitation projects have the best way to understand a city. He Adrift does not pay attention to the of 1992. This harsh reminder is just the a long way to go before achieving pieces together fragments from the increasingly discussed and pertinent first of many tragedies that Fernandes their purpose. It is chilling to consider past until he gets to the present age, as women’s issues. It concentrates on scrutinises in the chapters to follow. that the average life expectancy of though they are snippets of dialogue fixing a sense of history to Bombay, even So the clever title that appears to serve Bombayites can vary by as much as using various sources including as it rejects the fierce Shiv Sena-type the first part of the book is really an 13 years depending on which area articles, travellers accounts, scholarly politicisation that went into it being ironic reference to the conditions of they live in. The statistics are telling: papers, official chronicles, letters and renamed as Mumbai. The narrative’s the second. The city may have been “Since 1991, the proportion of people other historical records. The result is a main thrust is to provide testimony reclaimed from the sea in the past but it living in slums has almost doubled.” rather enjoyable ironical retrospective to how the confluence between is adrift and without sound policy and Nearly half of Bombay’s population as chroniclers from the 17th century indifferent government agencies, management. of 12.4 million now live in shanties. onwards protest at the kind of corrupt politicians, land sharks, the Part Two looks closely at the kind of Meanwhile, the prosperous choose congestion and confusion that Bombay selfish affluent and the “slacktivism” human rights violations that spiralled to live increasingly segregated lives in has traditionally wallowed in. of the public have resulted in a city of out from the Bombay riots. It also gated communities, where tag lines like Policy and management have never greed cut off from its moorings and examines the gross violations of zoning “exclusive integrated enclave” promote really been partners in Bombay’s dangerously adrift without common laws and how attempts at land reform the aspiration of living in a reconfigured growth story. “The city’s layout as well cause and common ground. There is have been hijacked to starve the city high-class environment that is as much as the regulations about land use and an undeniable lament in the thought of its few remaining opportunities for about the other-worldly facilities as it is land sales, was conceptualized not to that one of the most iconic cities in the better development, whether in the about keeping out the real homogeneity enhance the comfort of residents but world has not stood up to its potential city centre or elsewhere. The strengths of Bombay. The advertising spiel for to maximize commercial gain…. Even for greatness. Yet City Adrift curbs its and weaknesses of Bombay’s hard- a new housing complex in Wadala as an embryonic settlement of 10,000 exasperation, reigns in its angst and working citizens are summed up and serves as a picture-perfect example of people, Bombay has displayed a talent eschewing any sentimentalism – much the allegedly indefatigable “spirit of this near-secession from Mumbai with for vacillation that would persist all the like the city it talks about – keeps the Bombay” is held up to enquiry, but it is its line, “the eight island of Mumbai way into the twenty-first century.” narrative short, pithy and smooth. the political corruption and deliberate discriminates”. The builders wish to In short, Bombay has always been too n

B I B L I O : J A N U A R Y - F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 4

33 ● ● ● i n m e m o r i a m ●

ad he been an Indian indignities of the social curse of writer in English, untouchability, could rise above that hallowed class of all these limitations and emerge littérateurs, Namdeo Poet of the not just a rebel poet who practiced Dhasal would have protest as a profession, but one acquired international who considered humanism as a acclaim. His poetry guiding principle of his life. collections would proletariat Dhasal’s mind was open to be displayed in bookshops at ideas and his politics was open airports. Some of his poetry has H ● to various forms of activism. indeed been translated into English He studied Existentialism (including those translated by his and Liberalism, followed friend, the late Dilip Chitre, in a NAMDEO DHASAL Che Guevera and even Indira book titled Namdeo Dhasal: Poet Gandhi. His association with of the Underworld, Poems 1972- (1 9 4 9 - 2 0 1 4) Shiv Sena has been condemned, 2006, published by Navayana in but few really understood why 2006) and other languages, but he did that. He insisted that that is hardly enough to push him KUMAR KETKAR the sons of the proletariat were across the linguistic barrier. attracted to the Shiv Sena. It was He was a rebel, a revolutionary, necessary to engage with them an anarchist, a maverick and and not despise them as the politically often unpredictable. of its Cultural Revolution, while the having made compromises with communists did. His approach He did not believe in the elitist Black Panthers movement and anti- the system — and were ageing. The was different: it neither endorsed notion of “art for art’s sake” and war demonstrations were sweeping youthful rebellion within the Dalit fascist chauvinism nor opposed often confronted cosy academics through America. The trigger for the community and the party created a progressive ideas. One can differ of literary studies. His searing American radical protest movement wave of sorts from which emerged with him, but he thought that poetry, essays, his speeches and was Martin Luther King’s “We Shall the radical leadership of Namdeo Balasaheb Thackeray represented newspaper columns railed against Overcome” 1968 march and the Dhasal. But the revolt was expressed the anguish and aspirations of the injustice, social discrimination, youth anger against the vicious war more through literature than politics. Marathi proletariat. He also said oppressive poverty, degradation in Vietnam which had spilled on to That itself was a rare phenomenon in in an unabashed manner, when of life and against patriarchal campuses and streets. Those were the the politics of Maharashtra. it had become politically and male chauvinism. He did so in a days without instant communication: Dhasal was born to a Dalit family intellectually unfashionable to do language that was explosive, if no cell phones, no Facebook, nor and was a Mahar by caste — the so, that Indira Gandhi’s actions abusive, but so expressive and Twitter, and yet the whole world same caste as that of Ambedkar. were pro-people, pro-poor. picturesque that it shattered the appeared enveloped in a hyper- Ambedkar had emerged as a saviour, It is not easy to separate complacence of a stable middle transformational mood. The radical as a torchbearer for revolution, Dhasal’s poetry from his politics, class. youth was against capitalism, neo- as an icon, as a messiah, who had to disentangle his philosophy When Namdeo Dhasal app- imperialism, consumerism, racism transformed not only the lives of the from his attitude – even his style eared on the literary scene of and particularly White supremacy. ‘Untouchables’ but the very political and content were at a perfect Maharashtra, this middle class Like the Black Panthers, the Dalit discourse. Dhasal was devoted to tangent. exercised absolute hegemony over Panthers too were angry, frustrated, Ambedkar and his philosophy, and yet I knew him when he was in language and style, metaphor and directionless young boys – and some he was open to all other philosophical his early 20s and continued to imagery. Sanskritised and decent, girls – taking on the mighty and political ideas. He could easily interact with him well into his the words would neither hurt nor establishment. The Dalit Panthers embrace Marxist ideas and did not 60s. I argued with him, fought harm the upper class-upper caste movement was a kind of cultural consider that Marxist philosophy with him, differed with him and sensibilities. Universities would revolution within the Republican- contradicted Ambedkarism. It yet, could never stop admiring hold seminars on the aesthetic use Ambedkarite movement. The senior is truly amazing that a boy born him for his verve, liveliness and of metaphors in poetry. Subtlety leaders of the Republican Party in a poor, oppressed community, intellectual creativity. of the subconscious and stream of of India had become complacent, which suffered all the disgusting n consciousness provided the style as well as substance. Namdeo Dhasal was not opposed to aesthetic expression and magnificent metaphors. He was not against elegance in style, nor did he shy away from exploring the deeper layers of mind. All his writing, though seething with anger, never once degenerates into mere abusive shouts and screams. Even those bursts of emotional upsurge acquire a sort of rhythmic and lyrical resonance. His poetry also delves into philosophy — sometimes existential, sometimes spiritual. But his spirituality is not of the ‘other world’ or transcendental universe. Rather, it is about making this very material world more meaningful, more compassionate, more profound through socially conscious selflessness. He was deeply attracted to Marxism and Maoism – not today’s Naxalism – because to him they provided meaning to his life. His untiring effort was to integrate Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar’s socio- philosophical thought with that of Karl Marx. He believed that the caste system could not be wiped out without some sort of cultural revolution. When he and his Dalit comrades launched the militant Dalit Panther movement in 1972, China was in the throes Namdeo Dhasal in his village Pur-Kanersar. Photograph by Henning Stegmüller/ Courtesy Navayana

B I B L I O : J A N U A R Y - F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 4

34