Getting away with murder

The massacre shamed Britain and helped India win independence.

It has been a century to the day since 1,650 bullets were fired non-stop on unarmed civilians at Jallianwala Bagh, a bloody result of the imperial fear of the natives. The questions of what led to the dreadful killings of hundreds of innocents and how the mass slaughter was dealt with afterwards have pushed researchers and historians to explore the colonial psyche and come up with fresh insights on understanding  the dynamics of colonial brutality.

Jallianwala Bagh by Kim Wagner
Penguin/Viking, New Delhi
Extent: 323, Price. Rs 599.

In his rigorously-researched Jallianwala Bagh, historian Kim Wagner, whose earlier work includes The Skull of Alam Begh, situates the massacre in the Empire’s mindset of retribution and the need to silence growing native discontent. The other book being reviewed here, Kishwar Desai’s Jallianwala Bagh, 1919: The Real Story wades through official and counter-narratives to provide a nuanced account of the shocking incident. Both books – among the first to be released in time for the centenary; other notable titles include a translation of Khooni Vaisakhi by Nanak Singh, Anita Anand’s The Patient Assassin and Rakshanda Jalil’s Jallianwala Bagh; Literary Responses in Prose and Poetry – help us gain a better understanding of this seminal moment in India’s history.

While Wagner maintains the historian’s carefully detached tone as he notes the unjustifiable use of brute power to stop purported sedition from spreading to the countryside, Desai provides a passionate reconstruction of the events leading to the dreadful day, including the deep-rooted racism of the rulers.

What is the value of revisiting something that happened 100 years ago other than to cause emotional discomfort leading to nationalistic posturing, the reader might ask. No amount of denouncing and condemnation of the personal idiosyncrasies of the stone-faced Brigadier General Reginald Dyer can erase this incident which continues to make little sense even in the context of the brutal violence of the imperialism prevalent today. The Lieutenant Governor of Punjab Sir Michael O’Dwyer was in favour of exemplary terror to silence discontent among the natives against the dysfunctional state and that Brigadier General Dyer deliberately picked Gurkha and Baluch soldiers to shoot into the crowd, thus demonstrating that the Empire would persist ruthlessly with its divide-and-rule policy to retain power and subjugate the colonised.

Jallianwala Bagh, 1919 by Kishwar Desai
Context/Westland, New Delhi
Extent: 257, Price. Rs 699.

It is difficult to be objective while drawing lessons from the incident. The Jallianwala Bagh massacre offers a two-way learning process, however, by promoting a profound understanding of both past and present through the interrelation between them. Following the archival grain, Wagner reconstructs events not simply as they happened, but as they were experienced by different people at that time. Jallianwala Bagh reveals how different experiences were treated differently and in the process, helps the reader to understand how violence worked, or was thought to work. In the end, it resulted in a mistrust of the colonial state.  

Desai imagines the cries of men, women and children who lay dying at the Bagh. “History belongs primarily to the victor, but only as long as we allow it,” she writes. She believes the massacre was not spontaneous as has often been made out. It was carefully planned. If this had not been the case, Miss Sherwood’s near-death experience at the hands of native rioters on April 10 would not have been brutally reprimanded, and Mrs Ratan Devi would not have had to spend the night of April 13 grieving over the dead body of her husband.

In the centenary year of the massacre, both books pay tribute to thousands of those who were humiliated, tortured and killed under the pretext of martial law. As the memories of the dastardly act are revoked, the call for a public apology by the British has resurfaced once more. Did the British do enough to detoxify the issue? Winston Churchill called it “an extraordinary event, a monstrous event, an event which stands in singular and sinister isolation”. David Cameron, who was the first British prime minister to visit the monument, denounced the massacre and called it a deeply shameful incident in British history, as Churchill did, while shying away from apologizing for the event. He said, instead, that the UK “stands up for the right to peaceful protest around the world”.

Addressing this lingering concern, Wagner wonders if an apology will do any good as both those who suffered, and those who perpetuated the crime are no longer alive. Such a take on the massacre may not appeal to everyone but it also goes without saying that the sacrifice of thousands at Jallianwala Bagh was not a waste. The massacre shamed Britain and helped India win independence.

But the ways of colonial justice were perverted indeed: while Udham Singh was hanged for his revenge killing of the former lieutenant governor of Punjab, Michael O’Dwyer, General Dyer, the chief perpetrator of the crime, was never convicted. He got away with genocide.

First published in The Hindustan Times, issue dated April 13, 2019.

Fear of an imaginary rebellion

It is still difficult to reconcile with the Jallianwala Bagh massacre, and the violence unleashed by British colonialism.

Even a century after the dreadful afternoon that silenced hundreds of unaccounted innocents it is hard to reconcile any justification for the barbaric massacre that remains a red blot in the British history. Monstrous no less, the ten minutes of terror unleashed on a hapless crowd gathered in Jallianwala Bagh on the fateful afternoon of April 13, 1919 only proved that violence was a key aspect of British colonialism. General Dyer had seemingly followed the principle of exemplary violence that had justified mass slaughter of sepoys by Cooper during the 1857 mutiny, and summary execution of namdharis by Cowan in 1872. In each of these instances, fear of an imaginary rebellion had provoked violent action. In justifying his own action, Dyer had disingenuously acknowledged that ‘we cannot be brave unless we be possessed of a greater fear’.

In his painstaking reconstruction of the circumstances that led to the dastardly act, historian Kim Wagner wonders if that seminal moment in the history of India and the British Empire has been rightfully understood. In making sense of the form and function of colonial violence, he concludes that spectacular display of brute force was the most effective means of preserving control over the natives, as was evident in brutal reprisals by the British in Kenya, Egypt, and Ireland during its colonial rule. Although events of colonial violence were conveniently attributed to some rogue individuals, as Winston Churchill’s disavowal of Dyer’s action indicated, it only helped ignore the very structure of imperialism that harbored violence in its design. Else, physical and symbolic humiliation, including crawling orders and public flogging, would not have continued following the Jallianwala Bagh massacre. That it did, indicate that the massacre was pre-emptive and retribution well considered.

Jallianwala Bagh is a powerful reassessment of the causes and course of the massacre, pieced together by mining facts from a variety of written sources. Like his previous works on the British imperial history which include books on Thugee and The Skull of Alum Bheg, Wagner provides an unbiased account of colonial panic and subsequent brutality. It was the growing unrest throughout the British Empire in 1919 that had made decolonization a real possibility across the colonized entities in Asia and Africa. Despite its barbaric nature, the dreadful incident at Jallianwala Bagh could well be described as the last gasp of an imperialist ideology mired in racial discrimination.

Did the British ever felt remorseful for the tragedy that befell thousands of unarmed civilians?  Despite termination of his military services, for the British public Brigadier-General Dyer was a ‘hero’ who, most believed, was the man ‘who saved India’. Through an appeal in The Morning Post newspaper, as much as £ 26,000 were raised which meant that Dyer could retire in comfort and without any financial concerns. What’s more, Dyer received a full military funeral upon his death in 1927. In his tribute, Rudyard Kipling had remarked ‘He did his duty as he saw it.’ Aren’t public sentiments reasons for the British to avoid tendering an apology for the heinous crime?

Wagner doesn’t shy away from addressing this lingering concern. Far from being apologetic, asserts Wagner, Churchill’s description of it as the ‘unprecedented monstrous episode’ was an act of deflection that only asserted the moral legitimacy of the British Empire. During his visit to the Jallianwala Bagh in 2013, British Prime Minister David Cameron had persisted in denouncing the massacre but not without reclaiming the moral narrative ‘that the United Kingdom stands up for the right to peaceful protest around the world’. What will the British apology seek to serve now that both those who suffered, and those who perpetuated the crime are no more?

Will an apology heal the wounds, and should we even attempt to heal the wounds? Even if the British apologize, it would only be for one man’s actions, as isolated and unprecedented, and not for the colonial rule, that in Gandhi’s words, produced Dyer. While an apology in the centenary year will assuage pent-up emotions, it is important that the seminal event in India’s colonial history helps in reiterating the need for individual right to freedom of expression. Jallianwala Bagh is an important book on the colonial era, as much relevance for our post-colonial world.

Jallianwala Bagh
by Kim A. Wagner
Penguin/Viking, New Delhi
Extent: 323, Price: Rs 599 .

First published in The Hindu Magazine, issue dated April 7, 2019. 

Capturing water through its flowing history

Without counting cultural values and notions of justice, any attempt at re-engineering water management is bound to escalate fears about nature and climate.  

Current clamor on water scarcity is pitched around what  nature supplies through rains and what gets delivered through pipes, backed by the assumption that effective demand-side management will help counter supply-side conundrum. Far from it, a water crisis has become severe even when large parts of the country have seemingly escaped what is traditionally termed as ‘monsoon economy’. Between the extremes of a dreary winter and a blistering summer, water crises manifests itself in dried and polluted rivers; as cumulative water shortage in major reservoirs; and in unending queues of desperate people awaiting erratic supplies. This all points out towards an emerging social disruption, if it isn’t there already!

For getting a better sense of the emerging water crises in an age of climate change, Sunil Amrith, Professor of South Asian Studies at the Harvard University, suggests a nuanced understanding on how history shaped water management and use; what compelled the society to respond to new economic opportunities; and how mastering the unevenness of water and its extreme seasonality by the British shaped an economy that improved revenue flow into the treasury?  With maximizing revenue being the be-all and end-all of the British rule, every investment in infrastructure had led to expanding trade for Indian products in the markets of London, Liverpool, Hamburg, and New York. Investment in irrigation works bolstered local resilience to drought, signaling benevolence of the rulers, while ensuring that the state’s coffers remained full. The political connotation of investment in irrigation projects has persisted since then.   

In his reading of the history, Amrith finds a serious lack of realization of nature’s water endowment in expanding irrigation – exploiting economic gains from water remained bereft of social and ecological concerns. And this had continued well into the twentieth century as quick economic turnaround had propelled a large swathe of large landowners to switch to water-guzzling cash crops like cotton and sugarcane. It has only eroded deep social and historical patterns that had treated ‘the monsoon as a way of life’ in promoting crop diversity, and a culture of resilience. With farm crises at its peak, the state is now trying to restore historical sanity by promoting diversified crops a’la more crops per drop.     

Amrith mines British and Indian archives to produce a lively history that unfolds the development of modern meteorology in erasing water inequalities. That water has been a source of both social and economic power was known to the powers-that-be, it was in the disguise of democratization of irrigation expansion that the state sought to usurp power. No wonder, control over water became an engine of inequality between people, between classes and castes, between city and regions. Regional disparities have become ever more pronounced. Little has been learnt that 4 per cent of the available world’s fresh water will always be in short supply to serve 14 per cent of world’s population with competing, and increasing demands. 

Unruly Waters provides in interesting peep into the history of water development that continues to shape and reshape politics in the countries of South Asia. It captures the fears and dreams of rulers and governments in the region in laying control over its shared natural endowment through dams and rivers diversions, which has led to unleashing political tensions between neighbors. It is bound to escalate, as both China and India race to construct hundreds of dams to secure both power and water in carving an elusive water future in the age of climate change. Amrith reminds the present-day governments of both countries about what its founders had painfully remarked: “Jawaharlal Nehru had lamented the ‘disease of gigantism’ in promoting large dams whereas his compatriot Zhou En-lai had acknowledged the mistake of accumulating water by cutting forests”. It is an irony that political expediency has allowed cumulative wisdom of the past to erode. 

As the risks of climate change become increasingly evident in the region, there are essential lessons to be learnt from the shared history of miscued water development in South Asia. That many measures to secure the region against monsoon vagaries have destabilized the monsoon itself through unintended consequences leave much to be desired for sane actions in securing a safe water future. Need it be said that the idea that modern technology will fix matters is passé.   

Unruly Waters is the most comprehensive historical treatise on rains, rivers, coasts and seas, as also on weathermen, engineers, and politicians who sought to tame nature. Amrith covers a vast historical landscape on water but leaves the reader to draw his/her own conclusions. It should be essential reading for researchers and planners as it has between-the-lines lessons and messages to be captured to getting a better sense of the unruly waters. In suggesting that the task to understand the monsoons and the rivers that shape the region is far from complete, the author is emphatic in his suggestion that water management can neither be purely technical nor can it be addressed on a purely national scale. Without counting cultural values and notions of justice, any attempt at re-engineering water management is bound to escalate fears about nature and climate.  

Amrith calls for a new political imagination to view water beyond local histories and national boundaries. ‘Water, which connects Asia, cannot be allowed to divide the region’. There cannot be more compelling reason for countries in the region to cooperate in managing and sharing water then the fact that the countries in South Asia are the world most vulnerable to climate change. Unruly Waters presents all the essential elements to get back on the drawing board to plan a secure water future for the entire region amidst the most challenging times. 

Unruly Waters
by Sunil Amrith
Allen Lane, UK
Extent: 397, Price: Rs 799.

First published in the Hindu BusinessLine, issue dated April 1, 2019.

The Right Words for the Right Tunes

Lyrics are to music what heart is to body, thereby creating a pulsating culture of distinct narrative that has survived since the advent of sound in cinema. 

Over decades, songs have acquired a musical grammar of its own in building an emotional chord with its listeners, both on and off the screen. From populist numbers to flashy entertainers, songs have outlived films in people’s memory. Each song holds a distinct complexion and aura in taking the cinematic narrative forward, which gave lyricists an opportunity to weave magic with words to articulate emotions in simple, accessible verses. Yet, their immense contribution to Hindi cinema has not got its due, lost to overt recognition of music composers and singers.  

Main Shayar Toh Nahin is a comprehensive attempt at restoring that disparity by revisiting the lives and works of those whose lyrics reigned supreme in conveying emotions of all hues, and thereby became part of the cultural fabric of the society. From the art and craft of song writing to structuring poetry into the film narrative, and from capturing depth and range of human emotions to pacing simple verses as musical interludes, the book delves into all that went into loading simple words on complex situations for creating a lasting impact. Such has been the contributions of leading lyricists, from Pradeep to Kaifi and from Majrooh to Gulzar, that film songs attained personal and social relevance beyond just pleasing the ear. 

Without Sahir’s heart-rending Babul ki duaen leti jaa marriage ceremonies are rarely considered complete; Anand Bakshi’s reflections in Kuch to log kahenge help listeners overcome life’s tribulations; and Shailendra’s classic Sajan re jhoot mat bolo holds moral lessons. By playing with power of words lyricists could evoke multiple emotions to suit myriad situations on screen, converting life’s experiences into simple but relatable verses. Words are intelligently packed to lend meanings through music to create uplifting, inspirational, and soothing effects.  

Filled with trivia and unheard anecdotes, Rajiv Vijayakar has pieced together a fascinating history of lyricists that reads like a who’s who of all those who have carried the rich tradition of weaving words into music to assert that ours is a land of lyrical expression of thoughts and emotions. Lyricists, unlike poets, face the challenge of reading the situation, the emotion, and the character on the screen in selecting verses that not only conform to the musical tune but appeal to the masses too. ‘The power play of words saw entire philosophies written using fluid, everyday language’, says the author. Indeevar’s Kasme vaade pyaar wafa and Gulzar’s Aane wala pal jaane wala hai continue to resonate till this day. What must not be lost to oversight is that while creating a rich and variegated collection of happy, sad, and romantic songs these lyricists had to strike a perfect balance between their creative instincts and the demanding ecosystem?  

As the book traverses the musical journey of lyricists, it also seeks to explore why words and melody have a fleeting presence today. With commerce taking precedence over creativity, grammar, aesthetics, and the finesse of language has taken a beating. How else would any lyricist use the word haalaatein when haalat (circumstances) itself is a plural term! Curiously, the consequent sense of loss that music lovers feel is falling on deaf ears. Known for his impeccable reputation as a lyricist, late Raja Mehdi Ali Khan had long opined that lack of language proficiency and reading habit had brought the inevitable decline in the quality of lyrics. Rightly so, as a majority of today’s lyrics are mere assemblages of words, bereft of thoughts.

Far from being judgmental, entertainment journalist Rajiv Vijayakar draws the contours of change sweeping the world of film music, and the challenges that lie ahead. It is evident that in the predominant market culture, songs have become products with a short shelf life. ‘Songs are dying faster today because the importance of words has decreased’. Much of the onus rests on how the music industry recognizes and responds to the importance of words, and gives lyricists their due in reviving the culture of songs. For the music loving populace, however, songs promise more than mere entertainment as these push thoughts, impart lessons, discuss morality, and provide a psycho-therapeutic balm.  

Main Shayar Toh Nahin is all that an avid music lover ever wanted to know about what went into creating a memorable song. It is a tribute to the genius of past lyricists, who made the audiences connect and identify with the words at the personal level. Such has been the impact and power of lyrics that a vast majority can effortlessly recall several such songs. Will the present-day lyricists uphold that rich tradition! 

Main Shayar Toh Nahin
by Rajiv Vijayakar
HarperCollins, New Delhi
Extent: 347, Price: Rs 499.

First published in the Hindustan Times, issue dated March 30, 2019.

To sin is human, afterall!

To sin is essentially a mind game, and only mindful action can dissuade humans from committing a sin.

The quest for grabbing anything forbidden has been a crucial aspect of human existence; else the apple in the Garden of Eden would have left hanging. The act to sin has stayed on with us ever since. Be it the Christianity’s seven sins or the Hinduism’s five, all efforts to stay away from sins have only brought us closer to committing a sin. Despite a consistent religious and moral battle to stay away from them, there are some unseen forces that tempt us to take a call on them. In a closed society where everybody is guilty of some sin, the only crime seems to be getting caught. Come to think of it, in a world of thieves ‘stupidity’ of getting caught may indeed be on top of all sins! 

It goes to the credit of Saint Gregory who, in the 6th century, enlisted seven deadly sins as pride, gluttony, lust, sloth, greed, envy and wrath, which seem an expanded version of the five Vedic sins – Kama (desire) , Krodh (anger), Moh (lust) , Lobh (greed) and Anhkaar (pride). Irrespective of its religious connotations, these traits have been acknowledged detriments to mental peace, individual prestige and social reputation. Yet, as experience shows, the impulse to indulge in sinful behaviour is so strong that people easily succumb to the forbidden temptations - the mythical apple continues to hang low.    

For aeon ‘why we do the things we know we shouldn’t’ has been a subject of intense religious and philosophical inquiry, however, without any end to the battle between temptation and restraint. Labeling certain human traits as bad behaviour has hardly been a deterrent. Is it because people do not ascribe the same negative value that has been historically assigned to the sin under reference? If that be so, is it the reason for sinful traits to persist or is there more to understanding nature and proliferation of sins than what has been understood till now? 

Jack Lewis, a neuroscientist and a television presenter, gets deeper into examining the origin and societal relevance of sins as viewed through different religious lenses. In last 10 years since attaining a doctorate in neuroscience from University College London, Lewis has focused his attention on making the latest neuroscience research the widest possible audience through print, radio and television. His radio show Secrets of the Brain is currently being aired in 20 countries, and his co-authored book Sort Your Brain Out has gained popularity. In all of his works, Lewis comes out clear that in varying degrees sins are considered major obstacles to peace and enlightenment. Curiously, however, the world has done pretty little to limit the temptations that surround us. Instead, social media, live streaming, and online shopping has spurred greed, gluttony, lust and envy, while reinventing narcissism as the leading new normal behaviour. 

When the term narcissism was coined by Sigmund Freud some 100 years ago, it was with reference to loving or caressing one’s own body to appease one’s romantic partner. Today, it means an obsession with the self that is as much a cause for social pain of rejection as a physical pain of isolation, resulting from an over-inflated sense of self-importance. 

The Science of Sins peeps into the world of seven deadly sins in their many dimensions, both historical and contemporary; to understand the neural battles between temptation and restraint that takes place within our brains. Using the enormous amount of scientific data on the human brain that has accumulated over the years, the book explains how the neural circuitry of the brain is involved not only in tempting us to be sinful, but also how tweaking parts of our brain could help dissuade us from committing a sin. Although medical terminology thrown across makes it a heavy reading narrative, anecdotal reference to real-life stories sustain readers’ interest.

While Lewis uses intriguing scientific facts to explain why committing sin is impulsive, he leaves the reader in the lurch when it comes to getting over it. Acknowledging that there are no magical cures, he nonetheless advocates ways to train brain to resist temptations. Magnetic stimulation and medical interventions can curb pathological behaviour in extreme cases, mindfulness meditation has been found to be an effective way of remodeling various parts of the brain as a steady process. In the world where each of the seven deadly sins has been systematically taken advantage of by the nefarious forces of global commerce, the quest for remaining healthy, happy and productive warrants a serious application of mind.

The essential take away from this well-researched book is that sin is a mind game, and only mindful action can dissuade humans from committing a sin. Assessing each of the seven sins - pride, gluttony, lust, sloth, greed, envy, and wrath - from philosophical and neuroscience perspectives, Lewis lets the reader get a clear sense that only by eliminating inner turmoil and personal suffering can an external sinful stimulus be checked. The Science of Sin falls short of a self-help book as it leaves much for the reader to decide upon. It is nonetheless a book that offers deeper insights on various shades of sins, and how people grapple to reduce their individual vulnerabilities to cope with it. The book concludes that it is not hard to do things we know we shouldn’t, provided we remind ourselves on it frequently.  

The Science of Sin 
by Jack Lewis
Bloomsbury, New Delhi
Extent: 304, Price: Rs 499.

This review was commissioned by the Hindu BusinessLine.

The rise and fall of a hero

....who crushed the skulls of all who opposed him in a bloodsplosion of gruesome vengeance!

In her authoritative study of selected monuments in Modern Delhi (Building Histories, University of Chicago Press, 2016) historian Mrinalini Rajgopalan drew a special reference to the statue of Brigadier General John Nicholson– the British officer who had turned the tide of the Rebellion of 1857 in favour of British troops – which was sought to be removed as early as in 1949. Although the statue of Nicholson wielding a sword was eventually relocated to his Irish hometown of Ulster in 1957, the Ministry of Home Affairs had turned down the earlier plea on the grounds that there wasn’t any noticeable public concern about the monument, and that it only acted as a reminder of our weakness as a historical lesson. 

Post-independent India did show remarkable restraint in its attitude to the British era but by the time the tenth anniversary of Independence approached – 1957 was also the centenary of the Indian Uprising – the mood had changed, and a statue of a British soldier with unsheathed sword seemed highly vulnerable to nationalistic fervour. The three-and-a-half tonne statue was finally removed and ferried to Belfast before the anniversary, and with it went that part of history which had compared a young army officer to the likes of Napoleon by his contemporaries. Called ‘The Lion of the Punjab’, Nicholson continued to remain popular in Britain through much of the 1950s and 1960s for his decisive role in breaching the mutineers’ defence of the walled city of Delhi, but has lost much of it in recent times with modern British historians dubbing him as “an imperial psychopath” and “a homosexual bully”. By late 1960s his name had become a byword for brutality and racism, and his portrait, once proudly displayed in the exhibition of Great Irish Men and Women at the Ulster Museum in Belfast was removed. One website badassoftheweek.com describes him as “one who crushed the skulls of all who opposed him in a bloodsplosion of gruesome vengeance”, and that he is “in equal parts respected and despised by roughly everyone on the Indian subcontinent”. What made an erstwhile hero, considered ‘The Hero of Delhi’ by BBC Radio in 1950 lose his credibility in his home country? Is it because British peoples’ attitudes to race and Empire have changed in the years since his death? Or, is there more to this complex character that has yet not been fully unearthed in earlier accounts of his life?  

Journalist and radio broadcaster Stuart Flinders has pieced together a new perspective on Nicholson’s personality in his biography Cult of a Dark Hero based on previously unpublished material, letters and diaries. India was an appealing career move for a majority of youth in Ireland that made Nicholson, one of the seven siblings, use his uncle’s influence to join 37,000 European soldiers at that time in British India. After completing his basic training upon arrival in Calcutta in 1839, Nicholson was given permanent position with the 27th Native Infantry (NI) at Ferozpore. From there on Nicholson was quick to adapt to local conditions, and proved his mettle in first fighting the Afghans, and then the Sikhs.

Fighting the Ghilzais (tribe) in Ghazni was both torturous and tumultuous. His mother’s parting words ‘never forget to read your Bible’ were of little solace as blood thirsty tribesmen lurked around. In one of his diary entries, Nicholson had noted his anguish: “I return home to breakfast disgusted with myself, the world, and above all, with my cruel profession. In fact we are nothing but licensed assassins”. Nicholson may have sounded apologetic in his note but his hatred for the natives was only to be cemented upon discovering his brother Alexander’s mutilated body as he was passing through the Khyber Pass. Alexander had also come to India as a cadet. 

Cult of a Dark Hero provides a detailed account of the life of a controversial soldier whose extraordinary efforts on inventing the Movable Column of troops helped to nip revolt in the bud, and ensured that Punjab remained under British control. The more power he gained, the more control he exercised in dispensing justice. Flinders provides evidences of Nicholson’s method of asserting the rule of law, which not only won him local support but anointed him as a cult figure, somewhat of a deity. Stories of him bringing peace, justice and, where necessary, retribution merged with ancient tales from Islam, and he became a mystical figure, part folk hero, part Muslim legend. The cult of Nikal Seyn had a dedicated following spread across religious beliefs but the cult was finally taken up by Shia Muslims in remote parts of Punjab. The cult survived on stories that valorised him as a super hero. One story had Nikal Seyn cutting off a man’s head, realising his mistake and putting it back again, following which “the man made a bow and walked home highly satisfied and honoured”. However, such stories were not to last long with the change of times and traditional practices. 

Nicholson career of less than two-decades culminated with his last military encounter in securing walled city of Delhi that not only made him one of the great heroes of Victorian Britain but cost him his life too. Cult of a Dark Hero provides graphic details of the assault on Delhi, which proved beyond doubt that Nicholson knew no fear, and preferred to act rather than to take advice or seek permission. After the guns had blasted holes in the city wall, Nicholson commanded his troops to enter the city amidst terrible shower of fire at Kabul Gate of the city, and with rebels occupying the adjoining houses. Nicholson received a bullet under the right arm on September 16, 1857, and succumbed to it six days later on September 23. “His was a life of adventure lived on the very edge of the British Empire, as courageous as he was ruthless, as loyal to his friends as he was merciless to those who crossed him”.

In his foreword to the book, Sir Mark Tully wonders if much of the opprobrium heaped on Nicholson takes full account of the times in which he lived. That he was brutal there is no doubt, but he was a dedicated soldier with a clear sense of duty. 

Tully was taught by his mother to hold Nicholson in high esteem, as his great-great-grandfather Richard Nicholson was John Nicholson’s uncle. He finds that Stuart Flinders’ research on the controversial life of an archetypal imperial hero has pursued a balanced middle course. Flinders does not paint John Nicholson either black or white, but leaves the verdict open. Not as a justification but as an explanation to how Nicholson got dubbed for his outrageous attitude, historian William Dalrymple has written that “the atrocities committed by the native sepoys against the British women and children had absolved the British of any need to treat the rebels as human beings”. Early in his career Nicholson had admitted that “he disliked India and its inhabitants”, which perhaps led to his ultimate branding as an imperial psychopath, but by no means was he the only British officer to have been engaged in wanton cruelty.      

Cult of a Dark Hero is as much an engaging account of the British exploits in laying control over vast expanses of undivided India as about the man who seemed undeterred by fear of any kind. Flinders stays objective in his readings of personal letters and diary entries in assessing the conditions that made a young man go beyond his sense of duty in making a living. His uncanny power of penetrating the disguise, helped by his habit of maintaining an extensive intelligence network, made him a military strategist of unmatched qualities. That he stayed ahead in taking decisions at the time of crises made many of his seniors uncomfortable. However, his temperament was ideally suited to the times in which he lived.

In his perceptive assessment, Flinders argues that there was a deep sense of racial supremacy exhibited by Nicholson in his actions, which is rightfully abhorred in recent times. The reputation of Gordon of Khartoum, the British officer who suppressed the Muslim revolt in Sudan in 1880, followed a similar trajectory for the same reason. Although it may remain difficult to justify his brutality in the service of the Empire, it is equally hard to draw conclusions on why he lost out on his cult status in recent times. Nonetheless, Flinders concludes that Nicholson was driven by personal ambition and a sense of duty to his country rather than by any notions of improving the lives of those amongst whom he worked. His presence during the Uprising was reassuring to Europeans, but it did alter the course of history for those who were subjugated by the imperial forces. For those interested in the history of freedom movement, Cult of a Dark Hero provides insights on how the Indian Uprising of 1857, often referred to as the First War of Independence, was eventually lost, but which had sown the seeds of a long-drawn battle to win freedom 90 years later.      

Cult of a Dark Hero: Nicholson of Delhi

by Stuart Flinders

I B Tauris, London, 

Expanse: 231 pp, Price: £ 25 

First published in Biblio, issue dated Jan-March 2019.

The enigmatic cultural icon

Can a river which has watered and nurtured an entire civilization from time immemorial be left contaminated, carrying an unbearable burden of silt and detritus?

Ganga strangely represents the physical manifestation of an accepted mythological duality – to be divine and vulnerable at any given time. Revered as a goddess, the river is endowed with two contrasting characters: one as an eternal deity of the flowing waters, the other as a carrier of the accumulated human misdeeds. This beguiling duality has allowed the river to be worshiped and neglected at the same time, regardless of its worth as a finite and tangible resource. Flowing through the heart of an ancient civilization, the unholy alliance between purity and pollution has kept this enigmatic cultural icon on the very edge of survival. It continues to survive nonetheless!  

In an insightful account of the myth, religion, history and development of the sacred river, the University of California historian Sudipta Sen delves into the duality manifest in the approaches adopted to ease the Ganga of the vexing problems afflicting its purity and flow. While attempts to clean the river of its pollution load have been victims of their own top-down ambitious scope, the mythological history of the river makes it difficult for multitudes of Indians to accept that the river may be in imminent danger. Despite the evidence of an unprecedented ecological decline, the unstinted faith in the divine powers of the river makes it easy for a vast majority to espouse confidence that the Ganga will never go dry like the great Yellow river of China. 

But can the river’s miraculous powers heal its own scars? Sen let’s mythology speak for itself to serve a possible clue. During her descent to the world, an anxious Ganga had asked King Bhagiratha: where shall she cleanse herself after people wash off all their sins in her waters? In his unexpected reply, the King had expressed confidence in the moral obligation of all upright mortals to carry out the unenviable task of expiating the sins of the world. Such is the power of mythology that it continues to inspire faith that the collective power of the sinners will rise one day to restore the river into its pristine state. Will it?

Within the study of the significant historical moments that shaped the river, the book offers two parallel but inter-related threads that connect the mythical and historic with the climate and ecology in getting a sense of the cumulative consequences of human activity from the past to the present. Far from learning any lessons from its rich history, argues the author, the uneven contours of the past are very much at work today. The purest of all rivers continues to remain the most polluted. And, there is no getting away from the fact that the great cultural icon is in trouble, suffocated by dams, encroached by overcrowding, and desecrated by discharge.  

Ganga is for anyone interested in how a river shapes human culture and its history, stimulating multilayered interpretations on its metaphysical threshold. It is an ambitious undertaking that blends geography, ecology, mythology and religion in presenting an intimate biography of the most sacred and beloved river. It is as much a celebration of its glorious past as a mourning of its pathetic present. It is scholarly treatise which, by author’s own admission, took twelve years in the making, and is an essential reading for those interested in understanding a river from its diverse social, cultural and spiritual perspectives.  

The book offers no quick fixes on redeeming the river from the civilizational onslaught. It instead asks why the Ganga, held in such reverence across a multitude of religious traditions, remains hostage to the promise of development and risks of degradation? It provokes the discerning reader to grapple with the river’s rich past and its most uncertain future. At this time when the cleansing and the purification of the Ganga has been an urgent and much-vaunted national priority, the book offers a nuanced understanding on the river from a cultural and civilizational perspective. 

A river which has watered and nurtured an entire civilization from time immemorial cannot be left contaminated, carrying an unbearable burden of silt and detritus. Sen argues that it is time we identify what stands in the way of tangible progress toward a cleaner and healthier river. The time to act has never been as urgent!      

Ganga: The Many Pasts of A River
by Sudipta Sen
Penguin, New Delhi
Extent: 445, Price: Rs 799.

First published in Civil Society magazine, issue dated March 2019.

Life hacks in vale of tears

As tech takes over, deepening misery, battering the human spirit, subduing truth, Harari advocates a meditative resilience, a constant debate

The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt. And, it is becoming increasingly so as machine intelligence powers its way beyond intelligent minds and algorithms begin to guide human emotions. Far from maximizing human potential, such technological transformation is upgrading computers to the extent that it will empower a handful of tiny elite at the cost of most others who not only stand to get exploited but are being made irrelevant in the process too. The cumulative impact of emerging info-tech revolution is fueling global inequality like never before, while contributing to increasing social tensions which are dividing humankind into hostile camps. 

Unless the situation is peeled to its last layer, it may not be clear where the world is headed and how indeed should we protect ourselves and the generations to follow. From ecological cataclysm to fake news epidemic and from chauvinistic nationalism to underrated bio-terrorism, the world is fast becoming a theatre of the absurd where the bull of progress is raging wild with anxiety and anger. Spare a moment and one will find that in the emerging social milieu the internal lives of individuals are being compromised. Little do we realize that an unprecedented pressure on our personal lives had ignited the Arab Spring, and has now sparked #Me Too movement? Clearly, there is more to come as our internal psychological mechanism remains under duress.  

In his clear-eyed and searingly realistic assessment, Yuval Noah Harari draws lessons that celebrate human wisdom but without discounting human stupidity. Enlisting 21 carefully distilled lessons into 5 over-arching themes, the Oxford scholar traverses the world of despair emerging from unresolved technological and political challenges to underscore the significance of meditative resilience in a world of post-truth ignorance. It is a curious and reflective analysis of the existential challenges here and now, lessons that are borne out of our complicity in political biases, unabashed privileges and institutional oppression.  

Harari keeps it plain and simple, locating lessons in our everyday acceptance of the so-called inevitable. Many of the social and political disruptions of our time can be located in ever more lonely lives we live in an ever more connected planet. Irrespective of how many virtual friends one may boast, it is an accepted fact that one cannot know more than 150 individuals. The facade of generating likes on the social media is not without serious psychological repercussions. Humans may have got everything under their control in their journey till now, but in the new age they are finding it hard to make sense of all that the technology has on offer. 

As the title suggests, 21 Lessons for the 21st Century is a collection of essays written over time to grapple the present day predicament of existence. Much of what he writes emerges in response to the nagging question ‘why there is so much suffering in the world and in my own life?’ Harari contends that we are living in an age of bewilderment, when myths of all kind are collapsing – from religious myths about god and heavens to nationalist myths about the motherland and the nation-state, and from romantic myths about love and adventure to capitalist myths about economic growth and consumerism. Yet, the society continues to nurture myths.

Truth is a casualty in the process.  The truth is that truth was never high on the agenda of Homo sapiens; instead they have been busy constructing stories. Be it religion or politics, the focus is to fit ourselves into some ready-made story such that we stay away from truth. This is how life has continued from generation to generation, making each animal play its part in the story. But without getting to know ourselves more, we will continue to believe stories. So if you want to know the truth about the universe, about the meaning of life, and about your own identity, explains Harari, the best place to start is by observing suffering and exploring what it is. 

While one might not concur with all the lessons on offer, the infectious enthusiasm with which Harari writes makes it virtually impossible not to be carried away. The author of the global bestseller Sapiens has rooted his essays in everyday realities; the book however remains ambitious in scale. The essential take home message is to join the debate about the future of humanity. History is unlikely to give us any discounts or exempt us from the consequences if we continue to pursue our busy schedules. More people join the debate the better it is. The globalized world is in dire need of the empathetic imagination. 

In spite of its unwieldy capaciousness, Harari espouses a fundamental truth about our scarred times: that nothing can insulate us from the vagaries of a violent and vengeful world.

21 Lessons for the 21st Century 
by Yuval Noah Harari
Jonathan Cape, London
Extent: 352, Price: Rs 799

First published in Outlook magazine, issue for the week ending Feb 25, 2019.

Time's Bitterest Jokes

Only by recreating a sub-continental imagination based on diverse cultures and interlinked histories can a plural world with open setting be created that we can call a home! 

For the Greeks nostalgia meant a mix of sweet and bitter pang that humans often suffer in search of their roots, and their belongingness. From what was once considered a return of pain or some sort of sickness, relived nostalgic moments are now said to improve mood, increase self-esteem, strengthen social bonds and imbue life with meaning. It does so for Ziauddin Sardar, as moments of reckoning through sights, scents, and sounds of the lived past reveal his true self as a desi, an identity that sans ethnic lineage and national boundaries. Why should my identity be limited to a mere seventy years and a vaguely samosa shaped area on the world map? As a compassionate critical thinker and an accomplished author, Sardar traces his identity in the macrocosm of culture and civilization that is beyond the body politic of the nation-state called Pakistan. 

Ways of Being Desi pieces together those aspects of history and culture that have either faded from peoples’ imagination or lie marginalized in the percepts of territorial identity. It has cast an unmistakable imprint on people’s mind, shattering their self-esteem to the point that they don’t find anything true and authentic within their own country. Nothing could be worse for a heterogeneous population than a lack of belief in self and the country, the psychological underpinnings of which reduce the sense of belonging to a caricatured symbolism of political identity. It is the diasporic sense of separation and loss that is beautifully reflected in the rich anecdotal narrative that has curious elements of sub-continental imagination. 

Only by building courage to remove the mask of modernity could the author hear the call of sanity and sweetness of everydayness that he had long lived, and cherished. Sardar unapologetically returns to his desi-ness, and rediscovers the emotional power of relationships; captures the sense of aesthetics in language; and locates himself within the civilizational space called watan. The detective novels of Ibn-e-Safi, the cinema of Dilip Kumar and Guru Dutt, the poetic genius of Ghalib and Faiz, and the crossover Pakistani television dramas help him comprehend the missing sub-continental imagination, the absence of which has only given people of the partitioned land a sense of political identity that has distanced itself from the history and culture of its ancestral lineage. 

Within the political realities which persist only for maintaining status quo the idea of coming together of diverse traditions separated at the cruel hands of history may sound romantic; however, there is merit in it as it can counter the collective insanity and despair that fuels a sense of inferiority. Such remote possibility is pregnant with the idea of building creative alliances between shared culture and affinities to act against the helplessness and impotence generated by modernity. One begins to feel author’s pain and at the same time aligns with his optimism that only by recreating a sub-continental imagination based on diverse cultures and interlinked histories can a plural world with open setting be created that we can call a home! 

Sardar traverses a significant part of his nostalgic journey through films, as he finds in them reflections of contradictions and opportunities, as well as poetic aesthetics and cultural values. In addition to acting as a universal symbol of sub-continental identity, films like Mughal-e-Azam, Ganga Jamuna, Devdas, and Pyassa not only set the literary agenda but acted as a lifeline for cultural survival. Despite their many-layered complexities, films have been an invitation to a meditation on love and beauty, art and life. While the Indian cinema of the fifties, sixties and early seventies engaged with audience purely on the basis of shared cultural assumptions, the television dramas of Pakistan during the eighties and nineties explored the role of tradition in shaping a contemporary identity. Both found resonance across political boundaries, a testimony to the acknowledgement and appreciation of shared cultural chord. Could film and television media of the kind be the reflecting mirror of shortcomings, and a messenger of promises?   

At the core of Ways of Being Desi are reflections on socio-political realities of a country that has belittled the identity of its own people. Packed with sardonic wit and uninhibited sarcasm, the author provides an honest exploration into the shaping of the nation-state, that is perpetually in paralysis. Not only the land area but the mental spaces of people have been partitioned, distancing them from the aesthetic and sensibility of their sub-continental belonging. The country needs to recover its tradition of pluralism and humanism before its segregated populace plunges it deeper into the abyss of bigotry, violence and mob rule, cautions Sardar. The author invokes desi-ness as a living, dynamic reality that has the potential to reclaim the past to reunite it to its futures. 

Ways of being Desi 
by Ziauddin Sardar
Penguin Allen Lane, New Delhi
Extent: 299, Price: Rs. 599.

First published in Outlook magazine, issue covering the week until Jan 21, 2019.

Wisdom of the past holds good

Being able and willing to live inexpensively may be a virtue that the majority of people across the globe will have to practice out of necessity.

Frugality has been abandoned, and with it, the wise words of the sages, from Buddha to Socrates and from Thoreau to Gandhi. The idea of simple living is now deemed insufficient, unexciting, and even uninteresting by a significant portion of the global population. As the lure of purchasable pleasure entices people into relentless earning and spending, a culture of unceasing consumerism has pulled those with resources away from frugal simplicity. Emrys Westacott, a professor of philosophy at New York’s Alfred University, tries to explain why frugality has not become a global norm --despite so many wise people having championed it over the years.

Westacott, a philosopher, sees a deep contradiction in the idea of individuals pursuing happiness within a competitive consumptive society. Competitiveness can only fuel jealousies. Any attempt to distinguishing oneself by acquiring products as badges of social position only creates a false and temporary sense of happiness. In extreme cases the propensity to acquire and hoard can turn pathological, dominating a person’s life until they require treatment for a psychological disorder. Epicurus and Plato were convinced that securing material wealth was unlikely to bring happiness and that living simply was the key to moral purity.

It appears that the idea of frugality has fewer and fewer takers because the concept of simple living has turned out to be quite complex. Pursuing frugality in the current world restricts the pursuit of excitement and adventure in a world loaded with such opportunities. Further, we are living in the times when the economic imperative to growth has meant that a minimum level of economic activity must continue to keep several fellow beings busy so they can make sense of their gainful existence. Despite most of us, at one time or another, feeling some sort of moral pressure to embrace frugality, the world is stacked against us. The Wisdom of Frugality isn’t a polemic urging people to change their lives by embracing simplicity, but rather a broader investigation of both frugal and luxurious living. We are each left to draw our own conclusions, regardless of how confusing our choices may be.

Many people jump on and off three treadmills: the hedonic treadmill for pursuing happiness, the status treadmill for satisfying consumption, and the working treadmill for generating income. All this on and off come at an enormous cost: physically, mentally and emotionally.

Why can’t people break free of the shackles of false happiness? Westacott acknowledges that our culture is torn between accepting acquisitiveness as a necessary condition of economic growth, and denouncing it as an undesirable trait that bespeaks false values. Beyond that, though, there is no further explanation.

Freedom has been central to the idea of the good life offered by philosophers of every generation, but consumerism has reinterpreted this through the lens of false values. In the interconnected world of growing individualism backed by the availability of a myriad of economic choices, argues Westacott, freedom needs to be exercised in the context of contributing to the public good. Given the problems of pollution and global warming, we need to live more frugally and less wastefully in order to protect natural resources. That’s in our own interest, and the common interest. Technology may be of some help, but it, too, adds to an ever-increasing demand for more goods and services. Frugality is a possible antidote to over-development, one that the world can hardly ignore.  

The Wisdom of Frugality succeeds in providing a springboard for thinking about whether the wisdom of the past still holds today. Being able and willing to live inexpensively may be a virtue that the majority of people across the globe will have to practice out of necessity.

The Wisdom of Frugality
by Emrys Westacott
Princeton University Press, Princeton
Extent: 313, Price: $20

First published at the AnthemEnviroExpertReviews, uploaded on March 5, 2019.

The tao of desire

The urge to own and the surge for acquisitions put one onto a never-ending cycle of desire, facilitated by emotional and economic capital.  

Desire is innate to human existence, and love is its prime manifestation. From sexual to asexual and from material to abstract, desire is double-edged something that explores human strengths while simultaneously imploring its vulnerabilities. Lethal as it may seem, desire’s origin as Kama in scriptures and philosophies swings between two extremes – Vatsyayana’s sensuous poetry and Victorian middle-class morality. However, in a world where human sexuality and relationships are up for reinterpretation the chance that a deeper understanding of kama may help knock down the flawed human condition could indeed be a reality. Gurcharan Das is convinced that by repossessing the creative forces of kama can the classical balance between the four goals of life – Dharma, Kama, Artha  and Moksha - be restored in our chaotic lives tossed between tradition and modernity. 

That the essence of kama has been reduced to its sexual context has indeed been the cause for it not been seen as the force behind the life instinct. Vatsyayana understood it more than a natural energy, and sought it be cultivated as an art. The Upanishads found in kama the capacity to beget life, lying in it the origin of civilization. Das pulls leaves out of his own love life to suggest that by only cherishing desire can one attain to live life to its fullest. Nothing comes without pain though, as dangerous emotions such as jealousy, hate, and fear give company to desire. At the core of his thesis is that while dharma is a duty towards others, kama is duty to oneself. How one balances between the two is what differentiates the special from the ordinary! 

Kama, The Riddle of Desire is an intense reading of the ancient scriptures and the western philosophies aimed at unraveling multiple strands of desire, the former offers an optimistic view of creation as the latter evokes feelings of shame and guilt. One might wonder if the ascetic and the erotic are two aspects of the same human nature. The ascetic, or the kama pessimist, seeks renouncement whereas the sybarite, or the kama optimist, favours indulgence. If the story and sub-stories of this part-fiction, part-autographical narrative is anything to go by, each desire springs from a feeling of incompleteness. The urge to own and the surge for acquisitions put one onto a never-ending cycle of desire, facilitated by emotional and economic capital.  

Despite the twists and twirls of his journey in search of love, Das’ staying on the side of kama optimist may have been on account of most of his life spent inside the capitalist world, where controlling desire may merit limited consideration. Only by living life to its fullest can one ever realize the true potential of kama as a game change, argues Das, because to stop desiring and to perform desirelessly do not mean the same. If desire is indestructible, as Lord Krishna said, then desire should not be renounced but instead channelized towards greater public good, if at all.   

It is a ground-breaking narrative that is engaging and enlightening, shedding new light on the irresistibility of desire. It pulls desire from the trap of guilt, and assigns new meanings to it. Das reminds us that kama is our duty to live every moment as though it were our last, because making creative use of kama serves higher purpose of life. It is only by becoming aware of the higher purpose of life, a duty to oneself, which can help reclaim our primordial humanity. Kama, the Riddle of Desire is a sensitive but ambitious undertaking on a subject on which lack of female perspective completes only half the story.     

Kama: The Riddle of Desire 
by Gurcharan Das
Penguin Allen Lane, New Delhi
Extent: 548, Price: Rs 799.

First published in the BusinessLine, issue dated Dec 10, 2018.

(It is perhaps uncommon for a reviewer to review a book twice, but one can surely have two views on the same title. I have attempted it, please scroll down to read the first review). 

The world of frugal possibilities

If there are pluses in pursuing jugaad as an innovative approach, the flip side of maneuvering obstacles has its moments of shame too!

It goes without saying that most Indians are culturally wired to solve problems. There is a seemingly inbuilt cognitive ability in a large impoverished majority for jugaad, a quick-fix frugal innovation to wriggle out of any challenge. Does it not reflect peoples’ self-reliant optimism to confront challenges? It does, else multiple variants of ‘scare crow’ to protect mature crops would not exist, and neither would equally affordable mechanical improvisations like buttermilk churning washing machine and the motorcycle-cum- tractor. ‘Next to impossible is only possible’ has gone under their skin of people, turning every obstacle into an opportunity as if there is no tomorrow.

The search for a cheaper air conditioner by investigative journalist Dean Nelson, who spent few years in Delhi reporting for the London’s Sunday Times, led him on his jugaad journey which has been as much a celebration of inspiring resourcefulness of the poor as also a criticism on the absence of a formal system to optimize such talent. Not only did he discover the low-cost work-in-progress Snowbreezer, a device that generates cooling effect by passing air over an ice brick, which has yet to be perfected for wider adoption, but was surprised to learn that juggad mentality alone helped the country propel its spacecraft Mangalayam at less than the cost of the Oscar-winning Hollywood space thriller Gravity. Incidentally, neither of the two innovations are products of an economy that values and advances jugaad mentality. 

However, it has yet to hamper the spirit of innumerable people who haven’t allowed poverty to get the better of their intellectual ability at solving problems. No surprise that there are innumerable inspiring tales of optimism amid scarcity and poverty that abound in everyday living of a largely impoverished society in the country. It is a blessing in disguise, as it has spurred creative improvisation for developing products and designing processes that are frugal, flexible, and democratic. From handy tips to improvised tools and from enhanced techniques to adaptive practices, there is a rich repository of innovations on offer. 

While it remains intriguing what fuels innovative desire in ordinary people, equally compelling is the reason why such innovations are gifted, often anonymously, to the society at large? 

In his jugaad journey, however, the author discovered that in addition to being inspiring and socially relevant the unending quest for frugal inventions has led people to bend the rules and beat the system all across. As scarcity is deeply ingrained in the psyche of people, they start looking for ways to bypass it rather than question the system that has led them to scarcity in the first place. From jumping queues to offering bribes, the ability to creatively manage obstacles by adopting quick-fix solutions has become a socially-accepted convenient way of life. If there are pluses in pursuing jugaad as an innovative approach, the flip side of maneuvering obstacles has its moments of shame too, asserts Nelson.

Should jugaad mentality be allowed to circumvent the system? As long as people continue to remain spaced by socio-economic disparities, the best chance for them to survive in such an ecosystem of challenges rests on them being relentless on jugaad. Since the existing system cannot accommodate all the innovations and transform them into entrepreneurs, a large number of those left unattended on the margins will need to pursue the survival options at their disposal. It may, therefore, be risky to paint the world of jugaad with a single brush.

Jugaad Yatra is an absorbing, revealing, and reflective journey on the resilience, individualism and resourcefulness of people which further indicts the government of its failure in the wake of people’s fierce survival instinct. The book is a tour d’Horizon of the enriching world of jugaad, from the dusty village roads in Yamunanagar to the swanky corporate arcades in Mumbai. It provides a snapshot into the world of frugal innovations that are finding their way into the mainstream albeit at a snail’s pace. For the country to tackle its growing socio-economic and political challenges over in the decades ahead, jugaad ought to feature in its list of prescriptions to circumvent many of its challenges. 

Like the English traveler who, during the Mughal period, had recorded that ‘the natives are so full of ingenuity that they make any new thing by pattern how hard so ever it seems to be done,’ Nelson echoes that people in India have continued to be innovative, with inbuilt entrepreneurial ability to turn things around. This good news can be fully realized by institutionalizing ‘good jugaad’, by giving it a platform on which bottom-up innovations could be converted to address the mounting social, economic, and environmental challenges. 

Jugaad Yatra 
by Dean Nelson
Aleph, New Delhi
Extent: 175, Price: Rs 599

First published in the Hindustan Times, issue dated Nov 24, 2018.

GDP on a Reckless Aston

From the British Raj to the License Raj, and now the Resource Raj, the relentless growth has proved to be economically disruptive, socially bruising and environmentally destructive.

It has been five years since an Aston Martin, valued at $700,000, hit and spun an Audi A4 onto the opposite carriageway before a collision with another car had its front end crushed. No one was killed in the night of the accident on December 8, 2013, but the identity of the driver remains an unresolved mystery as the mangled remains of the car disappear into oblivion. The case has long been buried, but the skeleton keeps on popping in peoples’ memory. The accident on one of Mumbai’s busiest thoroughfare, Peddar Road, continues to evoke conspiratorial theory even today as the car belonged to the Reliance Industries, and none other than a young man from the country’s pre-eminent business dynasty could have been at the wheel of the invaluable car at that unearthly hour. The confession of a so-called driver claiming to be the one at the wheel during the late-night test drive could be anything but weird, reflective of the tumultuous times when political and economic influence protects the rich.     

Evoking Mark Twain’s The Gilded Age when greedy, corrupt industrialists, bankers and politicians had ruled USA at the turn of the 20th century, the Financial Times’ former Mumbai correspondent James Crabtree provides somewhat similar but an unsettling portrait of the country that claims to uplift itself on the GDP curve but at the expense of its poor and the vulnerable. In each portrait drawn by Crabtree, from Ambani to Adani and from Mallaya to Reddy, none of the wealthy and opulent come out without their share of compelling stories of scams, scandals, and erased crimes. And, the stories are only beginning to unfold in the public. 

The stories may sound familiar on surface but the devil is in the details. The billionaire class may have painted a bright future for the country, but the sanitized capitalism had left public sector banks holding at least $150 billion worth of bad assets in 2017.  Was such a situation unexpected in a democratic set up?  Crony capitalism is at the core of an unholy nexus, which keeps the political machine suitably oiled to fulfill its electoral promises, for regaining power and returning favors back to the businesses to keep it oiled. This unchecked cycle has led to the overnight ascent and dubious finances of the new billionaire class, leading to a shocking trend about the continuing purchase of politics by the wealthy. The die has been cast.

Crabtree has captured what is often considered a given, but for him it is a curious case of a democracy being weakened at its core as the lines between politics and business get blurred to dangerous extremes. No wonder, the country has become a picture postcard story of wealth amidst poverty marked by a growing economy that only widens income inequality. Part of the problem, argues the author, is that India itself, for all the lofty ideals of its constitution, has never actually made the transition to becoming a full liberal democracy, with public institutions capable of guarding in every respect the civil and political rights of its many peoples. 

The Billionaire Raj is a telling account of the pleasures and possibilities of appropriating the state and its systems by an emerging class of political entrepreneurs. In a racy, enlightening, and engaging narrative the author leaves nothing to reader’s imagination as he draws amusing caricatures of the Bollygarchs, a term coined to represent Indian oligarchs. And, these are not without context as the colorful demeanor paints the dark side of the rich and the famous. ‘In his early forties with swept-back black hair and the angle of a crooked nose incongruent with the face’ and ‘a bulky man in a red polo shirt, with gold bracelets on each wrist and chunky diamond ear stud sparkling against his long graying hair’ help the reader see beyond the obvious.  

Much of the foreign correspondent’s memoirs relate to the present political dispensation, on whom alone the blame may not rest, but which hasn’t done much to reverse the trend either. From the British Raj to the License Raj, and now the Resource Raj, the relentless growth has proved to be economically disruptive, socially bruising and environmentally destructive with any number of recent examples to quote from. Having moved to Singapore since completing the book, the author wonders if the country could be any different if it ignores the three major challenges – growing inequality, crony capitalism, and destructive development. 

Crabtree is optimist nonetheless as he draws reference to the Roosevelt-style progressive era, a moment in which anti-corruption campaigns had cleaned up politics and the middle-class had exerted control over government. For this to happen, a lot will need to be done to build state machinery able to create and implement wise public policies, while remaining impartial between different social groups. Without building the state capacity, as Samuel Huntington had cautioned, rapid economic expansion can rip societies apart, resulting in upheaval and social division. The message cannot be more loud and clear!   

The Billionaire Raj
by James Crabtree
HarperCollins, New Delhi
Extent: 358, Price: Rs 799

This review was first published in Outlook magazine, issue dated Nov 26, 2018.

The arrows of outrageous Kama

Not only as a force of nature, kama is a product of culture and history reflected in human emotions ranging from love, affection, compassion and joy to adultery, betrayal, jealousy and violence.

Kama or desire has unsettling but compelling disposition that implores human vulnerability, often at the cost of other three goals of human life enshrined in ancient scriptures as - Dharma, Artha and Moksha. Overt emphasis on these three goals may have devalued kama to the extent that its immense creative force has been left unexplored by most. In reality, it is the middle-class morality that has come in the way of reading kama within the sensuousness of a human body, limiting it to the idea of romantic passion that fulfils one’s capability for (sexual) pleasure alone. Curiously, if it had been as deplorable as has been made out to be then why it features as one of the four goals of life, and is respectfully reflected in ancient scriptures and philosophical treatises?    

With an astute philosophical mind and a keen romantic eye, Gurcharan Das pieces together the riddle of desire to restore some balance as kama continues to oscillate contentiously between what he calls kama optimists and kama pessimists – the optimists seek to draw a meaningful purpose of life from it while the pessimists consider it as sheer human limitation. Simply put, within the confines of seeking pleasure manifests kama’s creative as well as destructive powers.  Not only as a force of nature, kama is a product of culture and history reflected in myriad human emotions ranging from love, affection, compassion and joy to adultery, betrayal, jealousy and violence, and the challenge lies in striking a balance between these extremes. 

Unlike poets and philosophers who are usually pessimistic about kama, protagonist Amar meanders through a romantic journey, from a socialist to the liberal era, without denying kama a place in his life by nurturing it as an investment to transcend human limitations. From a childhood crush to a middle age obsession, with a family with two daughters in between, he is hit by kama’s mythical five arrows during various stages of life only to learn that love is a process that develops and changes with time. The fundamental loneliness of human condition got the better of societal moral constraints as Amar seeks liberation from the myth that attachments beyond what is permitted by the society is anything but infringement on human freedom. Can desire be allowed to remain hostage to the norms set by the society and religion?   

Told as a fictional memoir, the book is an ambitious undertaking on balancing the dichotomy of kama’s existence in the body and its reflection by the mind, as an ultimate duty towards oneself to draw the true meaning of life. Subject to how one perceives the narrative, Kama is a story of desire of a human body seen through the percepts of mind. It views desire, as espoused in Rig Veda, as the first seed in the mind, implying thereby that the formless desires form. It is the unique chemistry between the profane and the sacred, marked by a journey that begins with romantic love and culminates into primal energy. Kama is the very root of being human. 

It is through the story of predictable characters that Das weaves his study of desire which helps the reader relate to the contemporary relevance of desire in the times in which we live. For all the purusharthas, the goals of life, the task is to repossess the creative life force of kama to restore harmony in the chaotic modern experience. It is time to think beyond the narrow confines of kama as a subject of sexual desire. The essence of Kamasutra, as a metaphor, needs to be reinterpreted to free it from the gratuitous sense of guilt, thereby helping people relieve the stresses of life. Were the Kamasutra principles the way of life today, the world would have been on a different intellectual stew!

Kama: The Riddle of Desire could not have come at a better time, as human sexuality and relationships are being ascribed different meanings. Marriage, monogamy, adultery and, vengeance would carry different sense in future. To make it easy to comprehend the irresistible transformation, Das invokes Proust to remind us, ‘What matters in life is not whom or what one loves….it is the fact of loving’. As the book sketches the subtle landscape of desire, it reminds each one of us a duty to fulfill one’s capability for pleasure and live a flourishing life.  

For tracing the history of kama and its multiple strands across history, culture and philosophies of both the East and the West, Das deserves praise in creating a mosaic of meanings and interpretations in addressing the riddle of desire. What must not be forgotten however is, as Tolstoy remarked, ‘.. the evidence of other people is no good, all of us must have personal experience of all the nonsense of life in order to get back to life itself’. 

Kama: The Riddle of Desire 
by Gurcharan Das
Penguin Allen Lane, New Delhi
Extent: 548, Price: Rs 799

First published in Hindustan Times on Nov 10, 2018.