June 26, 2008

Leaving Uganda

We’ve talked about it here before: In 1972, Idi Amin gave all 80,000 Asian Indians living in the Uganda 90 days to pack up and leave. As the BBC reported on August 7, 1972, “Asians, who are the backbone of the Ugandan economy, have been living in the country for more than a century. But resentment against them has been building up within Uganda’s black majority. General Amin has called the Asians “bloodsuckers” and accused them of milking the economy of its wealth.”

A new young adult novel Child of Dandelions by Canadian author Shenaaz Nanji sheds much needed light on the upheaval of Asian Indians in Uganda. It’s worth checking out, even if you don’t have a young adult in your household, or don’t normally pick up books for younger readers.

The protagonist of Child of Dandelions is fifteen year old Sabine, a girl whose comfortable life is torn asunder on August 6, 1972, the day that Idi Amin issues his expulsion order for all Indians in Uganda. Shaken by the protests she walks into while window shopping in Little India, Sabine turns to her parents for protection.

Sabine’s mother is afraid and eager to leave Uganda, but her father, a wealthy Ismaeli businessman and landowner, is determined to ignore Dada Amin’s orders:

“Nonsense!” Papa laughed his conch-shell laugh, and her little brother echoed it. … “We are even more Ugandan than the ethnic Africans. Not only were we born here, but we chose to be Ugandan citizens when other Indians remained British…

Sabine agrees with her father. She is different after all. Her best friend Zena is African. They’ve grown up together like “twin beans of one coffee flower” and Zena is just like her sister, even if others (like her Indian friends) don’t see it that way.

Narmin …Nasrin … Sabine’s hands clenched at the names of her classmates. They were prissy prunes. She’d had a big fight with them after they called Zena goli. Mixing her African and Indian friends was like mixing oil with water.

As the 90 day countdown continues, Sabine’s optimism is drowned out by the growing chants of “Muhindi, nenda nyumbani! Indian, go home.” Amidst reports of violent attacks against Indian families, the mysterious disappearance of her favorite uncle, and strained relations between her and Zena (whose uncle is a general and crony of Idi Amin), she is forced to reexamine her understandings of race and class.

The novel is what Nanji calls Faction, a mix of facts and fiction.

Some of the characters are real, others fictional, but every event is based on history. Nanji grew up in Mombasa, and regularly visited family in Uganda throughout her childhood. “In fact the very day Idi Amin took power, I was in Kampala and to my embarrassment cheered him at a rally waving the Uganda flag, not knowing what was to follow,” she told me in an e-mail interview. [read the full interview here]

The book’s title comes from a powerful scene halfway through the novel when Zena tells Sabine that she can no longer associate with her because of Dada Amin’s orders.

Sabine folded her arms to steady herself. “You’ve joined them?”

“Them? Them are us. Your people have clogged up our land as the British bwanas did before. Your people, your family included, are doing magendo.”

“Uncle and Papa help out of kindness.”

“We don’t want kindness.” Zena gave a short, dry laugh. ‘You took our land and made us look after it. Now we want it back.”

Sabine stared at Zena. But Bapa had cleared that land and cleared it to grow coffee.

“We have to clear our land. The weeds must be uprooted. What can I do? You are the child of dandelions.”

Sabine reeled as if struck by lightning. How dare Zena accuse her of being a weed?

Though Sabine is furious at Zena’s rejection, she slowly starts to see discrepancies in how Indians treat the native Ugandans. For example, she realizes that though she’s known her driver Mzee (a term of respect for all elderly gentlemen) all her life, she has never touched him before or known anything about him.

She and her family were no different from the standoffish mzungus and other Indians who distanced themselves from their African employees. Mzee had worked for Bapa at his farm for many years before he moved to the city to get an easier job and became their driver. …

“Mzee, what’s your name?” She looked up at him. His eyes lifted in surprise, and she saw that they were gentle and crinkled like Bapa’s.

“Mzee Kabugo,” he said shyly, returning his gaze downward.

As someone who grew up in Ghana, I really appreciated Nanji’s nuanced take on the complex dynamics of race and class. The expulsion of Indians from Uganda was not a black and white issue, Nanji’s story shows us. “Earlier versions of the story showed the military regime was wholly responsible for the crises,” Nanji told me. “Later upon reflection, I learned that no one group of people is evil. There were many factors – poverty and class distinction, legacy of the colonial powers who carved up Africa like a pie, some Indians engaged in magendo, corruption, and Indians living in close-knit communities, refusing to integrate with ethnic Africans.”

Nanji started writing her book in order to find answers to the questions her children asked her while they were growing up. “My mind began to spin with questions I struggled to understand: how could an entire community that had lived for three generations suddenly be uprooted like weeds and expelled just because they were brown. Why was the rest of the world silent?” she said.

When she searched for books in the library on such issues, she came back empty-handed. “Then came the ethnic cleansing in Bosnia and the massacre in Rwanda and I knew the story had to be told,” she said. “Yes, the story takes place thousands of miles away in Africa, but the emotional experience of Sabine may transfer to the American readers as part of their own reality.”

To date, there are very few fictional works that examine the personal, social, and political turmoil caused within the Indian community by Amin’s orders, so right off the bat, Child of Dandelions is a welcome addition. That it is gracefully executed and emotionally evocative makes it a book worth owning and sharing both with adults and young adults alike.

Sandhya at 10:08 AM in History, Kids, Literature · 123 comment(s) · Direct link

June 12, 2008

Shivaji: Beyond the Legend (and some surprises)

The following post was inspired by the news last week that the government of Maharashtra is planning to build a huge statue of Shivaji off the coast of Bombay (that’s right, I said Bombay), on the scale of the American statue of liberty. The statue will be built off-shore, on an artificial island constructed especially for the purpose.

I’m not actually opposed to the idea of the statue — as far as I’m concerned, it’s all part of the great, entertaining tamasha of modern Bombay — though obviously I think there could be some other figures from Indian culture and history who might also be worth considering (how about a 300 foot bust of a glowering Amitabh Bachchan, for instance?). But reading the news did make me curious to know some things about the historical Shivaji that go beyond the hagiographical myths and legends one sees on Wikipedia, so I went to the library and looked at a book I had been meaning to look at for a couple of years, James Laine’s Shivaji: Hindu King in Islamic India (Oxford, 2003).

• • +

In 2004, James Laine became a target of the Hindu right after the publication of his book, Shivaji: Hindu King in Islamic India, but as is often the case the people burning down libraries, and destroying priceless works of India’s cultural heritage, clearly did not read the book. If one actually reads Laine’s work, one finds that Laine is quite careful not to frontally challenge the myth of Chatrapati Shivaji, the 17th century Maratha warrior. Indeed, there is much there that actually supports the pride that many Maharasthrians feel about Shivaji.

The conclusions Laine comes to after surveying the evidence on Shivaji were surprising to me. Though I obviously came to the book looking for objectivity as an antidote to the bloated mythology loudly propagated by the Shiv Sena, I presumed that “objectivity” and “secularism” would be more or less synonymous. The reality may be somewhat more complex in Shivaji’s case. Though he’s clearly not quite what his partisans believe he was, Shivaji’s story remains inspiring and heroic even after some scholarly scrutiny. And though he was more secular than many Hindu chauvinists will admit, Shivaji certainly did pointedly assert his identity as a Hindu and promote symbolic elements of Hindu religion and culture against the increasingly intolerant imposition of Islam during the Mughal empire under Aurangzeb and the final years of the Bijapur Sultanate (see Adil Shah).

Here is how Laine describes his project near the beginning of the book:

The task I have set myself is not that of providing a more accurate account of Shivaji’s life by stripping away the legends attributed to him by worshipful myth makers or misguided ideologues, but rather to be a disturber of the tranquility with which synthetic accounts of Shivaji’s life are accepted, mindful that the recording and retaining of any memory of Shivaji is interested knowledge. … In the modern popular imagination, many of [the different strands of the Shivaji story] are woven together and reproduced in both bland textbooks and dramatic popular accounts as though the simple facts can be taken for granted. In other words, the dominance of a certain grand narrative of Shivaji’s life is so powerful that the particular concerns of its many authors have been largely erased. (8)

The scholarly debunker is sometimes a powerful ally in ascertaining the often complex and nuanced truth behind historical legends, but in this book Laine doesn’t see confrontational debunking as his primary task. Rather, he wants to get back to the fundamentals of the Shivaji story (i.e., what can be objectively known based on primary historical sources), before following the path of the revisionist, nationalist, patriotic remaking of that story through the 19th and 20th centuries.

Laine starts by looking directly at the 17th century sources (in Sanskrit and Marathi) written by those who were close to Shivaji himself.

The primary texts he works with were written in Marathi and Sanskrit, both of which are languages in which Laine is proficient. Afzal Khan Vadh (“The Killing of Afzal Khan”) is a series of Marathi heroic ballads, authored by a poet alternately known as Agrindas or Ajnandas in 1659 (while Shivaji was still alive). Two other primary sources cited by Laine are written in Sanskrit, by Brahmin authors who were commissioned directly by Shivaji himself: the Sivabharata (or Shivabharata), an epic poem written by Kavindra Paramananda in 1674 (at the time of Shivaji’s coronation as “Chatrapati” – Lord of the Umbrella/Umbralla-Lord), and the Srisivaprabhuce, a historical chronicle written by Krishnaji Anant Sabhasad, in 1697.

The first surprise is that there’s little reason to doubt the best-known aspects of the Shivaji legend: the three works are surprisingly consistent with one another, especially regarding Shivaji’s childhood and upbringing, his emergence as a warrior with the killing of Afzal Khan, the punishment of Shaista Khan, the escape from Aurangzeb’s court at Agra, and the conquest of Simhagad in 1670. The most significant “humanizing” point Laine makes (and this is also one of the major sources of controversy) is his suggestion, late in his book, that Shivaji’s parents seem to have been estranged from one another –- Shivaji was brought up by his mother in one principality, while his father was a soldier for another, rival kingdom, who left before Shivaji was born. (Later hagiography would smooth over this aspect of the history, suggesting that Shivaji’s father sent him and his mother to Pune as part of a great plan.) The point of raising this is not to “take Shivaji down a notch” or find shame or scandal in the story. Rather, from my point of view at least, humanizing Shivaji in this way gives us a certain (modern) psychological explanation for why Shivaji was so driven as an adult: he had something to prove.

The second surprise for me is Laine’s acknowledgment that all the evidence supports the idea that Shivaji was assertive about Hindu religion and culture. It’s still wrong to use him symbolically as some kind of nationalist Hindu “freedom-fighter,” who devoted his life to killing mleccha invaders (for Laine, it’s more correct to say that Shivaji was a kingdom-builder). But it’s also not accurate to say that religion is somehow completely irrelevant to his story. This comes out first with reference to Shivaji’s coronation in 1674:

One important moment for the construction of an official biography was surely the grand event of Shivaji’s coronation. For the last decade of his life, he was relatively free of Mughal pressure, and in 1674, was enthroned chatrapati of an independent Hindu kingdom in an orthodox lustration ceremony (abhisheka). The ceremony, which had fallen out of use in Islamicate India, was seen as a revival of royal Hindu traditions. In other words, there is clear evidence that at the end of his career Shivaji began to think in new ways about his exercise of military and political power, ways that drew upon ancient symbols of Hindu kingship. He called upon a prominent pundit from Benares, Gaga Bhatta, to establish his genealogy and claim of true kshatriya status before investing him with the sacred thread, performing an orthodox wedding, and then a royal lustration ceremony of enthronement. At this time, Shivaji lavished great wealth on all the Brahmins who were gathered to confer legitimacy, and he employed two poets to write laudatory epic poems about him. On was Paramananda, whom we have mentioned as the author of the Sanskrit Sivabharata, a text that is clearly composed for the coronation though never finished … The second was Kavi Bhusan, who wrote the Sivarajabhusan in the Braj dialect of Hindi. (30)

And Laine expands upon the implications of his interpretation of the coronation a few pages later:

Shivaji himself, growing up in Pune, at that time a remote and insignifican town far away from the Bijapuri court, was unlike his father and grandfather in being not only less content to be in vassalage to a Muslim sultan but also concerned to extend the scope of Hindu culture. Moreover, he dealt with sultans who adopted a more rigorous religious policy than their predecessors. I would argue that his elaborate Sanskritic coronation, his choice of Sanskrit rather than Persian titles for his ministers, and his patronage of Brahmin pundits … are all signs that he wished to extend the boundaries in which his religion reigned, not so much geographically as socially and politically. These may have been gestures of legitimation, but he could very well have chosen better-known Persianate ways of achieving the same end.

In other words, Shivaji was raised at some distance from what Laine is describing as the “Islamicate” culture dominant in north and central India in the 17th century. He also clearly went out of his way to assert Hindu/Sanskritic symbols during his rule, when that was not the norm, even for other Hindu kings of the time.

Laine continues:

This is to say that Shivaji was not only discontended with the idea of being Islamic, he was discontented with even being Islamicate, that is, he read his religion not as a strict constructionist or in purely theological or essentialist ways, but saw religion as broadly diffuse throughout culture. We might say that he saw ‘religion’ as dharma. Thus, although Richard Eaton has emphasized the new Islamic rigorism in the Adil Shahi regime after 1656, a rigorism that parallels the later policies of Aurangzeb (Eaton 1978), I would say that Shivaji was similarly disposed to see Hindu and Muslim subcultures —- not just theologies — as distinct. There would be constraints on Shivaji’s religious agenda, as there were for Aurangzeb of course, and there were ways in which Shivaji was not wholly consistent in his Hindu policy. For example, he wore Persian royal dress and used words such as faqir and salaam quite unself-consciously, as well s being qt times quite willing to accept vassalage to the Adil Shah or Mughal emperor. But I would have to disagree with Stewart Gordon, who has written: ‘Shivaji was not attempting to construct a universal Hindu rule. Over and over, he espoused tolerance and syncretism. He even called on Aurangzeb to act like Akbar in according respect to Hindu believes and places. Shivaji had no difficulty in allying with Muslim states which surrounded him… even against Hindu powers” (Gordon 1993). I do not think I am disputing the evidence Gordon adduces, but my interpretation depends on how one uses the word ‘Hindu.’ (39)

This is a more complicated set of academic arguments, relating to how one interprets the idea of “religion” in an earlier historic moment, outside of Abrahamic norms. Putting it quite simply: to see Hindu religion as “diffuse throughout culture” doesn’t necessarily weaken it; rather, it was one of the ways Shivaji could find a new way of asserting it against the dominant powers of the time.

Secondly, Laine is arguing that though it’s wrong to read Shivaji as a kind of proto-communalist, it’s also a mistake to see him as someone who primarily espoused “tolerance and syncretism.” He was actually somewhere in between.

amardeep at 01:19 PM in History · 77 comment(s) · Direct link

April 24, 2008

Conquest, Culture, and India

I’m in the midst of biz trip hell and one book I’m plowing through is Thomas Sowell’s Conquests & Cultures. The book is part of a trilogy where Sowell brings his considerable scholarship to the relationship between culture and socio-economic outcomes across a wide span of history & the globe. This is a mighty controversial topic, to say the least, and one which Sowell engages with aplomb.

Clearly, one factor which has shaped the fate of groups over time is, of course, Conquest. And Sowell isn’t afraid to discuss how this dynamic played out for both Worse *and* for Better.

Now, we need to be very clear that by pointing out the Better, Sowell is emphatically NOT making a case for future Conquests of Cultures. Nor is he delving into whether Conquests are / were Morally Good. And, for that matter neither am I (just to forestall some of the comments a post like this generates - let’s try to keep the discussion Type C rather than descend into Type M. One can credit how the K-T extinction helped give rise to Humanity, for example, without calling it Good or “wishing” for another one; same with the British Empire).

What he is noting, however, is that just as many of the leaps and bounds of progress in tech can be traced to conflict & competition (WWII and the Space Race, to pick a few quickie examples), cultures are similarly fluid and subject to evolution. Proof of this & a tremendous source of historical experiments to this effect is Conquest [pg ix]-

The underlying theme of all these books is that racial, ethnic, and national groups have their own respective cultures without which their economic and social histories cannot be understood. Modest as this claim may seem, it collides head-on with the more widely accepted visions in which the fates of minority groups are determined by “society” around them, which society is therefore both causally and morally responsible for the misfortunes peculiar to the less fortunate of these groups — though apparently not responsible for the good fortune of more successful minority groups. This trilogy also collides head-on with prevailing doctrines about “celebrating” and preserving cultral differences. Cultures are not museum-pieces. They are the working machinery of everday life. Unlike objects of aesthetic contemplation, working machinery is judged by how well it works, compared to the alternatives.

In other words —> Culture is a moving target & is responsible for much of our socio-economic fate(s). One source of Punctuated Equilibrium in Culture’s evolution is/was Conquest. Let’s learn how it got us to where we are today & use those lessons + our volition to further evolve moving forward…

Stud.

Sowell shares much material with Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs and Steel (for ex., lack of load-bearing animals in Western Hemisphere = less food per acreage = smaller towns and less disease resistence = easy conquest by the Spanish). But, he goes leaps beyond by explicitly adding the variables of culture and conquest to more satisfyingly address Diamond’s core question of why some are rich and some are poor.

Although India would seem to figure prominently in any such broad, empirical assessment, this particular work from Sowell unfortunately doesn’t spend much time there (I’m a fan of his work and some of his other books do, in fact, cover India pretty well). He does provide an example or 2 which we’ll get to in a second.

Instead the book focuses on 4 case studies in depth -

• the British - particularly the periods when they were a band of tribes conquered by the Romans + *many* other subsequent groups (Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Normans…); The Dark Ages in Britain were particularly so and overall, the country probably spent more time Colonized than as a Colonizer resulting in a potent cultural mixing. Sowell argues that it’s not accidental that the regions of Britain most externally conquered (basically the South) also eventually became the most dominant as the country became independent and expanded to absorb Wales, Scotland, and Ireland…. later creating the Empire.
• Africa - perhaps no area of the world more readily comes to mind when you say “post-colonial legacy” so clearly Sowell spends much time here (and, uh, the fact he’s Afro-American is perhaps another reason). As with post-Roman Britain, post-colonial Africa went through a profound period of retrogression after the imperialists were tossed out [pg 173] -

  The entire period of a quarter of a century, beginning in 1965, averaged negative growth in output per capita in Uganda, Tanzania, Chad, Zamia, Ghana, Senegal, Madagascar, Zaire, Niger, Benin and the Central Africal Republican… [Thankfully] By 1997, perhaps a dozen African countries were growing at 5 percnt per year or better.

• the Slavs of Eastern Europe - as both conquered and conquerors, the Slavs are an interesting tale. One datapoint for just how deeply & long they were “conquered” is that in most Euro and Middle Eastern languages, the word “slave” is quite literally derived from Slav. Hardcore. Why this fate? Sowell asserts that first, relative to other Europeans, Slavic people were the least Romanized. Secondarily, other conquerers (for ex., the Mongols & Arabs) were happy to simply extract tribute and slaves rather than create governance (and thus cultural) structures directly as the Romans had done in Britain. Still other interesting and persistent cultural differences (and thus economic) persist from within the Slavic community - with the ones overrun by the Germans in the Middle Ages and more modern times general fairing better than the others.
• Native Americans. Of course. Their pre-Columbian conquests of each other, in particular, makes for fascinating reading.

Still, Sowell does pepper the book with a few anecdotes pertinent to India. One set tracks the fascinating tale of Peter the Great’s desire to tap desi mercantile skills for Slavic prosperity via the markets of Astrakhan (this link is fascinating read, BTW).

Desis in Africa weren’t conquerers in the military sense (they road the Brit’s coattails). However, many natives didn’t so readily separate the political and commercial and viewed Indians with much of the same scorn. Gujuratis in particular rather successfully surfed the (comparative) Free Trade Zone that was the British Empire and played a massive role in E. Africa’s economic picture [pg 136] -

[In Tanzania] Indians held an estimated 50 to 60 percent of the import-export trade, 80 percent of sisal lproduction, 80 percent of transport service, and 90% of all town property

This particular snippet, early in the book, is one I thought Mutineers might be able to fact check (and it’s the one that, a couple hours ago, started this long, rambling blog post c’est la vie) [pg 7]-

Among the millions of Telugu-speaking people in eastern India during the colonial era, some lived under the direct rule of the British conquerors while others lived under Indian princes. When these peoples were united, years after India’s independence, into a newly created state of Andhra Pradesh, the Andhras who had lived under British rule proved to be overwhelming competition for the Telanganans who had lived under Indian princes. Andhras not only bested the Telanaganans on civil service examinations, taking over great numbers of government jobs as a result, but also outperformed them in agriculture, where they were able to buy out Telanganan farmers and make their farms much more productive and more profitable.

Sowell’s 100 pages of footnotes reveals the source of the factoid as Myron Weiner’s Sons of the Soil published in 1978. Anyone got more deets? Any of our Telugu-speaking readers know to what extent this was the cause of differences between “Andhras” and “Telanaganans”? Are there similar anecdotes in India between closely related but differently “Brit-ized” groups within the Desh?

vinod at 04:29 PM in History · 60 comment(s) · Direct link

April 10, 2008

Here's to Closer Ties Between India and Africa

Representatives from 14 African nations were in New Delhi for the first-ever India-Africa summit, which just ended today. (The India-Africa Summit follows closely on the heels of the China-Africa summit of November 2006.)

Attendees signed off on the Delhi Declaration and the Africa-India Framework for Cooperation, pledging cooperation in the areas of energy, terrorism, climate change and UN Reforms. An informal and equally important outcome: India is looking to play a far more prominent role in Africa’s economic development than China in coming years.

My uncle Gobind is a retired World Bank developmental economist who has served as economic adviser to the government of Ghana. I asked him to share his thoughts on this historic summit.

“While India is less prominent than China in Africa today, both in trade and investments and aid,” he said, “it is more respected than China because of its image, its democracy, its presence in education, industry— especially pharmaceuticals and railways, and IT. There is growing interest in Africa in India, but it is not yet a hot issue, except for mining companies and the new private oil companies like Reliance. India is currently big in Sudan, DRC, Nigeria, Zambia and S. Africa. But it’s increasing its presence everywhere.”

The Emerging Economy report, released yesterday, underlined the role of Indian corporations in driving new technology usage in Africa. From the Earth Times [full story link]:

Chinese corporations have made significant investments in Africa over the past decade. For example, China’s Civil Engineering Construction Corporation is building the $8.3 billion railroad linking Lagos and Kano. However, the Report also points out that Indian entrepreneurs have long enjoyed trading relations in Africa, particularly along the continent’s east coast, running from Kenya down to the tip of South Africa. In the early part of the 20th century Indian engineering and consumer brands were considered as reliable as those coming from Europe. Bilateral trade between India and Africa increased from less than US$ 1 billion in 1991 to over US$ 9 billion in 2005. Today, the Government of India is aiming to achieve a trade turnover of US$ 500 billion by 2010.

My grandfather might be one of those Indian entrepreneurs referred to above. In the 1930s, Dada came to West Africa as apprentice to an Indian trading company. He ended up placing his roots down in Ghana where he opened a chain of movie theatres and imported movies from India and China for a rural audience.

From Kumasi, the second-largest city in Ghana and the “capital” of the Ashanti kingdom, Dada explored the many cut-out kingdoms and colonies of West Africa, forging links with locals and other Indian expatriates and expanding his import-export business over the years. “Indian companies like my grandfather’s were important in promoting imports with other parts of the Commonwealth at the time,” Uncle Gobind told me. “The contribution was to provide cheaper and better quality consumer products, and to introduce new trading methods and sources to African countries.”

“Very few Indians went into industry, and where they did, they did not last. Nigeria may be an exception,” observes Uncle G. (Then, there’s Tata Motors, which has been in Africa since the ’70s. They announced on Wednesday that the company will expand its businesses in the continent, including assembly operations of pick-up trucks and buses in Sengal and Congo. [more on Tata’s vision in Africa])

Overall, the reputation of Indians in Africa has been positive, except where their presence has been used for political gains, as in 1969 in Ghana when the government passed a law requiring foreign investors and industry to re-invest at least 60 percent of their profit within Ghana. This essentially meant that non-Ghanaian nationals could not singly own businesses. My grandfather had acted fast and wisely, immediately forging a partnership with his good Ghanaian friend. Over the years, my family’s ties to my birthplace have remained strong, whether it is through continued business relations with local companies or intermarriage.

I realized just how strong these ties were when I made my first journey to my birthplace Kumasi without my parents back in 2000. I found myself speaking to my father everyday to ask him what I need to see before returning to the capital, Accra. “Talk to Mr. Appiah and ask him to take you to visit the Queen Mother, Yaa Asantewaa,” Papa told me when we spoke on the phone. “She’s almost 90 years old and I’m sure you will learn a lot by going to see her. Besides, she is like a mother to me.” As a child growing up in Ghana, Papa was fluent in the local language Twe and had played football with the Queen Mother’s son. Throughout his adulthood, my father continued to pay regular visits to pay his respects to the Ashanti royalty.

The “Queen Mother” whom my father was referring to is the female head of the Ashantis, the ruling tribe of the largest area and kingdom of Ghana, the Ashanti region, famous for its gold and its rich cultural heritage. She governs the Ashanti nation along with the Asantehene, the “king” who is chosen by her, area village chiefs and the Ashanti people.

I pictured her – ancient, wrinkled and in a throne, wearing heaps of gold and being fanned by kente clad attendants. Would I bow down to her? Try to greet her in Twe, the local language or resort to a translator?

When I asked Mr. Appiah, my father’s accountant whether he could take me to meet her, he was delighted. “Yes, yes,” he beamed. “She is like your grandmother. She will be sooo happy to see you. Eh eh.” He put a call in to the palace and soon we were on our way. We stopped at Shirdi Bazaar, an Sindhi shop, to buy her a gift – a bottle of Red Label Johnny Walker Whiskey. This, I would present to her along with 100,000 cedis in cash. In Ghana, this is an appropriate gift, even for royalty. My father’s accountant had pulled out a calculator and punched away, concluding, “For you, this is only $41.”

We arrived at the palace, a strange group of visitors. There was Mr. Appiah, clad in a white shirt, black trousers and sandals. Apart from being an accountant, on Tuesdays he serves as a chief in the local court held at the Queen Mother’s palace. Here, in a three-walled room overlooking a courtyard, civilians gather to file complaints about ills done unto them. The group of chiefs acts as judges, along with the queen who sits on her throne – an elevated step in the front of the room that I almost sat on before I was stopped by Mr. Appiah. Then, there was Maggie, the daughter of Mr. Ashan, one of the main managers of my father’s company here in Kumasi. Attractive and soft spoken, she was my age. She was wearing a white and brown skirt suit and looked quite the business woman. At that time, she was job hunting – she has studied Marketing and PR and was finding it difficult to land a position in town. Steven was the third member of our gang. My uncle’s driver who has been taking me around for the past few days, he seemed amused by all of this. Amused and yet, eager to participate in our adventures. Last, there was me – wearing blue jeans, a gray tank top and sandals. I felt under dressed and wonder whether I was fit to meet nobility.

The palace, a simple set of cement buildings that held an open courtyard in the center, was not quite what I expected. Outside, a police officer guarded the entrance and asked us the purpose of our visit. He recognized Mr. Appiah and looked at me curiously, ultimately deciding to speak to me in Twe. He knew that I would not understand and waited for me to tell him so.

“The Queen Mother is busy. She is handling some cases at the moment,” he repeated, this time in English.

“Oh,” said Mr. Appiah, “We have just called and she is expecting our visit. This is Mr. Nankani’s daughter. She is the grand daughter of the queen for the queen has taken her father as her son!” He laughed.

The officer appeared more interested in me now. He suggested that I visit the museum after our meeting, stressing that I would have to pay 5000 cedis because I was a foreigner.

“Oh!” exclaimed Mr. Appiah. “But she was born here and she is visiting her grand mother.”

The officer pondered that one for a moment. “Yes, yes, you are from here after all. If you were born here, even if your skin is copper colored, this e-be your homeland. OK, you can pay 1000 cedis.” He waved us in.

Inside, I saw several women dressed in the traditional Ghanaian dress waiting for an audience with the Queen Mother. We waited our turn and when we were asked to enter, I removed my shoes.

“Don’t greet anyone else before you greet her,” Mr. Appiah whispered to me before he raised the curtain to enter the doorway. “And, do exactly what I do. The queen is the lady whom I will greet.”

I wanted to say that I was sure I would know who she was, but I kept quiet.

We walked into a Western-style sitting room. In the middle was a simple chair on which the Queen Mother was seated. She was a small, thin woman wearing no jewelry; just a black cloth draped around her body and over her left shoulder. Her head was covered by a matching wrap, and she was barefoot. She sat straight, her eyes smiling and her face unwrinkled.

Mr. Appiah walked forward and shook the queen’s hand, telling her in Twe that he had brought the daughter of Tommy (as my dad was known here in his hometown) Nankani to see her. She smiled at me widely and took my hand, shaking it up and down for a long time. The queen spoke to me in Twe – she must have been thinking that I, my father’s daughter, should also be able to speak her language as well as he did. I do not.

She figured this out quickly enough and asked Mr. Appiah to tell me how much she loved my dad, how he was like a son to her, and how she wished that he could come visit her.

I was told to sit on the sofa to her right as she continued meeting the rest of our gang. When all the introductions were made, she turned her attention to me once again.

She was aware that my father was not well and asked about for him. I responded through my translator and we had a brief conversation that mainly centered around my father. She told me that she prayed that he would soon be well so that he could come visit her soon in the new home that her son, the newly enthroned Asantehene, was building for her.

Mr. Appiah remains standing as he addressed his queen, telling her what I had been doing in Ghana.

“She was in Bonwire yesterday,” he said. “She was visiting the women who weave kente because she is writing an article for an American magazine about them.”

The elders in the room smiled at me and nodded their heads in approval. The queen also looked at me intently as he spoke. I squirmed inside. There were too many eyes looking at me in this room.

Time to present the gift. Mr. Appiah ceremoniously removed the carton of whiskey from the black polythene bag as I pulled the envelope out of my bag. I rose from my seat and walked towards her. She accepted the present gracefully and shook my hand once again. An elder on the couch to her left said something and a dialogue ensued between them.

When I returned to my seat, I asked Maggie what they were saying. “Oh, they are telling her that there is money inside and that she should not open the envelope until after you leave,” she translated.

I looked at the Queen Mother and saw an amused look on her face. Of course, I thought, what queen would like to be told what to do? And what queen would think of opening an envelope immediately after it was presented?

After the excitement in the room had died down, I asked for permission to photograph the queen mother alone and she posed, sitting up straight and statuesque in her simple throne. Her smile spoke of many things seen and her eyes gazed at me affectionately. I knew that she wanted me to show this photograph to my father.

By looking into my lens, she was smiling at him, sending her love and regards. Then, I handed my camera to Maggie and moved to crouch on the floor next to her. She smiled at me widely, her white teeth doves in the night sky.

The flash shone a bright light on the room and the camera beeped twice.

“Your grandmother and you,” said Mr. Appiah. “Your father will be so happy.”

Sandhya at 07:18 AM in Business, History, News · 37 comment(s) · Direct link

March 19, 2008

Has the Tiger been leashed by the Dragon?

China continues to deploy troops in an effort to quell any protests in/over the “disputed region” of Tibet as the Summer Olympics, China’s coming out party, inches ever closer:

Chinese troops and police have tightened their hold on Tibetan areas in the westernmost region of the country as they work to keep anti-government protests from spreading.

Journalists and activist groups have reported large numbers of troops in provinces along Tibet’s eastern border…

Peaceful protests against Chinese rule in Tibet began last week and gradually turned violent.

China says at least 16 people were killed in riots in the Tibetan capital of Lhasa Friday. But the Tibetan government-in-exile says at least 99 people have been killed in the unrest. [Link]

Last week the nation of Nepal bent over for China by caving to a request to shut down all points on Mt. Everest higher than base camp between now and the middle of May. The beginning of May is thought to be a prime time for a summit attempt, groups having spent the few weeks before that steadily climbing and acclimating. Only a Chinese team, carrying the Olympic torch, will be allowed to proceed, without worry that they will be met by Tibetan protestors at or near the top. All those that may have spent years planning for their ascent attempt get screwed. This isn’t as trivial as it sounds since tourism related to Everest brings a large chunk of money and prestige to the impoverished nation. On the brightside, it looks like Nepal might have begun to come to its economic senses in the past few days. They are no longer “sure” about acceding to China’s original request:

“How could they do something so devastating to the economy and to a Nepalese icon?” said Peter Athans, a 50-year-old American mountaineer who has reached the summit of Everest seven times. “A country superior in size and power is grinding under foot Nepal’s small but very important tourist industry.”

An expedition leader who has a group of 14 clients arriving next week said: “We just want to climb. But suddenly we have this other priority. We don’t need the Chinese intimidating us.” The Nepalese Ministry of Tourism backed away from its ban yesterday, with a spokesman insisting that the season’s 25 Everest expeditions would proceed as planned. “You can go any time to Everest,” he said. [Link]

What about India and its role as related to the protests in Tibet? In Dharamshala this past week, India too decided to suck up to China:

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao has said he “appreciated” the steps taken by Indian authorities in handling protests by Tibetan refugees in the country.

More than 100 refugees were detained in India while attempting to march to the Chinese border last week.

They were marching as part of the global pro-independence protest.

India has in the past been sympathetic to the Tibetan cause but in recent years Delhi’s relations with Beijing have improved.

India has not allowed large-scale public protests for fear of embarrassing Beijing. [Link]

Let me understand this. The world’s largest democracy won’t allow peaceful protests because it may embarrass its authoritarian neighbor? That’s an interesting interpretation of democracy. The relationship between India and China is of course a complex one and the issue of Tibet goes back a long ways. The following is an excerpt from a great article in The Hindu Business Line which puts India’s response in a historical context:

When the Chinese People’s Liberation Army occupied Tibet in 1950, the Deputy Prime Minister, Sardar Patel, wrote to Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru on November 7, 1950 saying: “The Chinese Government has tried to delude us by professions of peaceful intentions. My own feeling is that at a crucial period they managed to install into our Ambassador (academic K. M. Panicker) a false sense of confidence in their so-called desire to settle the Tibetan problem by peaceful means.”

Sardar Patel added: “(Throughout history) the Himalayas have been regarded as an impenetrable barrier for any threat from the North. We had a friendly Tibet which gave us no trouble…Chinese ambitions in this respect not only cover the Himalayan slopes on our side, but also include the important part of Assam… Chinese irredentism and communist imperialism are different from the expansionism or imperialism of the western powers, which makes it ten times more dangerous. In the guise of ideological expansion lie concealed racial, national and historical claims”. [Link]

Sumit Ganguly, writing for Newsweek, sounds pissed about India’s blatant appeasement:

India does itself a disservice by not standing up to China over its treatment of Tibet. If India wishes to be considered a great power, it needs to display a greater degree of independence and not kowtow to Beijing. With rapid economic growth, a substantial military establishment and robust political institutions, India should stop behaving in a subservient fashion and forthrightly stand up and defend certain inalienable rights of the Tibetan minority in its midst—rights that should obtain in any humane and democratic state.

New Delhi’s reluctance to challenge China over Tibet goes back to Beijing’s brutal repression of the Khampa revolt 50 years ago, when the Dalai Lama, the spiritual and temporal head of the Tibetans, fled to India. Although China sharply reproved India for providing refuge to the Dalai Lama, India stood its ground. Shortly thereafter, following a breakdown of negotiations over a disputed border, China attacked and defeated India in October 1962. Even though India’s army has since been modernized and prepared for mountain warfare, the memory of this rout still haunts Indian military planners and policymakers. That’s why, when the Chinese army periodically crosses the border, India responds with anodyne criticism. And why India has been willing to publicly and abjectly reassure China that the Tibetan exiles will not be allowed to engage in any meaningful political activity.

Appeasement might not be a bad policy if it actually succeeded in keeping Beijing satisfied, but it doesn’t. There is not a shred of evidence that it has ever moderated Chinese behavior. Whenever Tibetan exiles have engaged in minor protests, Beijing has sternly rebuked India for allowing them to engage in political activities. Faced with Beijing’s continued expressions of discontent, New Delhi has rarely missed an opportunity to genuflect before the Middle Kingdom. The Tibetan crackdown is only the latest example.

This humiliating deference undermines India’s national interests as a rising Asian power and corrodes its credentials as a liberal democracy.[Link]

By the way, if you are curious as to what law in the Indian Constitution allowed India to scoop up these protestors, it is known as “Preventive Detention”:

The Fundamental Rights have been criticised as inadequate in providing freedom and opportunity for all Indians. Many political groups have demanded that the right to work, the right to economic assistance in case of unemployment and similar socio-economic rights be enshrined as constitutional guarantees,[27] that are presently listed in the directive principles of state policy.[46] The right to freedom contains a number of limiting clauses and has been criticised for failing to check government powers[27] such as provisions of preventive detention and suspension of fundamental rights in times of emergency. The phrases “security of State”, “public order” and “morality” are unclear, having wide implication. The meaning of phrases like “reasonable restrictions” and “the interest of public order” have not been explicitly stated in the constitution, leading to frequent litigations.[27] The Maintenance of Internal Security Act (1975) was strongly criticised for giving then-Prime Minister Indira Gandhi the authority to arrest opposition leaders following the declaration of emergency in 1975. [Link]

In any case I, like the Dalai Lama, hope there is no more violence against peaceful protestors.

abhi at 09:45 PM in History, Military, News, Politics, Religion · 68 comment(s) · Direct link

March 14, 2008

Interviewing Partition Survivors

Via 3QD, I came across an article in the Washington Post about a 10 year research project, based in Delhi but funded by the Ford Foundation, to interview thousands of survivors of the 1947 Partition.

The story begins with a powerful anecdote:

Every year in March, Bir Bahadur Singh goes to the local Sikh shrine and narrates the grim events of the long night six decades ago when 26 women in his family offered their necks to the sword for the sake of honor.

At the time, sectarian riots were raging over the partition of the subcontinent into India and Pakistan, and the men of Singh’s family decided it was better to kill the women than have them fall into the hands of Muslim mobs.

“None of the women protested, nobody wept,” Singh, 78, recalled as he stroked his long, flowing white beard, his voice slipping into a whisper. “All I could hear was the sound of prayer and the swing of the sword going down on their necks. My story can fill a book.” (link)

These ‘honor killings’, where women were killed by male members of their families to prevent their being raped by communal mobs, were not at all unusual. I do not know if they happened in other communities, but in the Sikh community in particular it is thought that thousands of women died this way. (I do not think anybody knows exactly how many it was.)

Thus far, the project has interviewed about 1300 people, including Bir Bahadur Singh. The project (“Reconstructing Lives: Memories of Partition”) does not appear to have a web presence, and I’m not sure whether there are any plans to digitize the tapes from the interviews, or publish raw transcripts. Hopefully, that will be in the cards at some point.

Readers, if you have grandparents (or great-grandparents?) who went through this, and who have stories they want to tell, I would urge you to interview and record what they went through while they’re still around. (Projects like the one I’m describing are only interviewing people still in India — I’m sure there are more than a few who have ended up settled abroad.)

If you’ve actually done such an interview, have you published the text of it anywhere? (If you’re interested in doing this, drop me a line.)

Why all this is important:

Unlike the Jewish Holocaust, where there have been many documentary projects, including a number of survivor interview projects, the Partition of India has only been studied in dribs and drabs. There is, as I understand it, no public memorial to the Partition in India itself (compare to the many museums and monuments devoted to memorializing the Holocaust in western countries).

But a full knowledge of the true history, including these personal testimonials, is extremely important, for a number of reasons. First, it adds to the historical record, and makes it harder for extremist (communal) groups on both sides of the border to distort the story, or to put all of the blame for today’s problems on the other party. Second, a fuller knowledge from a position of historical distance might help everyone address the lingering trauma the event created (it’s no accident that the person heading this operation is a psychologist), so we can start to address the root causes of this kind of violence.

Earlier posts on Partition: here, here, and here.

amardeep at 09:29 AM in History · 80 comment(s) · Direct link

Poetry Friday: Shilling Love

In honor of Women’s History Month, I thought I’d feature South Asian women poets on Poetry Fridays for the remainder of March. Today’s selection is “Shilling Love,” by Kenyan-Indian-American spoken word artist Shailja Patel. Her work “Migritude” premiered last fall in the San Francisco Bay area to packed audiences—it uses her collection of saris, passed down by her mother (another take on Mama’s Saris!), to unfold hidden histories of women’s lives “in the bootprint of Empire, from India to East Africa.”

“Shilling Love” is the first poem from “Migritude” that I came across a couple of years ago, and it has stayed with me since.

Shilling Love
By Shailja Patel

They never said / they loved us

Those words were not / in any language / spoken by my parents I love you honey was the dribbled caramel / of Hollywood movies / Dallas / Dynasty / where hot water gushed / at the touch of gleaming taps / electricity surged / 24 hours a day / through skyscrapers banquets obscene as the Pentagon / were mere backdrops / where emotions had no consequences words / cost nothing meant nothing would never / have to be redeemed

My parents / didn’t speak / that / language

1975 / 15 Kenyan shillings to the British pound / my mother speaks battle

Storms the bastions of Nairobi’s / most exclusive prep schools / shoots our cowering / six-year old bodies like cannonballs / into the all-white classrooms / scales the ramparts of class distinction / around Loreto Convent / where the president / sends his daughter / the foreign diplomats send / their daughters / because my mother’s daughters / will / have world-class educations

She falls / regroups / falls and re-groups / in endless assaults on visa officials / who sneer behind their bulletproof windows / at US and British consulates / my mother the general / arms her daughters / to take on every citadel

1977 / 20 Kenyan shillings to the British pound / my father speaks / stoic endurance / he began at 16 the brutal apprenticeship / of a man who takes care of his own / relinquished dreams of / fighter pilot rally driver for the daily crucifixion / of wringing profit from business / my father the foot soldier, bound to an honour / deeper than any currency / you must / finish what you start you must / march until you drop you must / give your life for those / you bring into the world

I try to explain love/ in shillings / to those who’ve never gauged / who gets to leave who has to stay / who breaks free and what they pay / those who’ve never measured love / by every run of the ladder / from survival / to choice

A force as grim and determined / as a boot up the backside / a spur that draws blood / a mountaineer’s rope / that yanks / relentlessly / up

My parents never say / they love us / they save and count / count and save / the shilling falls against the pound / college fees for overseas students / rise like flood tides / love is a luxury / priced in hard currency / ringed by tariffs / and we devour prospectuses / of ivied buildings smooth lawns vast / libraries the way Jehovah’s witnesses / gobble visions of paradise / because we know we’ll have to be / twice as good three times as fast four times as driven / with angels powers and principalities on our side just / to get / on the plane

Thirty shillings to the pound fourty shillings to the pound / my parents fight over money late in the night / my father pounds the walls and yells / I can’t — it’s impossible — what do you think I am? / My mother propels us through school tuition exams applications / locks us into rooms to study / keeps an iron grip on the bank books

1982 / gunshots / in the streets of Nairobi / military coup leaders / thunder over the radio / Asian businesses wrecked and looted Asian women raped / after / the government / regains control / we whisper what the coup leaders planned

Round up all the Asians at gunpoint / in the national stadium / strip them of what / they carry march them / 30 miles / elders in wheelchairs / babies in arms / march them 30 miles to the airport / pack them onto any planes / of any foreign airline / tell the pilots / down the rifle barrels / leave / we don’t care where you take them / leave

[The poem is pretty long, so you can read Part II here.]

The first time I read “Shilling Love,” it resonated with me on a very personal level. I too grew up in Ghana during the military coups of the late 70s/early 80s, so I’m all too familiar with some of the scenes she paints and the challenges she describes. In my essay, “Children of a Coup” I write more about this:

On June 4, 1979, just a few days before scheduled elections in Ghana, the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council overthrew the government. This was the fourth coup in the nascent democracy since 1957, when Ghana became the first sub-Saharan African nation to achieve independence from colonial rule. At the time, I was five. Those were turbulent days. The government’s body fell apart and violence replaced peaceable discomfort. Lines at gas stations grew long, schools were closed more often than they were open, and SPAM and Baked Beans came close to gaining the status of staple foods.

Unlike me - still struggling to put words to that experience which I half-remember; to piece it together based on family memory and historical narratives, Shailja’s poetry is her activism. She has been described by CNN as an artist “who exemplifies globalization as a people-centered phenomenon of migration and exchange.” I see her as a desi Sarah Jones; there’s power in her punch.

In fact, Shailja is currently in Kenya, where she’s working with the organization Kenyans for Peace with Truth and Justice (read her “Open Letter to Samuel Kivuitu, Chairman of the Electoral Commission of Kenya”); touring various arts festivals in Africa, and working on the second show in the “Migritudes” cycle. I think this seven minute documentary from KQED Arts is worth checking out (You can also click on her picture above to get to it.)

And that’s all for this week’s poetry party.

Sandhya at 06:09 AM in Arts and Entertainment, History, Identity, Literature · 9 comment(s) · Direct link

January 19, 2008

Nandi Ethics: When Newkirk Found Jallikattu

For those who are aware of it, this past week (specifically January 14th and 15th) was generally a time for celebration—Thai Pongal Usually, in my own family, this just means pongal rice, a “Happy Thai Pongal, darling!” from various overseas relatives and thus it remains one of those ever-dwindling, absolutely pure links to my childhood. Or so I thought. Another part of the festivities in India, aside from thanking Bhumi Devi for the year’s bounty, involves the snatching of treats and trinkets from the body of a bewildered bull by people one could only describe as foolhardy.

In my militant lacto-vegetarian days, quite unaware of the hypocrisy in animal ethics this stance represented, on trips abroad I would often attempt to shame my poor relatives who were trying to enjoy their egg/chicken/mutton in peace. Like the loving relatives that they were, they indulged my illogical rantings and kept on eating the Bambi/Babe/Nemo till the loud belches that signify true satisfaction were heard.

I often equate PETA with the crusader of my childhood, running into any ideological fray with shrill and often crass symbolic protestations of what they see as intolerable injustices. In the case of Jallikattu, however, I’m a bit more charitable towards their latest (via Newstab) stunt: blindfolding a statue of Gandhi in Coimbatore, to shield him from this rather pathetic scene:

To be clear, Jallikattu seems to involve no spears or other sharpened instruments used to slowly break the will of an animal better suited to eating/mating/sleeping than mortal combat and it is also very dissimilar to the American rodeo, where riders attempt to hold on for a few wretched seconds or lasso a smaller animal. It does, however, represent a set of questions for us all:

1. How effective can Ingrid Newkirk be in influencing the people who enjoy Jallikattu to gradually abandon this practice? I am permanently struck by the parallel of Margaret Sanger getting the semi-cold shoulder from Gandhi and finding a more sympathetic ear in Nehru and Tagore.

2. What does she think when she sees the villagers shouting and clapping and hopping with glee every time the bull nearly misses a jumki-snatching bravo?

3. If you disapprove, what organizations in India will stump for the bull? I certainly did not read about the Hindutva crowd running to rescue Nandi-ji from the spectacle or to break Ingrid out of jail.

4. If you don’t give a toss, or like a good bull-baiting, what’s the utilitarian value that one derives from this practice? There are innumerable adrenaline-generating activities to puff the chest, firm the upper lip and improve the posture that don’t involve a whiff of animal cruelty.

5. Descriptions of Jallikattu in the western press are beginning to incorporate charges of feeding alcohol to the bulls and introducing chilli powder to various orifices(nose, mouth, ears) in an effort to spice up the baiting. Is there any Jallikattu enthusiast who can verify this?

Personally, I hold no great love for the baiting of animals for sport/kicks/reaffirming your place in the food chain. I would be far more impressed if the participants were tangling with a Belgian Blue, an Elephant or Tatiana. But then, of course, there would have been far too many human deaths for the activity to be ongoing and popular.

Nayagan at 09:19 AM in Animals, History, Issues · 140 comment(s) · Direct link

January 10, 2008

The Devils Bargain for India

Could it have happened to India?

I saw The Kite Runner last weekend and man did it rock. Beyond a great story, y’all should go be swept away by the shocking similarities between disco-era Afghanistan and India - I gaurantee you’ll recognize an uncle or 2 from your old home movies

In the movie, a pivotal plot point is the end to the Good Times marked by Soviet tanks rolling into Kabul to aid local communist forces… due to the interest in the “India in WWII” series, I thought I’d post on yet another aspect of the conflict that many folks probably aren’t aware of - this time, the Desi-Soviet angle.

The Molotov-Ribbentrop pact gets a fair amount of coverage as a milestone for WWII in Europe. Before the Soviets fought with the allies, they were secretly helping the Nazis and this pact solidified the Nazi-Soviet alliance. It outlined how the two butchers would divvy up Central and Eastern Europe whilst the British, under Chamberlain, sought appeasement; Wikipedia summarizes it thusly -

In addition to stipulations of non-aggression, the treaty included a secret protocol dividing the independent countries of Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, and Romania into spheres of Nazi and Soviet influence, anticipating “territorial and political rearrangements” of these countries’ territories.

All were subsequently invaded, occupied, or forced to cede territory by Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, or both.

Based on the (initial) success of this pact, the Soviets & Nazis formed other pacts to divvy up the world…

“The British Empire would be apportioned as a gigantic world-wide estate in bankruptcy of 40 million square kilometers”

- Hitler to Stalin, 1940

The Molotov-Ribbentrop pact was merely the most famous of several secret pacts negotiated between the two parties. Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin (via their respective foreign ministers Molotov and Ribbentrop) had much larger ambitions than just continental Europe. Some portions of the pact were known at the time but many weren’t revealed to the world until the late 1980’s & the fall of the Soviet Union.

The other secret pacts clearly show how Ribbentrop & Hitler aimed to create a grand axis including not just Italy and Japan but the Soviets as well who, collectively, would rule the world. BUT, all parties knew that the number one thing standing the way of such an arrangement was the nation that ruled the seas - Britain (at this point in history, the US was but a wee footnote in these calculations). And the axis powers knew that a good chunk of the might of Britain lay in her ability to draw men and materiel from across the Empire.

So, while FDR opposed the British Empire in the name of Freedom, Stalin and the Axis powers covetted it in the name of Wealth and Power. And the crown jewel of the empire of course, was India….

He’d need more than that to keep warm in the Gulag…

The key architect of the plan was Reich foreign minster Joachim von Ribbentrop. As maestro of Hitler’s international diplomatic machine, he was one of the most powerful members of the Furher’s inner circle - particularly at the beginning of the war. Focus on the British Empire was early and deep -

From the latter half of 1937, Ribbentrop had championed the idea of an alliance between Germany, Italy and Japan that would partition the British Empire between them. After signing the Soviet-German Non-Aggression Pact, Ribbentrop expanded on this idea for an Axis alliance to include the Soviet Union to form an Eurasian bloc that would destroy maritime states such as Britain.

Ribbentrop served as Hitler’s primary emmissary to the Soviet Union and his diplomatic communique’s back & forth between the Fuhrer & Stalin make for some fascinating, and now public, reading. In 1940 Hitler, confident of victory in the then raging Battle of Britain, via Ribbentrop, promised spoils to his allies if they’d play well together -

After the conquest of England the British Empire would be apportioned as a gigantic world-wide estate in bankruptcy of 40 million square kilometers. In this bankrupt estate there would be for Russia access to the ice-free and really open ocean. Thus far, a minority of 40 million Englishmen had ruled 600 million inhabitants of the British Empire.

Ribbentrop proposed that the Soviets and Japanese slice & dice the British Empire roughly along lines of latitude -

The aspirations of Japan would still have to be clarified through diplomatic channels. Here too, a delimitation could easily be found, possibly by fixing a line which would run south of the Japanese home islands and Manchukuo.

Reich Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop

The focal points in the territorial aspirations of the Soviet Union would presumably be centered south of the territory of the Soviet Union in the direction of the Indian Ocean.

The proposal was accepted and a draft, joint pact dated November 15, 1940 euphemstically hands over a half billion souls who live “in the direction of the Indian Ocean” to the Soviet Union -

Upon the signing today of the Agreement concluded among them, the Representatives of Germany, Italy, Japan and the Soviet Union declare as follows:

1) Germany declares that, apart from the territorial revisions in Europe to be carried out at the conclusion of peace, her territorial aspirations center in the territories of Central Africa.

2) Italy declares that, apart from the territorial revisions in Europe to be carried out at the conclusion of peace, her territorial aspirations center in the territories of Northern and Northeastern Africa.

3) Japan declares that her territorial aspirations center in the area of Eastern Asia to the south of the Island Empire of Japan.

4) The Soviet Union declares that its territorial aspirations center south of the national territory of the Soviet Union in the direction of the Indian Ocean.

The Four Powers declare that, reserving the settlement of specific questions, they will mutually respect these territorial aspirations and will not oppose their achievement.

What a world it would have been….

The Fate of India… Determined in the Skies Above Britain?

Thankfully, history rolled a different way. “The few” brave pilots decisively won the Battle of Britain at a time when England alone stood against the Axis. The sinews of Royal Navy seapower sustained the “maritime order” against attempted blockade. Afterwards, the Japanese prematurely woke the “sleeping giant” by raiding Pearl Harbor in the hope of a Chamberlain-like appeasement from FDR. 2.5M Indians joined the newly invigorated allies to fight the Nazis and the Japanese in both Europe and Asia.

And perhaps most importantly, the deal between scoundrels unravelled as both Stalin & Hitler misjudged each other & underlying, core differences broke through to the surface. For all the grand planning that went into the pact, the beastly nature of the parties involved ultimately tore it to shreds. Stalin, gambling that Hitler wouldn’t start a second front in the war, overreached and tried to grab more of Finland and the Baltics than was initially apportioned by the Pact. Hitler, finding a causus belli in this treachery and not exactly a fan of the Russian/Slavic communist, untermensch to begin with, gambled that the Soviet Union would be “brittle” and fall quickly during a lull in his ambitions for Britain.

The result was the disastrous (for the Reich) Operation Barbarossa just 7 months after the November pact. Barbarossa thrust the Russians deeply into the Allies camp and, almost fittingly, it’s estimated that 70% of *all* Nazi casualties over the course of the war were at the hands of the Red Army. Thus, many argue, the failure of Barbarossa more directly led to the destruction of the Third Reich than the D-day landings at Normandy.

Japan, of course, recognized that open war between Hitler and Stalin meant that Ribbentrop’s pact was in tatters. Given their near total success in routing the British & Americans from the Far East to date, they decided India was up for grabs and were finally stopped at the Battle of Kohima.

What If…. India got the Post-War “Korean” Treatment?

The most intriguing historical “what if” here centers on Ribbentrop. While Hitler was unlikely to ever really adhere to his pact with Stalin…. Ribbentrop provided the Good Cop to Hitler’s Bad Cop and had a keener sense of when diplomacy rather than war could achieve their shared ends.

Ribbentrop considered the Pact with Russia his crowning career achievement and thus fought hard to convince Hitler against Barbarossa and to maintain focus on England & the Empire -

Despite the obvious admiration and subservience with which Ribbentrop regarded Hitler, it should be possible to conclude one thing: prior to BARBAROSSA, Ribbentrop, for multiple reasons, was willing to attempt an un-tracking of Hitler’s ideological drive to Moscow.

…Ribbentrop’s frustrations concerning BARBAROSSA were again reflected in his dictation of the following words to his Secretary of State, Ernst von Weizsacker, on 28 April, 1941:

One can perhaps find it enticing to give the Communist system its death blow and perhaps say too that it lies in the logic of things to let the European- Asiatic continent now march forth against Anglo-Saxondom and its allies. But only one thing is decisive: whether this undertaking would hasten the fall of England … A German attack on Russia would only give a lift to English morale. It would be evaluated there as German doubt of the success of our war against England. We would in this fashion not only admit that the war would still last a long time, but we could in this way actually lengthen instead of shorten it.

He let his feelings be known in unusually frank diplomatic language -

He passed a word to a Russian diplomat: “Please tell Stalin I was against this war, and that I know it will bring great misfortune to Germany.”

Would’ve shown desis colonialism like they’d never seen before…

And thus one of the key turning points in the war may have been avoided. Had Ribbentrop persuaded Hitler, not only would the bulk of the Wehrmacht be available to fight the Brits (and later the Americans) BUT, the Grand Axis could have thrived with the Soviets continuing to contribute their Industrial and Manpower might.

Although Churchill & Roosevelt talked about “unconditional surrender” from the Axis, Ribbentrop bet that faced with these odds, “moderates” amongst the allies would bring them to the negotiating table. This pressure, Ribbentrop hoped, would create a détente where Good Cop / Bad Cop routine could work its magic. The goal? A new series of Grand Power-negotiated territorial partitions like his earlier pact that divided Eastern Europe. In modern terms, this could look a lot like the later creation of China/Taiwan, East/West Germany, North/South Korea, and North/South Vietnam. So perhaps, under pressure, a different partition of India might have created an Axis / Soviet / “land” aligned “North India” and a British / Western / “sea” aligned “South India”?

Of course, this is all speculation and we’ll never know for sure. As one of the top officers of the Reich, good chunks of Ribbentrop’s master plan were left dangling with him on a hangman’s noose in Nuremberg….

vinod at 01:56 PM in History · 15 comment(s) · Direct link

January 03, 2008

FDR’s War for Indian Independence

A good percentage of those who paid attention in High School History class probably remember something called the Yalta conference.

Shaping the World to Come

There, FDR, Churchill, and Stalin dotted the i’s and crossed the t’s of a plan which eventually outlined the shape of the post WWII world - particularly a divided Germany and other large chunks of Europe. Yalta, in many respects, resulted in a parcelling up of European territory between WWII victors not unlike the earlier parcelling up of America, Africa and Asia by colonial powers.

Consequently, and perhaps news to many, “arbitrary” borders dividing ethnic groups aren’t just an African / Asian thing. There are a surprising number of European “ethnics” who span “nations” - Finnish-Swedes, Alsation Germans, Baltic Russians, German Poles, Bosnian Serbs, the entire country of Belgium, etc. — many of which trace their predicament to Yalta and various other treaties, wars, forced migrations, and the like.

While Yalta was clearly significant on many levels, the earlier & lesser known Atlantic Conference should be interesting to mutineers because of the key role it played in Indian history… It was there that FDR made Indian Independence a pre-requisite to American involvement in WWII…

The State Department’s description of the Charter is simple and to the point -

The Atlantic Charter was a joint declaration released by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill on August 14, 1941 following a meeting of the two heads of state in Newfoundland. The Atlantic Charter provided a broad statement of U.S. and British war aims…

“I think I speak as America’s President when I say that America won’t help England in this war simply so that she will be able to continue to ride roughshod over colonial peoples.”
- FDR to Churchill

Wikipedia provides a nice enumeration of the the specific, shared war goals outlined in the charter-

1. No territorial gains were to be sought by the United States or the United Kingdom.
2. Territorial adjustments must be in accord with wishes of the peoples concerned.
3. All peoples had a right to self-determination.
4. Trade barriers were to be lowered.
5. There was to be global economic cooperation and advancement of social welfare.
6. Freedom from want and fear.
7. Freedom of the seas.
8. Disarmament of aggressor nations, postwar common disarmament.
9. Defeat of Germany and other Axis powers.

While the official text of the charter makes no specific statement about India per se, lofty language about self-determination and “territorial adjustments” carried clear implications for the future of the British Empire.

Two thorns in Churchill’s side…

Memoirs from FDR’s son & aide, Elliott Roosevelt provide a fascinating window into just how explicitly these implications were recognized by FDR and Churchill alike -

…’Mr. President,’ [Churchill] cried, ‘I believe you are trying to do away with the British Empire. Every idea you entertain about the structure of the postwar world demonstrates it. But in spite of that’—and his forefinger waved—‘in spite of that, we know that you constitute our only hope. And’—his voice sank dramatically—’{you} know that {we} know it. {You} know that {we} know that without America, the Empire won’t stand.’

Churchill admitted, in that moment, that he knew the peace could only be won according to precepts which the United States of America would lay down.

And FDR had very specific recommendations about what to do with British India back in 1941 -

…‘India should be made a commonwealth at once. After a certain number of years—five perhaps, or ten—she should be able to choose whether she wants to remain in the Empire or have complete independence.

‘As a commonwealth, she would be entitled to a modern form of government, an adequate health and educational standard. But how can she have these things, when Britain is taking all the wealth of her national resources away from her, every year? Every year the Indian people have one thing to look forward to, like death and taxes. Sure as shooting, they have a famine. The season of the famine, they call it.’

I’m a bit more nuanced than the NewDeal-esque explanation for India’s poverty but, nevertheless, the man’s heart & goals are clear. Other accounts provide more color into the discussions - “Roosevelt, as a matter of absolute conviction, was at war with the British Empire.”

`You mentioned India,’ he [Churchill] growled.

`Yes, I [Roosevelt] can’t believe that we can fight a war against fascist slavery, and at the same time not work to free people all over the world from a backward colonial policy.’

Roosevelt was determined to have the British commit themselves now to the principles of the Four Freedoms, knowing that they were incompatible with the continued existence of the Empire.

…The British leadership now knew first hand, if they had only feared or suspected as much before, that Roosevelt, as a matter of absolute conviction, was at war with the British Empire.

He Fought for Indian Independence Too…

And Churchill’s accounts provide a fascinating “reverse camera angle” view -

Writing in 1950, Churchill let down his guard about his true feeling about Roosevelt:

“The President’s mind was back in the American War of Independence and he thought of the Indian problem in terms of thirteen colonies fighting George III at the end of the 18th century…”

Unfortunately, FDR opposed the extant British empire far more than the gathering Soviet one. As a result, at Yalta he relented on Atlantic charter diktats when it came to the fate of Eastern Europe under Stalin after the war. Still, there’s no question that on the India question, FDR’s demands shook British expectations about the post-war fate of the empire to the core.

In later statements during the conflict, Churchill tried to backtrack and assert that the Atlantic Charter did not apply to India…. However, with US entry into the war and the Japanese knocking on India’s door, the die was cast and policy pronouncements from Downing street were very much swimming against the tide of history…

[previous SM coverage on India & WWII - here and here]

vinod at 01:16 PM in History · 88 comment(s) · Direct link

December 19, 2007

The Indian Army in WWII Italy

For many folks, the most widely recognized pop culture image of Desi soldiers in WWII was Naveen Andrews’ portrayal of Kip, the Sikh soldier, in the film version of Michael Ondaatje’s The English Patient. Kip was a combat engineer / bomb removal expert for the British army in Italy and his love affair with Hana, the gorgeous nurse played by Juliet Binoche, formed one of the central plot lines of the movie.

Oh bury me at Cassino
My duty to England is done
And when you get back to Blighty
And you are drinking your whisky and rum
Remember the old Indian soldier
When the war he fought has been won!

-Indian 8th Infantry Division
War Song from the WWII Italian Campaign

When I saw the flick, I recall many a female audience member shuddering at Kip’s “hair scene” - much to my progressively follicle-challenged chagrin…

Still, Ondaatje’s use of Kip in such a significant role is laudable not just because Kip is a strong, attractive & clearly desi male in a leading romantic role but also because it implicitly frames the presence of folks like him as relatively commonplace. I recently stumbled across a fascinating, slick, Indian-produced documentary that goes into much more detail on the “real Kips” who participated in the Allied offensive in Italy. Thanks to the magic of YouTube, it appears the entire documentary is online and available for your viewing pleasure after the fold.

Naveen Makes It Look Easy

The facts, sights, and sounds of the video are an impressive testament to an often overlooked chapter in history. Desi losses in the multi-day assault on the Gustav line, for example, numbered over 1000 - a figure comparable to US losses on D-Day. An Italian countryside scene shows a field of Hindi-inscribed tombstones that hits you in the gut. The UK’s highest military honor, the Victoria Cross, was awarded to its youngest WWII recipient during these battles - 19 yr old Kamal Ram. As is common in these sorts of documentaries, snapshots of soldier’s daily lives provide poignant color - such as the Sikhs making Naan on makeshift ovens. Local Italians, some of whom were barely teenagers at the time, discuss their impressions of these “handsome” soldiers from afar who’ve come to fight for their liberation and attend modern day memorial services to commemorate their sacrifice.

The most powerful scenes, of course, are the interviews from the living veterans themselves. While contemporary folks occasionally see Desi history through a giant “British Colonialism was the Root of All Evil” lens, these veterans were clearly and deservedly proud of their role in “the last Good War”. They’re an apt example of the saying that “support the troops” is supposed to mean respecting them as fighters, rather than pitying them as victims. Amongst them, a place on the front line was an opportunity volunteered for & earned rather than just a place to become “cannon fodder” for the man. The Indian 8th division, having proved itself in Africa, earned Crack status as “the river crossing division” and became the theater’s recognized experts at one of the most difficult combat operations in all war across all time. And through all these things, they left their mark on the world in ways big and small.

So hopefully, while the debate about the significance and meaning of War will remain with us till the end of Time, perhaps we can put aside those contentious words for a bit and respect the warriors & their deeds profiled in the following videos -

Part 1 -

Part 2 -

Part 3 -

Related - Previous SM Coverage of the Battles of Kohima and Imphal

vinod at 04:34 PM in History, Military · 29 comment(s) · Direct link

November 17, 2007

Language-Based States (Guha Chapter 9)

[Part of an ongoing series on Ramachandra Guha’s India After Gandhi. Last week’s entry can be found here. Next week, we will look at Chapter 10, “The Conquest of Nature,” on India’s approach to development and the modernization of agriculture.]

Guha’s Chapter 9, “Redrawing the Map,” is about the early phase in the movement to establish language-based states, with particular emphasis on the south (the creation of Andhra Pradesh out of what was formerly the state of Madras), the status of Bombay vis a vis Maharashtra, and the delineation of Punjab.

As Guha points out, though reorganizing states according to language was part of the Congress plank from the 1930s, after Independence/Partition, both Nehru and Sardar Patel were strongly opposed to rushing into any reorganization of states, especially if there was a danger that such reorganizations could lead to the destabilization of the union. The logic behind this hesitation was understandable and quite sound: if the idea of “India” could be broken along the lines of religion, why not also language?

The first new state to be created along the lines of language was Andhra Pradesh, and this was largely due to the hunger strike of Gandhian activist and Telugu leader Potti Sriramulu, who is another one of those great, largely forgotten (well, forgotten outside of Andhra Pradesh at least) “characters” from post-independence Indian history who probably should be better known than he is:

Sriramulu was born in Madras in 1901, and studied sanitary engineering before taking a job with the railroads. In 1928 he suffered a double tragedy, when his wife died along with their newborn child. Two years later he resigned his position to join the Salt Satyagraha. Later, he spent some time at Gandhi’s Sabarmati ashram. Later still, he spent eighteen months in jail as part of the individual Satyagraha campaign of 1940-41… .

Gandhi did regard Sriramulu with affection but also, it must be said, with a certain exasperation. On 25 November 1946 the disciple had beugn a fast unto death to demand the opening of all temples in Madras province to untouchables. Other congressmen, their minds more focused on the impending freedom of India, urged him to desist… .

Potti Sriramulu had called off that fast of 1946 at Gandhi’s insistence. But in 1952 he Mahatma was dead; and in any case, Andhra meant more to Sriramulu than the untouchables once had. This fast he would carry out till the end, or until the government of India relented.

Potti Sriramulu died of his hunger strike on December 15, 1952. Three days later, Nehru announced that the formation of the state of Andhra out of the eleven Telugu-speaking districts of Madras.

Of course, with Andhra the reorganization was just beginning. Three years later, the national States Reorganization Committee announced a number of other changes. In the south, the job was easy, as there were four clear language regions (Telugu, Kannada, Tamil, and Malayalam) that could be allocated their own states.

In Bombay, the situation was more complicated, as the Marathi-speakers in Bombay comprised a plurality (43%) but not a majority of the city’s residents as of 1955. Moreover, the economically dominant ethnic communities of Bombay — especially Gujaratis — strongly resisted the idea of making Bombay part of a Marathi-speaking state. However, following growing unrest and a series of “language riots” (memorably described in Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children), this merger eventually did happen in 1960, as Bombay was declared the capital of the new state of Maharashtra. (Suketu Mehta’s book, Maximum City, has a lot more on how language and ethnicity politics have evolved in Bombay over the years — warts and all.)

This Guha chapter doesn’t detail how things would play out later in Punjab, where the Sikhs’ early demand for a Punjabi-language state was denied by the States Reorganization Committee in 1955. (Sikhs have always anecdotally blamed this failure on the census of 1951, where Punjabi-speaking Hindus by and large described their primary language as “Hindi,” confusing matters greatly.) When reorganization eventually did occur in Punjab in 1966, it caused lots of other problems, some of which would lead to a resurgent Akali movement, and eventually to the rise of Sikh separatism in the 1970s.

Partly as a result of what happened in Punjab (and we’ll get to that in a few chapters), Guha’s rather easy acceptance the language reorganization movements seems a bit glib to me:

When it began, the movement for linguistic states generated deep apprehensions among the nationalist elite. They feared it would lead to the balkanization of India, to the creation of many more Pakistans. ‘Any attempt at redrawing the map of India on the linguistic basis,’ wrote the Times of India in February 1952, ‘would only give the long awaited opportunity to the reactionary forces to come into the open and assert themselves. That will lay an axe to the very root of India’s integrity.’

In retrospect, however, linguistic reorganization seems rather to have consolidated the unity of India. True, the artifacts that have resulted, such as Bangalore’s Vidhan Souda, are not to everybody’s taste. And there have been some serious conflicts between states over the sharing of river waters. However, on the whole the creation of linguistic states has acted as a largely constructive channel for provincial pride. It has proved quite feasible to be peaceably Kannadiga, or Tamil, or Oriya—as well as contentedly Indian. (207-208)

Guha’s premise that language-based politics works somewhat differently from the politics of religious communalism seems right to me. The latter seems inevitably divisive (and almost always destructive), while the former seems to have had several positive benefits (especially as it has led to support for regional literatures and the arts). And it’s also clear that the reorganization along linguistic lines didn’t lead to what was feared, “the creation of many more Pakistans.”

But isn’t it still true that the language-based politics that led to the creation of new states starting in the 1950s has also led state governments to certain excesses along linguistic/ethnic lines? Two such excesses might include the renaming of Bombay as ‘Mumbai’, and the recent renaming of Bangalore as ‘Bengluru’. I’m also concerned about the language-based “reservations” that exist in some states, favoring the dominant ethno-linguistic community over other ethnic groups (though I admit I am not a specialist on this latter issue). Now that the states have been permanently established, is the perpetuation of language-based politics really that benign?

amardeep at 08:38 AM in History · 97 comment(s) · Direct link

November 08, 2007

Non-Aligned Nehru (Guha Chapter 8)

[Part of an ongoing series on Ramachandra Guha’s India After Gandhi. Last week’s entry can be found here. Next week we will look at Chapter 9, “Redrawing the Boundaries,” on the Language Movements of the 1950s]

With 20-20 hindsight, many people criticize Nehru today for pursuing a foreign policy oriented to “nonalignment” — that is, independence from both the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. Here is one of Nehru’s most famous statements articulating that policy, from a speech given at Columbia University:

“The main objectives of that policy are: the pursuit of peace, not through alignment with any major power or group of powers but through an independent approach to each controversial or disputed issue, the liberation of subject peoples, the maintenance of freedom, both national and individual, the elimination of racial discrimination and the elimination of want, disease and ignorance, which afflict the greater part of the world’s population.”

The idealism in that statement is admirable, and still worth thinking about, even if the world order has changed dramatically since Nehru first uttered these words. The idea of taking an “independent approach to each controversial or disputed issue” is one I personally strive for as a writer, and could serve as a helpful corrective to many partisan ideologues — on both the left and the right — who tend to only see the world through one particular ideological filter or the other.

Ideals aside, Nehru’s government did make some serious mistakes in foreign policy in the first few years. One of the significant failures Guha mentions in this chapter involved an inconsistency in the response to two international crises: 1) Anglo-French military action in response to Egypt’s nationalization of the Suez Canal in 1956 (the Suez Crisis), and 2) the Soviet invasion of Hungary following an anti-Communist uprising, also in 1956 (the Hungarian Revolution). India publicly condemned the first act of aggression by western powers, but not the second, which today seems like a clear indication that India was leaning towards the Soviets more than it let on.

Guha suggests there were some internal differences between Nehru and the famous leftist Krishna Menon, who represented India at the U.N., over the Hungary question. Nehru publicly defended Menon’s abstention at the U.N. on the resolution condemning the Soviet invasion of Hungary, but privately he was deeply upset about the invasion. Part of the problem here might have been Nehru’s lack of clarity over the correct course to take, but certainly Krishna Menon’s independent streak must have been a factor as well.

A similar kind of diplomatic confusion was present in India’s relationship with China starting in 1950. Here, the Indian ambassador to China, K.N. Panikkar (who is also very well-known as a historian), seems to have fatally misread Mao Zedong and the personality of Chinese communism:

In May 1950 Panikkar was granted an interview with Mao Zedong, and came away greatly impressed. Mao’s face, he recalled later, was ‘pleasant and benevolent and the look in his eyes is kindly.’ There ‘is no cruelty or hardness either in his eyes or in the expression of his mouth. In fact he gave me the impression of a philosophical mind, a little dreamy but absolutely sure of itself.’ The Chinese leader had ‘experienced many hardships and endured tremendous sufferings,’ yet ‘his face showed no signs of bitterness, cruelty, or sorrow.’ Mao reminded Panikkar of his own boss, Nehru, for ‘both are men of action with dreamy, idealistic tempera