Category: History

When the Mighty Fall From Grace

The Bard has observed that ‘some rise by sin and some by virtue fall,’ which reminds one of the dizzying rise to fame of our Supreme Leader who, for an interminable decade, has controlled every aspect of our lives.

In Christian belief, mankind’s fall from grace first happened when Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit, precipitating a descent from divine favour to a state of sin and loss of power. In the world we know, the story of humankind has been one about heroes vanquishing villains and the villains periodically turning the tables, in recent times much more frequently.

This disquisition, however, is specifically about famous people who have fallen from grace either because of the skullduggery of associates or their own bungling or due to their own lack of integrity that is found out. The last-named flaw is the most egregious and the most fatal. And the thing about the heroes among the well-known is that they can fall from favour in the blink of an eye. The ignominy can also strike long after they have gone. “The evil that men do lives after them, the good is oft interred with their bones.” That’s the story we tell!

There was a time when the dark secrets of historical figures were hidden from the world. But historical revisionism, which essentially questions received wisdom and the orthodox views on history, has yanked the halo off some of the consecrated icons and shown them up to be humans with feet of clay. Many world-acclaimed heroes have been damaged by the probing lens of the revisionist historian.

No modern hero has suffered a greater fall from grace than John F. Kennedy. He was once the darling of an adoring world. When he fell to an assassin’s bullet in November 1963, the entire world, cutting across ideological barriers, mourned, such was his youthful magnetism and appeal. One vividly remembers a holiday and national mourning being declared and Nehru, our prime minister addressing the nation and expressing the anguish the world felt. The universal adulation was because Kennedy was everyone’s idea of the quintessential hero. His presidency was likened to Camelot, the milieu of idyllic happiness.

As it turned out, the Kennedy cult was a meretricious hoax, squalid to the extreme. Kennedy’s marriage was an unmitigated disaster. His private life was a cauldron of marital infidelity, debauchery and incurable ailments. In the words of the consummate wordsmith, Clive James, “JFK had the sexual energy of a male fiddler crab on a spring night.” He led a most promiscuous life, even suborning his staffers as procurers. Most shocking was the revelation that his Pulitzer Prize-winning book, Profiles in Courage was ghost-written but appropriated to soup up his image when he entered politics.

Then take the case of World War II’s man of the hour, Winston Churchill, who “mobilised the English language and sent it into battle”. Revisionist digging has brought to light the fact that Churchill’s most renowned broadcasts during the war were not delivered by him. Instead, an actor, Norman Shelley was hired to impersonate him, the subterfuge necessitated because Churchill was much too drunk to deliver the speeches himself.

But that’s not all. Over time, his racism, his antipathy to India’s independence and his cruelty have shown him up to be a brutal elitist creature at heart. This is what the renowned actor, Richard Burton had to say about Winston Churchill after his experience of playing the role of the British hero: “I hate Churchill and his kind virulently…What man of sanity would say against the Japanese; ‘We shall wipe them out…men, women and children’. Such cravings for revenge leave me with a horrified awe for such single-minded and merciless ferocity.”

One can trust the Bard to diagnose in a nutshell the essence of fame: “Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon ‘em.” The Sangh Parivar has added another dimension to this truth by manipulating history, resuscitating their chosen dead and thrusting fame on them.

Dangerous characters from the past are being lionised as national heroes by the BJP and Sangh Parivar. In 2003, the portrait of Veer Savarkar – Hindutva ideologue, Muslim-baiter and alleged co-conspirator in the Mahatma’s assassination – was unveiled in Parliament, a recognition bestowed only on national heroes. In recent times though, Savarkar’s many infirmities have been laid bare before the unforgiving public gaze. His grovelling mercy petitions have exposed him for the quisling he was, and Rajnath Singh’s promotion of the fiction that it was at the Mahatma’s prodding that he wrote those cringing, ingratiating petitions, has no takers. Also dredged up is Savarkar’s subterfuge of arranging for the publication of books eulogising himself – the ultimate in chicanery.

In a tit-for-tat response to the defiling of Savarkar, the BJP’s IT head, who specialises in hitting below the belt, put out on social media a collage of pictures of Nehru in the company of various women with the intent of portraying him as a debauch. Among the photographs is one of Nehru hugging his sister Vijayalakshmi Pandit, a dead giveaway that truly reflected the sordid mind of the muckraker but in today’s fractious environment, his obnoxious smear has takers.

Mercifully for them, these deeply flawed heroes got exposed for the humbugs they were only posthumously and hence, escaped public ignominy in their lifetime. But what of those flawed champions of the world who have literally been ‘caught in the act’ at the height of their stardom?

As a once fanatical cricket enthusiast, we were heart-broken when our two sporting heroes – the supremely gifted and charismatic Mohammad Azharuddin and Hanse Cronje – at the height of their careers, came crashing down in 2000, implicated in a match-fixing racket that abruptly turned them from sporting icons to international pariahs. We closely followed every scrap of news on the scandal, including the King Commission proceedings, grieving all along with my fallen heroes and praying for some form of redemption, which never came. We were shattered when Cronje died in an air crash in 2002.

Yes, the fall from grace of a hero can seriously impact the devotees. But not all well-known people evoke such an empathetic, non-judgemental response when they ‘bite the dust’ as it were. To give a recent example, the moralising, self-righteous Chief Justice of India has earned eternal infamy for his prayer rendezvous with the PM and his proclaimed interactive session with the Almighty that influenced arguably the most iniquitous verdict in our history of jurisprudence. In his watch, the Supreme Court has, for the most part, become a covert, iniquitous adjunct of the political executive. In his last days in office, he is being stoned and no tears are shed.

Even nations can fall from grace. Ours certainly has! The land of the Mahatma, who deeply influenced the thinking of Martin Luther King and Mandela with his message of non-violence and truth, is today a dubious, untrustworthy entity where there is neither democracy nor equality or justice. And we are now international pariahs, bracketed with rogue states like Russia and North Korea, for breaching the sovereignty of nations and being complicit in murder-for-hire, extortion and intimidation. The Canadian authorities have named our home minister as the kingpin in this revolting underworld enterprise.

The Bard – yes, him again of the timeless wisdom – has observed that “some rise by sin and some by virtue fall.” Which reminds one of the dizzying rise to fame of our Supreme Leader who, for an interminable decade, has controlled every aspect of our lives by weaponising the state apparatus, the judiciary and his mob of adoring bhakts. And he has, inter alia, used that power to ensure that the myriad skeletons in his cupboard remain hidden from sight.

When will the world get to know the complete story behind the Haren Pandya murder, the Sohrabuddin encounter, Snoopgate, Judge Loya’s mysterious death, the prime minister’s dodgy academic credentials, the China blackmail that Subramanian Swamy keeps harping on, the Pulwama tragedy, the Pegasus, Rafale and electoral bond scandals et al.? His reputation hangs by the proverbial thread.

It’s sad that investigative journalism is dead but be sure that at some point in the future, the excavators of history will prise open the truth behind the Modi myth. And when that happens, it will be a mighty fall indeed.

Mathew John is a former civil servant. Annie Mathew teaches history.

1984: That Which We Cannot Name

We need to confront the violence that was visited on the Sikhs, and to name it. We need figures and data on how many people were affected.

Today, October 31, is the 40-year anniversary of the assassination of Indira Gandhi, then the prime minister of India, and the subsequent massacre of Sikhs in various parts of India. 

Anniversaries can be difficult affairs. Forty years on from 1984 – the date itself is shorthand for the trauma of an entire community that needs no explanation – we live with the continuing betrayal of the thousands of Sikhs who lost everything in the orgy of violence that followed Indira Gandhi’s assassination at the hands of her Sikh bodyguards, two men tasked with protecting, not killing her.

Yet, one betrayal does not justify another. 

In the words of the only prime minister to have attempted any sort of apology for the violence that overtook the Sikh community in large swathes of north India, particularly Delhi, “what took place in 1984 is the negation of the concept of nationhood enshrined in our constitution.” Note that even Dr Manmohan Singh, who we now know was threatened by the same mob dynamics that obliterated so many lives, was not able to put a label on “what took place in 1984”: 40 years on we are yet to agree on whether the brutal violence directed at Sikhs was a massacre, a pogrom, or an attempt at genocide. (Whatever it was, it was not a riot, which implies two sides clashing.)

How can you properly apologise for that which you cannot name? 

Of course, October brings with it two anniversaries. 

One, a defined act of violence and betrayal, bound in time and space to the moment when Indira Gandhi was gunned down at close range by her two bodyguards at her residence on the morning of October 31, 1984.

The second act of violence and betrayal started when she was declared dead. It radiated from her residence to parts of Delhi most susceptible to communal mob dynamics, and from there, to some other states. (To some states, but not all.) Starting with ‘khoon ka badla khoon (avenge blood with blood)’, it swept through localities. Sikhs were hunted down – the men and boys pulled out of their homes and killed, often after being doused with kerosine and then set alight in front of their remaining family. Homes were looted and then burnt down. Sikh businesses were targeted, sometimes in busy markets where adjoining establishments were not touched because they did not belong to Sikhs. Gurudwaras and schools were attacked. And all the while, the organs of state that were meant to protect the citizens of India stood by idly, or worse. Khoon ka badla khoon.

In the absence of definite figures, we do not even know for certain how much blood was spilled just after October 31. There is no definite data on the victims, no redressal or compensation, and vitally, no justice in the form of punishment of those who killed, maimed, raped, looted, incited and facilitated. This act of violence and betrayal has no end point or closure.

Sikhs as a whole are not given to public lamentations and demonstrations of victimhood. It should not need repeating that many of this community lost everything when their homeland was divided in 1947. They rebuilt their lives, letting go of the past in the tacit understanding that their future lay in secular India. Thirty-seven years later – and after almost a decade of tumultuous politics in Punjab that exploited that very loss of heritage and home – many found that their faith in the state had been naïve. Silence on these matters is not indifference or amnesia.  

If I needed any reminding, it was provided last month, on the death anniversary of my grandfather. As in recent years, his children and grandchildren remembered him on a family WhatsApp group. It was all fairly normal – our usual reaching out in memory of someone who died far too young, in 1983. Until my aunt typed, ‘Thankfully [he] didn’t have to live through the carnage of the Sikhs in 1984.’  

1984, the date that says it all.  

It was as if a dam had been breached in our collective memories. The stories are painful, and sadly, all too common – we have heard many versions of them. These happened to my family, and the smell of fear came through my screen 40 years later. We knew then, as we know now that the violence was not some spontaneous outpouring of grief that turned violent. It was targeted. That much was clear even by mid-November when the People’s Union for Civil Liberties and the People’s Union for Democratic Rights published the conclusions of their fact-finding missions that examined the violence between November 1 and 10 in a slim pamphlet titled Who are the Guilty. Four decades later, it still makes for devastating reading.

And of course, the violence did not end in November. The fires spread to Punjab and continued to spark and smoulder for another decade. We are arguably still witnessing the fallout of those funeral pyres as suggested by developments in relations with Canada. And while Punjab burnt, every Sikh man was a potential terrorist. Checkpoints, airport check-ins, trains, any public place: if you wore a turban, or were with someone wearing a turban, these places were to be navigated with care.

1984 was not an event: it is an open, suppurating wound. This wound will continue to fester as long as justice is not delivered to the victims. We are well past apologies now. Qualified apologies have been delivered, but without concrete action they remain empty words. Inquiries, eye witness accounts, testimonies, NGO reports and others provide a wealth of evidence to start the wheels of justice rolling – if there is the political will to seek meaningful justice. Testimony from the survivors have named locals, corporators, councillors, MPs, police, bureaucrats and ministers. And yet the Indian state has displayed a strange reticence in following the testimony to its logical conclusion. In the interim, governments have changed at the centre and in the affected states. And yet, even those who were in opposition when the killings took place now appear to show an indifference to the suffering that they decried at the time. Is it because it is politically expedient to keep those wounds fresh, to pick at them, come election time?

If this anniversary is to mean anything other than shame, it is time for concrete action. There has been 40 years of obfuscation, indifference, and then, to add insult to injury, exhortations to move on. Can we really expect the women of the ‘widow’s colony’ (its very existence should be an affront to our nation) to move on when their past, present and future went up in diesel-fed flames four decades ago, and when, in those four decades, nothing has been done to address their immeasurable loss? These are women whose male family members were claimed by the mob. Records from the time indicate that those seeking shelter in Tilak Vihar in 1984 were families of women with young children. There was not a single boy over 10. There was not a single earning male left, and any means of livelihood was probably reduced to ashes – that is, if they could bear to return to the place where their neighbours had turned on them. The women of Tilak Vihar are still waiting for justice. And it seems we are comfortable ignoring their grief. 

We need to acknowledge what happened in October and November 1984. We need to confront the violence that was visited on the Sikhs, and to name it. We need figures and data on how many people were affected. The fact that we do not have any definite data on those killed or injured, on properties and possessions burnt or looted, on citizens displaced, helps our collective inability to name the violence. We have elided the nature of the violence by hiding behind generalities and estimates.  

We also need to take a hard look at how the violence spread so quickly. Yes, of course, it was sponsored and encouraged, and the diesel that fed the flames came from somewhere, as did the buses that brought in mobs, or the rods and crude weapons that were handed out. But, people do not wake up one morning deciding to turn on their neighbours. The seeds of communal hatred had been cultivated while insurgency and secessionism grew in Punjab, culminating in Operation Bluestar. Once a community is painted as a problem, once their loyalties to the state are questioned, even briefly, it takes very little for communal flames to roar into life. 

The beast of communalism lurks within us still. It was nourished in the butchery of 1947, and fed again in 1983, 2002, 2008, 2013, 2020. It lies in wait for the next spark. It is time to confront the beast. The pogrom of 1984 would be a good place to start. 

Priyanjali Malik is an independent researcher.

Scholar Alleges BBC Plagiarised Her Seminal Work on Bengal Famine in Podcast; Erased Churchill’s Role

‘I submit that this erasure is systematic and deliberate. By reproducing only those of my findings that have made it into the popular press, and dealing with them in a cursory way, the BBC seeks to change the narrative around the Bengal famine.’

New Delhi: Scholar Madhusree Mukerjee has written an open letter to the BBC, in protest against what she alleges is the extensive and unacknowledged use of research detailed in her book in the outlet’s famed podcast series on the Bengal famine.

Mukherjee’s book Churchill’s Secret War: The British Empire and the Ravaging of India during World War II came out in 2010 and is largely credited with reviving conversation around former United Kingdom prime minister Winston Churchill’s role in creating and sustaining the Bengal famine of 1943, which killed an estimated three million people.

Mukherjee has alleged that the BBC’s acclaimed podcast Three Million at once rips off her book and also erases the central role played by Churchill. Mukherjee says that this is a deliberate erasure, meant to alter the narrative around the famine.

Mukherjee’s open letter carries a denial by BBC. The Wire wrote to the BBC on the allegations and received a response on October 31. A BBC spokesperson said: “As we have made clear to Dr Mukherjee in our earlier correspondence with her, we reject the claims she is making.”

The BBC said that its research was conducted over a year across the world and that Churchill was covered in the podcast.

“BBC documentary series Three Million explores the devastating impact of the Bengal famine of 1943, which saw at least three million lives lost in British India during the Second World War. The aim of the series was to focus on the lived experiences of the people directly affected by the famine and those who were eyewitnesses. The team spent over a year researching the story, drawing on a wide range of academic books, primary sources and conducting their own archival research across the world, as well as working with historical consultants and interviewing a broad range of academics.”

“We cannot talk about this historical event without mentioning Churchill – and we do cover his role throughout the series as well as the criticisms levelled against him.”

The seven-episode podcast aired from March to August this year.

Mukherjee’s original letter notes that despite BBC’s claim that its team conducted its own extensive research, their research included reviewing some sources which she discovered as relevant to the famine.

In a detailed episode-wise argument presented after her open letter, Mukherjee also highlights how some claims made by the BBC – some to do with offering hitherto un-presented information in the podcast – are false because of prior Bengali reporting by the BBC itself.

Several noteworthy scholars and journalists have noted that they are in solidarity with Mukherjee, including journalists P. Sainath and Sukumar Muralidharan, author and activist Silvia Federici, MP and author Shashi Tharoor, Cambridge professor Priyamvada Gopal, filmmakers Nilita Vachani, Diego D’Innocenzo and Partho Bhattacharya, physicists Vandana Singh and Rahul Mahajan, ecologist Debal Deb, Ghosh Literary founder Anna Ghosh, author John Horgan, former BBC World Service head Nazes Afroz, author Romi Mahajan, researcher Raghav Kaushik, professors Sipra Mukherjee and Anirban Bandopadhyay, mathematician Seema Nanda, anthropologist Felix Padel and lawyer Sarmila Bose.

The Wire is producing the whole letter and Mukherjee’s detailed comments below. Her original emphases have been retained.

§

An Open Letter to the BBC

I am writing to protest the extensive and unacknowledged use of the research and findings detailed in my book, Churchill’s Secret War (2010), in your acclaimed podcast series, Three Million.

In this book, which I will henceforth call CSW, I charged Prime Minister Winston Churchill with significant responsibility for the death toll of at least 3 million people in the Bengal famine of 1943. Expecting to be attacked by his defenders, I painstakingly documented my findings so that they could be easily verified. What I did not expect was that my meticulousness would enable my findings to be selectively reproduced and discussed while eliminating me and CSW from the discourse—and that too by the BBC.

When I sent an official complaint to BBC about the unacknowledged use of my work in Three Million, I received a denial: “We disagree that we relied heavily on your book. The team spent months researching the story, drawing on a wide range of academic books, primary sources and conducting their own archival research around the world.” This research included reviewing some of the sources I discovered as relevant to the famine, such as the diaries of Secretary of State for India, Leo Amery.

Author Yasmin Nair describes as “extractivist plagiarism” the “plundering of another’s work by going so far as to chase down their very same sources and presenting a provocative thesis as one’s own.” In this case, I charge, BBC has chased down a few of my sources, but altered my thesis to one more amenable to the powers the broadcaster answers to.

“We can’t talk about this historical event without mentioning Churchill,” the BBC also wrote back to me, inadvertently acknowledging the central importance of CSW to discussions about the Bengal famine. Why then refuse to mention the book that established the connection between Churchill and the famine?

I submit that this erasure is systematic and deliberate. By reproducing only those of my findings that have made it into the popular press, and dealing with them in a cursory way, the BBC seeks to change the narrative around the Bengal famine.

Since CSW was published, I have been repeatedly approached by BBC producers who wanted to feature my work in a standalone documentary or a series. They invariably wrote back weeks or months later, saying that more senior officials or producers had decided against including my book or my voice. This happened as recently as April 2023, when a producer wrote back: “I can no longer go further with exploring this with yourself. I hope you understand. It is a decision that is out of my hands.” These communications, as well as the elimination from your podcast of any mention of CSW, suggest that the book has been blacklisted by sections of the BBC.

In effect, the Three Million podcast series focuses negative attention away from Churchill onto lesser actors like Bengal Governor John Herbert, the topic of Episode 6. (The episode blames Herbert for the “denial policy” and fails to mention that the original scorched-earth order, for which denial policy is a euphemism, came from Churchill and was relayed to India by Amery. See CSW pages 63-64.) Further, by refusing to name CSW even while selectively reproducing its findings, BBC ensures that listeners don’t get the opportunity to read and understand the full, detailed and devastating case against Churchill and, more broadly, against British imperialism in India.

“Are we ready to touch those bits of our history that are too painful to acknowledge?” presenter Kavitha Puri asks in Episode 4 of Three Million. The linguistic gymnastics required to avoid mentioning CSW (see below) even while using so much material from the book makes it clear that the BBC may be able to “touch” some painful aspects of British imperialism, but it is still unready to empower its audience to explore the full story of Churchill’s and the Empire’s culpability.

I list below the statements in the first four episodes of Three Million that draw upon my original research and findings, as well as the statements that are partial and misleading. The page numbers below refer to the US paperback edition, published in 2011. Statements made in the podcast are in blue, with particularly significant sections noted in boldface. My comments are in black.

Sincerely,

Madhusree Mukerjee

§

Introduction

“It’s been called one of the darkest chapters in modern British history and the debate quickly veers in on the wartime prime minister Winston Churchill, blaming or defending him.”

CSW is the original source of this debate.

“There is no voice of the three million people.  This is the story of the Bengal famine told for the first time by those who were there.”

This is false.  I found and interviewed several famine survivors and witnesses, whose stories were recounted in CSW. I wasn’t the first, either. I was inspired to look for survivors by the 1997 documentary The Forgotten Famine, directed by Mark Halliley, which had remarkable filmed testimonies from famine survivors. These testimonies were collected by Nazes Afroz, whose own 8-part series on the Bengal famine was broadcast on BBC Bangla in August-September 1997. The BBC Bangla series contained eyewitness accounts of the scorched-earth policy and interviews with civil servants. Michael Portillo’s episode on Bengal Famine, as part of his BBC 4 series, Things We Forgot to Remember, was broadcast in January 2008, using Afroz’s recordings. There were also survivor and witness testimonies in the 2018 documentary Bengal Shadows. Among others, this film featured an interview with Chitto Samonto, a famine survivor and freedom fighter who is a key protagonist in CSW.

Episode 1

The sequence of events listed in the podcast as leading up to the famine follows the narrative laid out in CSW. All the factors noted in the podcast as contributing to the famine were described in CSW in detail, some of them for the first time ever.

India reluctantly pulled into the war

Indian political leaders were furious at being dragged into the conflict

See CSW pages 7-8

Japanese getting closer to Bengal

War transformed the city… soldiers on the streets

Bengal exporting rice in record amounts

Export of rice from Bengal was something CSW noted for the first time. See page 129.

“By the second world war, the British Raj was in its twilight years. Calls for Indian independence were louder than ever. Bengal had long been a crucible of anticolonial activity, but now its streets were full of soldiers in a war no one had asked to be part of. Allied troops had started arriving in large numbers once Singapore and major military strongholds were taken by the Japanese in 1942.”

CSW was the first to connect the famine with repression of “anticolonial activity,” a.k.a., the Indian freedom movement. See pages 22-30, among others.

The rice supply from Burma… came to an abrupt stop.

The colonial government was printing money to pay for all the resources, issuing sterling IOUs to be paid after the war.

The fall of Burma meant that the Japanese were on the border of India. Colonial authorities ordered the seizure of surplus food and transport from villages across the delta. It was known as the denial policy and the aim was to ensure that if Japan invaded it couldn’t access food.

CSW described all these factors in detail. It also showed that the scorched-earth orders, for which “denial policy” is an imperial euphemism, originated with Churchill and were conveyed by Amery to the Viceroy of India, Linlithgow. See page 63-64.

“Without these tens of thousands of vessels, fishermen couldn’t go to sea, farmers weren’t able to go upstream to their plots, and artisans weren’t able to get their goods to the market.”

Note the similarity of this text to “Boats took traders to the market, fishers to the sea, potters to their clay pits, and farmers to their plots.” CSW Page 65.

Soldiers and wartime workers putting pressure on food resources.

The war was already driving up the price of rice. After denial it spiraled even higher.

“There were as many colonial soldiers policing the restive Indian population as were fighting the Japanese.

CSW was the first to link the famine with British repression of India’s freedom struggle during WWII.

“For the British, keeping a tight grip on India, its food, its transport, and its people was vital for controlling its empire and winning the war.”

This was a key theme in CSW. See page 102, for example.

Cyclone, rice destroyed, crop disease.

See CSW pages 89-90.

“Viceroy Linlithgow sounded the alarm with London and asked for urgent grain imports. Britain’s War Cabinet was busy with the Allied invasion of North Africa. Some food was sent to other parts of India, but not to Bengal. In fact, it was asked to export even more rice for the war effort.”

CSW was the first to discuss these requests for food. See page 103.

It was Churchill who refused to authorize the shipping ministry to send grain to India. It was also Churchill who insisted on Bengal continuing to export rice even as it faced severe shortages, as Three Million does not note.

Episode 2

This section continues to follow the narrative first described in CSW.

Hundreds of thousands of troops had to be fed… fixed prices removed.

CSW showed that the fixed prices for rice were lifted when colonial authorities panicked over their inability to feed soldiers. The reason was that Churchill had removed most of the shipping from the Indian Ocean, so that the imports of wheat that India needed to feed the army could not be sent. The lifting of price controls precipitated famine. See CSW 94-97, 110-112.

“By early 1943, the Viceroy, the most important colonial figure in British India, was worried. He wrote to London, saying, a rice crisis was coming and asked for imports to stave it off. The request was rejected. Ships, they said, were needed for the war effort to keep up Britain’s food reserves. Prime Minister Winston Churchill wrote in a memo a few days later, “Indians must learn to look after themselves as we have done. The grave situation of the UK import program imperils the whole war effort and we cannot afford to send ships merely as a gesture of goodwill.’”

This entire section, including the quote, was originally described in CSW page 103.

“India was producing the majority of goods and weapons for the Asian front… but for now sending more food to Indians who were British subjects was far from a priority.”

This section is to be found in CSW pages 45-46.

“In Delhi, Viceroy Linlithgow was increasingly concerned. He once again asked London for imports of half a million tons of grain, noting that famine conditions had begun to appear in Bengal and it could threaten the war effort. In early August, the war cabinet, who were about to engage in a major offensive in Italy, said it may be able to deliver 150,000 tons. The Viceroy was dismayed, writing, ‘I cannot be responsible for the stability of India now.’ And that stability was coming under greater threat. The immense suffering in Bengal was fueling the independence movement, the last thing the British wanted in the middle of the war.”

This section summarizes pages 138-142 of CSW. I discovered the War Cabinet’s discussions on the Bengal famine and detailed the one on August 4, 1943, as well as two others.

“Winston Churchill had vowed never to seek the disintegration of the Empire but the famine was now hastening the end of British rule.”

Again, this is a key message of CSW. See, for example, pages 129-130.

Episode 4

“Everything was subordinated to the necessities of the war… . Fighting the war and keeping the Japanese out, he said, took priority over feeding the hungry masses. “

See CSW page 192.

“While relief efforts struggled in Bengal, the quest for more help from London were still not being fully heeded. By autumn 1943, the world knew about the extent of famine in Bengal, but the war cabinet, chaired by Winston Churchill, had promised only fractions of the aid asked for, saying, there was not enough of shipping space because of the war. The Secretary of State of India, Leo Amery, recorded in his diary in September, ‘Churchill was prepared to admit that something should be done, but very strong on the point that Indians were not the only people starving in the war.’ Amery goes on: Churchill thought that ‘starvation of anyhow underfed Bengalis is less serious than sturdy Greeks.’ ” 

This entire section, including the quotes from the Amery diaries, draws from my original and exhaustive research. See CSW page 196.

[Voice of historian Max Hastings]: “‘Even a historian such as me is sometimes shocked by some of the phrases that Churchill used in those days.’ This question matters. It’s at the heart of accusations leveled against Churchill that his attitudes to Indians affected his response to the famine. Time and time again there were requests for food imports, which were either denied or only met by promises of a fraction of the total amount. “

The podcast brings up these “accusations” without a hint of where they came from and where the full, devastating indictment can be found.

“A few days later, the Secretary of State for India, Leo Amery, asked for more food imports. Noting in his diary, he said Churchill broke into ‘a preliminary flourish on Indians breeding like rabbits.’ His requests for immediate imports were denied.”

Again, this is a summary of a longer account in CSW, along with the quotes I found and published for the first time. See CSW page 205.

The rice harvest came at the end of 1943. This time it was plentiful. Even so, Wavell was concerned about second famine. He demanded over a million tons of food grains. 

See CSW page 220

Only in April 1944 did Churchill ask for help from America. Churchill wrote to US president Roosevelt, asking for assistance. But they declined: they needed their ships for the D-Day landing.

See CSW page 230

In Churchill’s six-volume autobiography of his wartime premiership, the Bengal famine, which occupied many war cabinet discussions, is absent.

See CSW page 265.

Note: This article was updated with the BBC’s response on November 1, 2024.

Night and Law: A Tumultuous History

The night may empower the authorities by making them more vigilant, but it can also ‘weaken’ the rule of law by making them exercise summary power.

This is the fourth article in the series ‘Law and Justice: A Journey through History’. Read the first, second and third articles.

The rule of law is the bedrock of any modern society. It ensures the equality of all before the law. Through notions of justice, punitive mechanisms and multiple avenues of enforcement, law shapes social relationships and also in turn gets reconstituted and challenged by actors and contexts. In these moments law takes on another attribute – that of virtue. As we explore the troubled relationship between law, justice and society in the following essays, we will note how law struggles to negotiate a delicate balance between its punitive trait and as a messiah for justice. The essays in this series will uncover some fascinating aspects of law by turning to the archives of law. This will help uncover the commonalities between history, legal history, and socio- legal studies and also foster greater dialogue between historians and lawyers in South Asia. The essays for this special series will be curated by Nitin Sinha (Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient, ZMO Berlin), Sukhalata Sen (Former Assistant Professor, National Law School of India University, Bengaluru) and Vidhya Raveendranathan (Centre for Modern Indian Studies, University of Göttingen).

I. Historical vignettes of night

Historical accounts suggest that in the second half of the 18th century in Calcutta, the following things could have happened, simultaneously or otherwise, in one night.

English sahibs and memsahibs went out in the evening until late in the night, either to a theatre or to a ball, or to a private social gathering. They dined, danced and drank imported madeira wine.

Some of their servants such as the khidmutgar, the hookahbardar and the punkah bearer accompanied them inside the building; others, such as a set of palanquin bearers numbering around eight to 12, or coach drivers with syces, waited outside, smoking their own hookahs.

Washed in lumba pealas of laal sharab, that is, the long glasses of red wine as servants joked behind their backs, the masters and mistresses were carried home by these bearers and coach drivers, where the half-asleep durwan or chowkidar (gatekeepers) let them in.

Most likely, the same khidmutgar or the head bearer then helped the sahib slip into the night dress; the ayah did the same to her memsahib.

The merriment of the masters and mistresses was work time for some servants. Certain tasks required long spells of waiting either at home, or in the dark by the light of the mashaal, the torch, or just under the moonlight. The night was not the same for all: it was pleasure for some and a burden for others.

‘Palankeen Bearers’ (1828) by John Gantz.

The same evening and the night, a group of international seamen may have roamed around the streets of Calcutta. They visited taverns and punch houses and got drunk. They sought the services of prostitutes. They forcefully made their way into the huts of ordinary men and women. They picked up fights with them on flimsy grounds and beat them badly. They not only broke the law but became one of the prime reasons for instituting the law to govern the night.

The crimes committed in the night were of multiple types. Some of these cases were reported in courts and to the police. One of the not-so-infrequent complaints to a local court in Calcutta was of break-ins during the night.

In 1766, Kistnou was ordered the punishment of 12 rattan lashes for “making a disturbance in plaintiff’s [Bechou] house in the night time”. Gowee was ordered five rattan lashes for “getting drunk and entering plaintiff’s [Sabou] house in night time”.

Gowee was drunk when he committed the crime. The same night a motley of Indian working groups, European fugitives, ex-slaves and many more colourful characters who lived under the shadow of law and were often labelled ‘unlawful’, were also likely to get together in any arrack or taari shop.

Arrack presented a classic conundrum to the colonial state: it was a source of revenue on the one hand and a cause of concern on the other. European sailors and military men getting drunk deflated the British claims of bringing moral enlightenment to India. The drunkenness of Europeans in barracks and cantonments provided business and employment opportunities of organising delivery and supplies to some but a strong headache to the state. The drunkenness of Indians confirmed to state authorities their moral depravity and necessity of regulation.

The combination of alcohol and night brought diverse types of people together. Servants, lascars, mistries, coolies, petty shop owners and many more regularly met up in these places. They exchanged stolen commodities such as watches, silver cutleries, jewelleries and other objects of value. They brought these valuables to various smiths to get them molten. They sold them in pawn shops and to moneylenders.

The night in which masters and mistresses went out, servants waited, and arrack shops, taverns and punch houses remained active was still not over. There were others who conspired to break into the house of a banian or a merchant or any other well-to-do person in Calcutta.

For the police of the city, mostly domestic servants were involved in this act. For Indian elites, this was the work of chowkidars. With irony, they mentioned that those who were entrusted with ensuring the safety of their lives and property were the ones who were robbing them of their peaceful sleep.

Some of these robberies did involve long planning. From October 4 to 12 in 1791, on each of the stormy nights in this duration, a hole was craftily dug in the ground through the wall of a house to commit one of the most daring robberies in the house of a north Indian merchant who was on a visit to Calcutta.

II. Securing the night

It is no surprise that one of the first correspondences on the setting up of the police force in Calcutta in 1772 mentioned the unprecedented level of “infestations and robberies in the night time”. Safety at night became the yardstick for the success of law.

One of the proposed measures was to “send orders to all the Captains of the Europe Ships to use their Endeavors to prevent their Seamen from walking the Streets after 10.0 clock at night.” The “stragglers” found on the streets after 10 pm were “to be taken up & confined”.

An elaborate plan of night patrolling using the hierarchy of the police force was designed. The paiks (akin to constables) patrolling the streets at night were instructed to “seize all robbers, thieves, drunken persons and the disturbers of the peace” and to detain them in custody till the morning.

The timings of the court were adapted for this purpose. In Calcutta, the Justices of the Peace worked in two shifts: from 10 am to 2 pm, and then from 7 pm until 9 pm. The second shift was purposely designed to allow complaints to be brought in for the alleged crime committed after the darkness had set in.

The first police ordinance of Calcutta which was implemented in 1778 allowed the superintendent to apprehend all “Night Walkers”. It also empowered the police to force shopkeepers, especially silver and goldsmiths, to maintain a book of all sales and purchases with names of persons recorded. The sources that made the night unsafe – seamen, valuable stuffs, arrack – were also objects of control.

The night was the time when objects moved with people. Night had its own network. Its regulation, perceived through crime, became the question of law. The combination of night, arrack and valuable objects hardened the idea of crime on the one hand and reinforced the need for stricter regulation on the other.

In spite of the prohibitions, arrack was brought into Calcutta from the neighbouring river towns of Chinsura, Chandernagore and Serampore, and from as far away as Batavia.

The Chitpore road in Calcutta (published 1867). Photo: William Simpson/Wikimedia Commons. Public domain.

At night, it was brought in along the Chitpore road in Calcutta, which was the main road connecting the northern ‘native’ and southern European quarters. With the help of lower Company office subordinates, such as Portuguese writers and Indian sircars, the number of arrack retail shops increased, before the government attempted to reduce it from 96 to 44 in 1773.

In 1783, the commissioners of police decided to let only 30 licensed shops sell spirituous liquor. The shops had to close at 8 pm. Ten years later, the situation remained unchanged. The magistrates lamented the “unrestrained sale of spirituous liquor”. Throughout the late 18th century, its consumption was blamed for making the night and the city unsafe.

It was not only the British who complained of the increasing crime in the city. The Indian elites, through multiple petitions, also protested against their nights becoming “long without sleeping and days becoming severe and troublesome” due to frequent felony, robbery and murder. Even after putting measures in place, the night remained a dilemma for the grasp of the law.

III. Predicaments of law

Night was a socially and economically differentiated entity in which some had fun while others performed tasks. It was a duration in which some slept because others kept a watch. And not least, it transformed into a space of darkness because law and crime played hide and seek. It instigated the need for the rule of law and at the same time destabilised the principles of the rule of law.

One of the most important formal definitions of the rule of law is that within it, the conduct of power is non-arbitrary and non-discriminatory. 

The rule of law has both political and legal dimensions. It is political because it intervenes between the ruler and the ruled. The mode of intervention will be based upon procedures which both the ruler and the ruled would subscribe to. This is the legal dimension of the rule of law, which is of procedural nature.

A breach of law is punishable, but the breach ought to be established and proved in a court of law. The procedures to do so should be based upon certainty, stability and predictability on how the punitive power of the law will be used.

In the 18th century, law became king. This signalled a conceptual change in the notion of sovereignty and the relationship between the state and citizens.

There are English and European variants to this philosophy of the rule of law. As philosophers of law maintain, the fundamental difference between rule of law (the English course) and rule by law (the European view) is that in the latter, while maintaining a commitment to political liberty, the state uses the law as an instrument of rule. In the former, individual liberty is key; therefore both individuals and the state are subject to law.

In the 18th century, when the rule of law was becoming the most distinctive idea of its time, the history of this period suggests that security of property and security of the life of the person were the two main tasks expected of it.

Nonetheless, one can add that both property and the life of the person, due to historical reasons, were most vulnerable during the night time. Thus, securing the night was one of the biggest tasks and challenges of the ideology of the rule of law.

In 18th-century India, colonial rule set a contrast between its ideological claim and that of its predecessor. Mughal rule allegedly became a rule of tyranny based upon the whims of kings rather than that of the process of law. The claim to establish the rule of law was inherent to the nature of colonial sovereignty. This was meant to be a new beginning with a new orientation towards law.

In the last three decades of the 18th century, various laws and rules were made as part of the procedure to establish the rule of law. Police ordinances curbing certain types of nocturnal meetings and movements were part of this.

However, as being inherently a political project, the rule of law was nested in the politics of racial favouritism and impunity on the one hand and of structures of class and caste hegemony on the other.

It was made up of the ideal of ‘law is king’ (Thomas Paine’s words), but was hedged by the power of the executive that strived to have a free hand above the law. It was the most prominent tool to establish difference from the previous regime, but was masked by claims of inability to do so by blaming Indian subordinates for corrupting the course of law. It believed in adhering to all norms of accountability, but was defined by the widespread practice of delivering summary justice.

One of the prominent lower courts of Calcutta in which an Englishman presided over all civil and criminal matters related to Indians practised summary justice. Similarly, the institution of the police which came up in Calcutta in 1772 remained an illegal entity until 1793 because it exercised unsanctioned summary power that questioned the premises of the rule of law.

Nights kept the law awake. As the territories of control expanded, the colonial state devised plans to patrol various forms of spaces, mobilities and modes of communication through the night. The rule of law needed to control the alleged lawlessness of the night. Without securing the night, the ideal of the rule of law could not be materialised.

The control of night was possible by controlling four things: 1. Recalcitrant spaces such as taverns and arrack shops; 2. Mobilities that were perceived dangerous; 3. Individuals and groups that were regarded as most susceptible to commit crime in the night; 4. Valuable objects and their networks of exchange.

Also read: India’s Troubled Relationship with Law, Authority, and Justice

However, the traffic between the law and the night was not of one-sided nature. If the law tried to control the night for establishing itself as the most hegemonic power governing social relationships, then the night also fought back to tarnish the functioning of the rule of law.

One of the most troubling aspects of this history of the relationship between law and night was the widespread use of summary power by the police and the lower courts that turned the rule of law upside down. Or another way of describing it would be that it was the night that propelled a widespread use of summary justice that although popularised the functioning of the authority weakened the principles of the rule of law.

One of the most scandalous cases from the viewpoint of the nocturnal violation of the rule of law happened in the 1780s, when two superintendents of the police were heavily fined by the judges of the Supreme Court for illegally imprisoning a person at night and also flogging him.

This was not a one-off instance. The superintendents pleaded guilty, but expressed inability to desist from the use of summary power. The executive sided with them. The jurists on the whole remained sympathetic even if they reprimanded and fined the superintendents.

Through the logic of the law, the night had become an extraordinary time that needed an extraordinary measure of control. But darkness also unmasked the dark power of the law. The use of excessive power through confinement and detention at night made the rule of law less of a legal and more of a political apparatus.

IV. Safe nights

Much of what is said above through history gives the impression that the foremost strategies of the state to make nights safe were surveillance and curtailment while maximising the power of the law and its institutions. 

In the last 60 or 70 years or so, due to various political and civic movements, safety has acquired a different connotation. Movements to ‘reclaim the night’ or ‘take back the night’ have been one of the leading modes of feminist protests since the 1970s. Against charges of victim shaming, to be out in the night is indeed a matter of right.

It was done as recently as in Kolkata this year. Often after a gruesome incident of crime perpetrated at night (the 2012 Delhi rape and murder case can be thought of as another instance), the politics of reclaiming the space and the time of the night gains prominence.

But so does the politics of state control; it was not surprising to read that a few organisers of the march were booked by the police on the grounds of not procuring adequate permission.

Political and civic movements on the one hand and the state’s response on the other are seldom on the same page, but the fundamental quest for safety at night – even if its characterisation has moved from the domain of surveillance by the state to that of freedom exercised by individuals – creates a curious contradiction.

The greater demand for safety may only be met by a greater presence of the law through the night, but the greater presence of the law to curtail the dangers of the night may very well, as was historically the case, lead to the use of excessive power, particularly over those marginal groups of society for whom night is not just a canvas to script liberal values of freedom but a stigmatised terrain of work, humiliation and economic compulsions.

The night may empower the law-enforcing authorities by making them more vigilant, but it can also ‘weaken’ the principles of the rule of law by making such authorities exercise repressive and summary power.

It is not a fait accompli argument that night is doomed to ‘corrupt’ the law or that the law can only make nights safe through the use of unlawful power. Both law and night are products of social engagements. They acquire meanings and purposes due to changing social values.

Perhaps a different kind of legal sensitisation based also upon social engagement around practices of safety is required that will keep both the night and the law safe from each other.

Nitin Sinha is a senior research fellow at Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient, Berlin.

The Battle That Ensured Kashmir Was a Part of India

The Ichahama raid, fought by a population of Sikhs, delayed the march of attackers towards the airport by more than 35 hours.

Kashmir bore the brunt of the Partition primarily between October and November 1947, when thousands of Kabalis, and mercenaries from Pakistan’s army came plundering, looting and massacring thousands of people in a attempt to conquer it and accede it to Pakistan. 

One important reason, and an often overlooked one, of why Kashmir is still a part of India, is the Battle of Ichhahama and Attina, which was fought between the Sikhs of these villages with the kabalis and Pakistani Army. 

The following is the excerpt from my book, Those Who Stayed: The Sikhs of Kashmir.

§

Budgam, Kashmir, October-November 1947.

The Kabalis kept moving towards Srinagar Airport. They were keen on capturing the airport as it was central to their plan of occupying Kashmir. Kashmir was connected to the rest of India through two roads and the airport. Both the roads were closed due to bad weather. So, it was important for the Kabalis to capture the airport as it was the most feasible route for the Indian army to come to Kashmir for the counterattack.

Those Who Stayed: The Sikhs of Kashmir, Bupinder Singh Bali, Amaryllis (An Imprint of Manjul Publishing House), 2024.

The Kabalis moved from Baramulla and took the shortest path they could to reach the airport. It was through the lower reaches of Budgam district and it avoided the main city of Srinagar. The route, unfortunately, had two of the most populated villages of Sikhs, Ichahama and Attina, on it.

When the Kabalis were raiding Baramulla, a lot of survivors and escapees had come to the Budgam district for refuge. With them, they brought the eyewitness account of what had happened and the warning of what could happen if the Kabalis were to raid their villages.

More than two thousand people had come to Ichahama alone, including a few hundred Pandits. It was a big village with over two hundred household units, and the influx of such a large population had made the village population swell to around 4000 people.

The refugees were given space in the houses and the halls of the gurdwara, while the whole village brought food stock to the gurdwara, where they cooked food in bulk for everyone.

During my interviews, I came to know some astonishing facts. One Karan Singh, who was the president of the local gurdwara of the village Ichahama when I interviewed him, was a child at the time of the attack. He told me he ‘remembered the story clearly as if it happened just yesterday.’

We were told that the village would be attacked soon, so the adults had set up three barracks on the three sides of the village. We were expecting an attack from the north side, the side on which Baramulla was located. There was one elder named Sardar Ujagar Singh. He, with help from some others, had made a canon out of a propeller shaft of an old Chevrolet car. Most of the adults were helping to set up barracks and filling the gunpowder in the topidaar (muzzle loading) and buckshot guns.

By morning, the first shot was heard from the expected direction. The barracks were well prepared for it, and they fired a shot back in the direction. Nothing happened for the next one hour or so. They heard fire shots, but none of those shots came to their village.

According to what I have read in the news reports from that year, and later heard retelling by different historians, the number of attackers who raided the village was around a thousand. Three different contingents of invaders had assembled to launch an offensive on the village. The first one was under Captain Sherkhan’s command, which took the shortest route and reached first. There were around four to five hundred men under his command. The second contingent of similar strength was led by Major Khursheed Anwar, who had just captured the Pattan area of the Baramulla district, a strategically important place to counter the Indian army, which had started to join the fight. The third was a special column led by Latif Afghani, with one hundred highly trained National Guards who were the heroes of ethnic cleansing during the partition. The three columns had camped on the northern and northwestern sides of the village, but their first target was a close-by village called Dalwash.

It was in the mid-morning, between ten and eleven, that the gunfight erupted on the northern side of the village, where a fortified and well-trenched barrack was set by the Sikhs. Other eyewitnesses and survivors validated the story told by Karan Singh.

When the firing from the same direction started again, it lasted for an hour before going silent again. The barrack closest to the side fired back in between. They stopped it so they can surround the village from all sides. Within an hour or so, the village was surrounded from all three sides and we could hear the attackers firing from all the sides. The other barracks also returned the fire. Several people got injured in the firing. There were a lot of bodies lying on the grounds.

Ujagar Singh fired a shot from his canon, which stopped the attackers for some time. His canon was made from a shaft, and when fired it became red hot, and he could not fire from it until it cooled down fully. Otherwise, it would burst and kill him and others around it. In between, some of the Kabalis entered the village but were immediately killed either by swords or guns. Casualties began to pile on both sides. Their rifles were also confiscated and then used against them. The battle lasted for three hours. Then everything went silent when the raiders retreated. A lot of our Sikhs perished in the battle, but there was a huge loss on their sides as well.

The invaders had a great lust for loot, arson, and abduction. The losses were infuriating for them. The only thing they achieved so far was the deaths of their comrades. The pay for being mercenaries was the loot, which was their only remuneration. Money, ornaments, precious metal, and young women. Anything else they destroyed mercilessly, massacred. This was the second time they were facing the battle, the first at Muzzafrabad, where they were delayed for four days, and now in Ichahama, which delayed them another day.

The next morning, just after sunrise, the invaders launched another offensive. This time they were loaded with machine guns and heavy mortar. They bombarded the village for half an hour but did not get any response. They sent in a small exploratory party to see what was happening in the village, but to their surprise, they found the village deserted. There were bodies of the dead and the wounded were lying all over the village, including their own fellow raiders.

The preceding night after the invaders retired to their respective camps, the villagers and the refugees, some three thousand in number, wounded and injured had escaped from the village towards the Narbal camp of the Indian army which had already started coming to Kashmir from 27 October. There were less than 700 troopers who were flown to Srinagar. Most of them were then sent to different areas to fight the Kabalis. One major party had stopped the Kabalis coming from Pattan, while a troop of fifty was posted at the airport to defend it in case the army failed to contain the Pattan thrust. This party had made its camp in Narbal.

The Ichahama raid was completely fought by the Sikhs without any assistance from the army. They delayed the march of Kabalis towards the airport by more than thirty-five hours. The airport was less than fifteen kilometres away, a mere three to four hours’ distance.

Similarly, the village Attina, which was smaller than Ichahama, had somewhere between six hundred to thousand refugees. Its own population was less than a hundred households. They had opened up the gurdwara for the refugees, along with their own houses. There was only one mansion in the village where around forty to fifty people took shelter.

When the Kabalis came, the villagers, with their few guns, started to fire back, They held the small party of Kabalis at bay till sunset while the villagers fled through the other route. Women and children who took refuge in the two-story mansion next to the gurdwara, fed by the fearful stories of the survivors, set fire to the house they were in and self-immolated themselves.

The importance of these battles and the sacrifices of the Sikhs were never acknowledged. It was not hard to imagine that had those invaders, who were hell-bent on liberating Kashmir from India, not met any resistance anywhere, they would have reached the airport before the Indian army even made it to Kashmir. They would have taken it easily. The two days that they battled the people of Ichahama provided enough time for the Indian army to assemble their troops. Only on the third day, the army troopers of 4 Kumaon under Major Somnath Sharma came to fight the already miserable Kabalis. It was only on 31 October that Major Somnath Sharma, who was given Param Vir Chakra for his sacrifice fighting the Kabalis, landed in Kashmir airport. On the first and second of November, when the Sikhs fought against the Kabalis and delayed their forward march, all the Indian forces were concentrated on the attack at Pattan and were completely unaware of this contingent of Kabalis who were marching towards the airport. Only after 3 November, when the survivors and refugees started coming from that side, three parties of two hundred men each from the Indian army went to survey the Budgam area. Out of those three, only one party of 200 men under the command of Major Sharma camped at Budgam. Major Sharma’s party came under attack from the Kabalis, whose number was cut to 700 from 1500 after the battle with Sikhs. The attackers were already injured, and their spirits had taken a hit. They still managed to overpower Major Sharma’s party, in which Major Sharma lost his life. Meanwhile, reinforcements had come to aid the army, and finally, the Kabalis were pushed back.
 Sikhs, instead of being heroes, paid a heavy price for defending themselves. They became the villains in the eyes of the local people who viewed them with contempt because they were said to hinder Pakistan’s plan to capture Kashmir. The majority of the locals were Pakistan sympathisers. Until the middle of the 1980s, Sikhs were not treated well. There were social boycotts, taunts, glares, everything that made the Sikhs feel like culprits.

And what felt like salt in their wounds was that the contribution of Sikhs in saving Kashmir was never acknowledged. Though it did not hinder Sikhs from developing, it did put them in a dilemma as to what their existence in Kashmir meant to the country and the state.

Bupinder Singh Bali is a writer and educator based out of Kashmir.

Watch | William Dalrymple on the Wonder That Was India, Which We Don’t Know of or Have Forgotten

‘What Greece was first to Rome, then to the rest of the Mediterranean and European World, so at this period India was to South East and Central Asia and even to China’.

Speaking about India during the period starting the 3rd century BC and ending around the 12-13th century CE, William Dalrymple says: “What Greece was first to Rome, then to the rest of the Mediterranean and European World, so at this period India was to South East and Central Asia and even to China”.

In other words, India was one of the great and dominant intellectual and cultural forces in the world, on par with other civilisations like Greece and China.

In an interview to mark the launch of his recent book The Golden Road: How Ancient India Transformed the World, Dalrymple talks about three broad and big narratives, which are also the core of his book. They are the spread of Buddhism from India to China and Central Asia and all the way to Siberia and Mongolia, the spread of Hinduism and Sanskritik culture to South East Asia all the way to Cambodia and Java and the spread of Indian concepts of mathematics and astronomy to the Arab world and thence to Europe.

‘Teaching Never Stopped’: Historian Irfan Habib on the Spirit of AMU

‘Not a single communal incident occurred in Aligarh during 1947-48’.

Celebrated historian Irfan Habib delivered presidential remarks at the launch of Laurence Gautier’s Between Nation and Community at the Sir Syed Academy in AMU, Aligarh. The programme was organised by Sir Syed Academy and Aligarh Society of History and Archaeology.

Following is a transcription of his speech. 

Dear members of the university and friends, I think I have a peculiar claim to be speaking here because I am perhaps one of the few people who, from infant class to M.A., remained wedded to Aligarh. And I really learnt about the spirit in Aligarh when I was playing in the infant class and the madam or headmistress came and said, ‘Oh, this is Professor Habib’s son, give him first position. He’s a professor.’

And the teacher, my class teacher ,was very shocked and said, ‘But madam, the Vice-Chancellor’s son is also in the class. The headmistress said, ‘Well, give him first and give this child second.’ So this is the spirit of Aligarh – it’s egalitarianism and love of education.

I learnt it there. So when I was there in Minto Circle and then AMU throughout, I loved Aligarh, but I’m not a necessarily admirer of it. And this is a very big difference.

At this moment, I think what is important for Aligarhians is how Aligarh was treated in 1947. I passed my high school in 1947. And as partition came near, and in fact, as August 14 and 15 passed, Aligarh was emptied of its staff, teachers, even employees, ordinary non-teaching employees.

They were going off to Pakistan. But I would say one thing in admiration. I never missed, there was never a case where a teacher wasn’t there to take our class.

Also read: On Campus and Beyond, Aligarh Muslim University Is at Centre of UP BJP’s Communal Politics

Full attendance was insisted on throughout 1947-48, when actually in my own first class, if I remember right, three teachers left for Pakistan who were taking my class. But the next day, someone was there to take us; no concession on attendance.

No vice-chancellor, but just habit. If one studies those three years, this is amazing. Despite the fact that the university was under such pressure, teaching went on.

And I think this is a very great achievement. I think similar things must have happened at Jamia, but I can only speak about my own first year, second year, third year, fourth year. They were all years in which Aligarh was denuded of its teaching staff. They went to Pakistan. And then the refugees came, sharnarthis, who practically formed one third of the body. And not a single incident occurred. They were all accommodated in hostels together.

So that particular time, one must remember, because now at the drop of a hat, classes are abandoned. You go to art faculty, no class is taking place. This is not only Aligarh University, but many universities. But this didn’t happen in 1947. We didn’t miss a single class. Some teacher was there. He would again next month go over to Pakistan, but there was another. I had perhaps an intermediate history.
At that time, one could take three subjects as now. And in history, there were three successive teachers in the same year. But classes happened. There was no class that was abandoned. That is the one thing that I remember particularly and in the conditions of today, if you go to arts faculty, most classrooms are closed or locked. Teachers are not taking their classes.

This didn’t happen in 1947, 1948 or 1949. Secondly, I think credit must go to the government of that time. They never even suggested distantly that India, that Aligarh, had had a Muslim League phase. They never suggested distantly that we had insulted Maulana Abul Kalam Azad. He came here and gave assurances.

The governor of Kerala is totally wrong in the version of the speech that he has given. That was invented in order to spoil his reputation. I was present in that meeting.

So, all credit must go to Nehru, Sardar Patel and Azad. Aligarh University was protected in 1947 by the Kumayun Regiment, sent by Patel as Home Minister. These things cannot be forgotten.

And then, of course, the local leadership. Not a single communal incident occurred in Aligarh during 1947-48. Amazing!

Malkan Singh and Congress leaders did an amazing job in protecting the university. So, these names will be forgotten, but I’m just mentioning it so that at least one remembrance is there. So, the university administration was under great pressure with practically no vice-chancellor, and treasurer being the vice-chancellor. It was only until Dr Zakir Hussain came and then he had to go to America and only returned because of medical reasons.

And I think it was only in 1949 or 1950 that he really took charge. Over all this period, teaching continued, even when the number of students was reduced to 900. There was a time when only 900 were there.

The university had a financial problem, but by the University Act of 1951, government took up the entire responsibility. These things are to be remembered today. If the government simply had said, ‘Well, we are neither destroying Aligarh nor supporting Aligarh, we are neutral.’ Aligarh would have gone.

There was no money. So, remember the AMU Act, and even before that, through Ashfaq Committee, the government took up the entire financial responsibility of this university. So, today, as we remember those days, I think we should be grateful to all those who helped us and made Aligarh survive.

Thank you.

Irfan Habib is a historian of ancient and medieval India.

Transcribed by Manya Singh.

The RSS’s Struggle for Legitimacy: Rewriting India’s Freedom Narrative

Today, there seems to be a huge confusion in the Hindu mind and heart about its lineage. The RSS alone benefits from this.

During a discussion on the biography of Madhav Sadashiv Golwalkar, the second chief of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), written by Dhirendra K. Jha, journalist Hartosh Bal asked why the RSS wants to identify with the freedom movement, by appropriating its key figures and events, when it did not take part in the anti-colonial national liberation movement. Why does it want to make the national liberation movement its reference point when it had made all attempts to distance itself from it?

Before answering the question, it can be said that the RSS is trying to prove its authenticity as the bearer of the Indian dream in the eyes of its people. Even 75 years after the freedom struggle, we still draw our authority by establishing our relationship with the freedom movement. “What were your ancestors doing then?” is a common question. It is essential to establish your relationship with the freedom struggle. Only then would your lineage be respected.

The RSS does not have that lineage. The biggest accusation against the RSS is that it did not take part in the national liberation movement. In fact, on many occasions, it actually worked against it. It refused to accept the tricolour for a long time. There are several other examples in Jha’s book about the RSS consciously keeping itself away from the national movement.

As Jha shows in his book, the then RSS chief, Keshav Baliram Hedgewar, had refused to meet the same Subhash Bose whom it considers the biggest national hero today and pretends to worship, even pitting him against Jawaharlal Nehru and Mahatma Gandhi. Bose had left the Congress due to differences with Gandhi and was in the process of forming a separate organisation to fight the British. He was looking for allies. He had heard about the RSS and Bose wanted it to join him. But Hedgewar was not interested in his proposal because he was averse to the idea of taking part in the movement against the British. According to the RSS, British rule was an act of providence. Therefore, when Hedgewar’s old associate, Balaji Huddar, came to him with Bose’s message, he pretended to be ill and refused to even reply to Bose, let alone meet him.

Similarly, after the hanging of Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev and Rajguru, the RSS kept away from any protest against these hangings. Jha, through the account of Bala Saheb Deoras, who later became the third chief of the RSS, tells us about his meeting with the Hedgewar after the hanging of Bhagat Singh and his comrades. They were all young and were very upset and agitated by this hanging. Protests against the hanging were taking place all over the country. Deoras and his friends also wanted to participate in this protest. But Hedgewar stopped them from participating in this ‘foolish plan’ and discussed, for seven days, the importance of doing the work of the RSS rather than wasting time and energy in protests against the British.

The argument given by Golkwalkar, as to why the youth should not follow the path of Bhagat Singh, is the best example of the mentality of the Sangh. Golwalkar wrote that people like Bhagat Singh could not be considered as ideal in a society as he did not succeed in his objective. In Bunch of Thoughts, Golwalkar condemned ‘unsuccessful’ people like Bhagat Singh and wrote, “It is clear that those who are unsuccessful in their lives must have some serious flaw. How can a person who himself is a failure give light to others and show them the way?”

According to the RSS, Bhagat Singh and his comrades were weak personalities because they did not succeed. Do we agree with this? But now Bhagat Singh is useful to the RSS because he can be pitched against Nehru and Gandhi. Gandhi can be questioned as to why he did not die saving Bhagat Singh, but the RSS should not be asked about its refusal to even mourn and protest his hanging.

The RSS, which swears by the Gita, is actually an organisation that worships success. It does not believe in the principle of ‘do your work, don’t worry about its results ‘. Not only this, it does not want to follow any path that involves risk. Today, it certainly garlands the statues of Khudiram Bose, Bhagat Singh and Subhash Chandra Bose, but when it was time to support them, the RSS chief instructed his followers to stay away. There is no place for sacrifice for any purpose in the philosophy and working of the RSS.

This is why bravery is not a worthy quality for the RSS because bravery lies not so much in violence against others as in dying for one’s ideals. The Sangh does not accept this. It believes the lives of others are expendable and giving up one’s own life is foolishness in its eyes. It does not want its cadre to be brave, it only asks them to be strong. A recent speech by the current RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat proves it. He said that the world worshipped only the strong.

The ‘qualities’ that RSS inculcates in its cadre are hatred, violence, cunningness, half-truths and lies. RSS believes that one should achieve one’s goal by any means. Deceit, half-truths, lies,and violence are justified by calling them ‘Krishna niti.’ All this is considered necessary if Hindus have to trounce their enemies. The ultimate goal of Hindus is to take the whole of India under their sole control. India should belong completely to Hindus. All others will be subject to their will. Muslims, Christians and others will have to follow the Hindu way of life, which is synonymous with the Indian way of life. This is the principle of Savarkar and Golwalkar and patriotism according to the RSS.

This is the reason why the RSS did not once think of fighting the ‘strong’ and ‘successful’ British. It sided with the British during the ‘Quit India’ movement. The RSS can argue that its major goal was the establishment of a Hindu nation and it was preparing for it. It did not want to waste its energy by going with Bhagat Singh, Bose or Gandhi. Therefore, there was no question of its having any relation with the national movement. It was preparing for a Hindu Rashtra which was lost long ago, much before the British came as a divine blessing.

Unlike the RSS, the common people of India were ready to go to jail and die for freedom. Gandhi made mass participation the basis of the national movement. Because of his approach , which was very different from the secretive approach of the revolutionaries, the public imagination of India transformed completely. Charkha, Khadi and the tricolour reached every home. They became inseparable from the Indian identity. Gandhi’s image can also be added to this. Right or wrong, the people of India started looking at themselves as Gandhi’s people.

It was a tall order to change this imagination through the saffron flag, the Ram temple in Ayodhya, etc. Hedgewar or Golwalkar were too small to replace Gandhi. Moreover, there is no evidence of their participation in the freedom movement. Savarkar’s prison life had certainly created an aura around him. He could be placed opposite Gandhi by creating myths around him, about his bravery, etc.

The RSS had to find a place in the popular imagination or change it. It could be strategically effective to pave the way for a new imagination by appropriating elements of the earlier one and gradually adding new elements to it. Slowly the new elements would become prominent and the older ones would fade out. For example, it would not have been possible to propose the Bhagwa flag as the national flag. Why not appropriate it and make it an instrument or shield to dominate Muslims? That is why the leaders of the RSS and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) started hoisting the tricolour and taking out tiranga yatras. These yatras were divisive and the governments had to put restrictions on them. Then an outcry could be made that the governments are anti-national as they do not even allow a tiranga yatra. Recall the tiranga yatra by Sushma Swaraj, which was an attempt to capture Idgah in Bangalore. Similarly, the tiranga yatra by Murli Manohar Joshi to Kashmir was aimed at establishing “Indian supremacy” there. It is the same tricolour which the RSS had rejected by calling it inauspicious. Their dislike for the tricolour remains. Recall the statement by Lal Krishna Advani, who said that it was not secular at all as the Chakra in the middle was a Buddhist symbol.

The transition from tiranga to saffron flag has been a long process. Ten years ago, for the first time, we saw the tricolour along with the saffron flag in the kanwar yatras. This was a clever attempt to change the public imagination of Hindus. Then the Hindus started demanding that if we can carry the tricolour on our religious occasions, why can’t Muslims and Christians do so. Why won’t mosques hoist the tricolour on Eid? Muslims could now be attacked with the shield of the tricolour. The tricolour, the national anthem and ‘Vande Mataram’ were essential elements of the new national imagination. Now we can add Jai Shri Ram to it.

The biggest campaign to change the public imagination of Hindus was the Ram Janmabhoomi movement of the 1980s. It was actually a mobilisation to demolish the Babri Masjid. It was a comprehensive and intensive campaign through which the image of an aggressive Ram, the saffron flag and the slogan of ‘Jai Shri Ram’, were popularised.

For a long time, and to some extent even now, the national movement was considered to be the source of values for the public life of independent India. We have always justified any action or principle by citing a precedent in the freedom movement. What would Gandhi have said or done if he were here? What would Bhagat Singh or Bose have said? We often hear such contemplations and seek validation from these personalities for our decisions even today. How many national leaders have we heard seeking legitimacy from Hedgewar, Golwalkar or Savarkar? They have still not become the norm-setters. The paradigm for society is still set by Buddha, Gandhi, Bhagat Singh and Bose. Consequently, the RSS was forced to somehow connect itself with all of them.

Gandhi’s Hindu identity made it easy for the RSS to cover itself with his skin after his murder by one of its members. Bhagat Singh and Bose’s violence was also useful. Patel’s ‘toughness’ was ideal. In this way, RSS took these elements from the freedom movement and incorporated them into its ‘national imagination’. The lack of bravery was also compensated by calling Savarkar a hero. There are also parts in B.R. Ambedkar’s writings that were used to justify anti-Muslim sentiments by taking them out of context.

The RSS made a place in public imagination with the help of these. But at the same time, a gradual change was carried out in the public imagination of the Hindus of India. Time also helped the RSS. By the 1980s, the generation for which the national movement was important, was leaving. The political reference point was now 1974 or 1977. The Congress party, which was once the heir to the freedom movement, had now become a symbol of dictatorship. The original freedom movement was replaced by a second movement. The stigma on the RSS of not participating in the freedom movement was washed away by the grace of Jayaprakash Narayan and the socialists. It became the leading force of the so-called total revolution of India. With the help of Ram Manohar Lohia, Deendayal Upadhyaya’s integral humanism was pitted against Gandhi’s Swaraj.

At the same time, keeping to its basic ideological plan, the RSS kept pushing back in time the reference point of this popular imagination. A myth of Hindu slavery was already prevalent in the Hindu common sense. Bankim Chandra Chatterjee believed in it, so did Ramchandra Shukla. Even the most intelligent Hindu says that Muslims came as invaders to India.

Muslims and invasion, these two words come together in our classroom discussions or public discourse automatically. The unthoughtful belief that Muslims enslaved Hindus is at the foundation of Hindu public imagination. Therefore, it became natural for Hindus to believe that they have been slaves for 1200 years.

Gandhi and the Congress party snatched away the opportunity to make India a Hindu nation from the Hindus’ hands  in 1947. That opportunity finally came in 2014. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, while giving his first speech in Parliament after the 2014 election victory, said that India had been freed from 1,200 years of slavery. He was not opposed by the secular opposition then. He got away with it.

Since 2014, Shivaji, Rana Pratap, Hemchandra Vikramaditya, Lachit Barphukan and others have been proposed as ideal reference points for Hindus. According to the RSS, they were all fighting wars to free India from the clutches of Muslims. This was the real slavery of India. The British left India. But the Muslims continue to remain here. In fact, in many ways, India is identified by Muslim symbols. Any foreign guest who visits the country has to necessarily visit the Taj Mahal. On Independence day, the national flag is hoisted from the Red Fort. Every visitor to Delhi wants to first see the Qutub Minar, Humayun’s Tomb, or Nizamuddin Auliya. This is, in a way, an extension of that 1,200 years of slavery. The real Indian identity can be revealed only by removing the ‘Muslim coating’ on Indian identity. This is real decolonisation. The RSS’s problem is that we are not yet culturally independent. That is its mission: to bring this ‘cultural freedom’ which cannot be done unless all essential reference points are either Hindu or battles against Muslims and invaders.

In fact, according to the RSS, India has been a colony of Muslims, not of the British, for a long time and continues to be so mentally. Hindi too is yet to be freed from ‘Urdu-ness’. This battle for freedom is still being fought. Until Indians and Hindus are completely unified against these foreign influences, this war will continue.

That is why the reference point of our identity has been shifted to the Sengol. Legal expert Mohan Gopal and lawyer Indira Jaising have analysed the decisions of the courts of the past years and shown that they are making religious texts and scriptures, instead of the Constitution, the reference point for their decisions.

Through all this, the public imagination of Hindus is being changed. Images of the freedom movement, and those of the mediaeval and ancient times have been mixed up. Gradually, the freedom movement would fade away and the ‘ancient’ images would occupy a central place. Today, there seems to be a huge confusion in the Hindu mind and heart about its lineage. Where does it come from? From the freedom struggle or from some ancient Hindu Rashtra? The RSS alone benefits from this.

Apoorvanand teaches Hindi at Delhi University.

‘Pandit’ Bhatta: From Scholarship Holder to Nazi Publicist

Bhatta was a willing and enthusiastic participant in spreading official Nazi propaganda and regularly wrote articles praising Subhas Chandra Bose.

In May 1939, Walther Wüst, professor of ‘Aryan Studies’ at the University of Munich and an upwardly mobile officer of the notorious Nazi paramilitary organisation, the SS, appealed to Heinrich Himmler, the head of the SS, to provide financial assistance to send an Indian man to India as an agent of Nazi Germany.

This agent was to conduct “cultural politics,” which denoted, in this context, both propaganda and espionage. Along with this appeal, Wüst submitted a positive “evaluation” of the person in question. The Sicherheitsdienst or SD, Nazi party`s powerful and sinister secret service controlled by the SS, also sent a favourable report of this prospective agent to Himmler, who then agreed to Wüst`s proposal. However, the scheme was stalled due to the onset of the Second World War.

The agent in question was Koodavuru Anantrama Bhatta (b. 1908), who represented, like few other Indians living in Nazi Germany, the convergence between knowledge of India and Nazi politics. “Pandit” Bhatta, as he came to be known, studied Sanskrit and Pali in India and Ceylon (Sri Lanka). From 1929 to 1932, he taught Sanskrit at Vidyalankar College near Colombo.

Bhatta arrived in Germany in 1932 with a scholarship provided jointly by the India Institute of the Deutsche Akademie (German Academy) and the Humboldt Foundation. He started a dissertation on “Shaivism in Sanskrit dramas” under Jakob Wilhelm Hauer, professor of Religious Studies and Indology at the University of Tübingen. Hauer, like Wüst, was an ardent Nazi and a member of the SS.

Though it is not clear whether Bhatta ever completed his PhD, Hauer considered him to be his “most capable student,” while Bhatta referred to Hauer as “my dear, revered Guru” in their correspondence. By 1944, Bhatta was passing on information on contemporary India to Hauer who used them to compose secret reports for the SS which developed an interest in this British colony.

The Nazi Study of India and Indian Anti-Colonialism: Knowledge Providers and Propagandists in the ‘Third Reich’, by Baijayanti Roy, published by Oxford University Press (Oxford), 2024.

Bhatta, who mastered German well, regularly delivered public lectures on behalf of the Nazi organisation, “Strength through joy” (Kraft durch Freude) which sought to make ordinary Germans appreciate National Socialist ideals. Bhatta also lectured at meetings organised by the Wehrmacht (Armed Forces) for boosting the morale of the soldiers.

He was considered an “exceptionally reliable” Indian by Alfred Rosenberg`s department which watched over the “spiritual and ideological indoctrination and education” of the Nazi party. Alfred Rosenberg was a member of the Nazi ruling elite and the chief ideologue of the Nazi party. His department gave permission to the Nazi party to deploy Bhatta occasionally for the German Volksbildungswerk, which also aimed to spread Nazi worldviews through public lectures.

During the war, probably through the mediation of the Karl Haushofer, professor of Geography at the University of Munich whose geopolitical views found acceptance among German right-wing circles, Bhatta published three articles in the Journal for Geopolitics (Zeitschrift für Geopolitik) which Haushofer edited.

After 1933, this prestigious journal had become increasingly responsive to the demands and interests of Nazi politics. The three articles by Bhatta dealt with aspects of contemporary India that were considered important by the Nazi regime. The essays were on: (i) Internal problems of India (July-December, 1939). (ii) British defence politics in India (January-June, 1940), (iii) Political scopes of different parties in India (July-December, 1940).

Published texts on India in Nazi party’s mouthpiece

Bhatta also published texts on India in German newspapers including the Nazi party`s mouthpiece, Völkischer Beobachter (‘The People’s Observer’) a rare feat for an Indian. A similar “achievement” of Bhatta was to publish an article in 1942 on “The youth movement in India” in the magazine “Will and Power” (Wille und Macht), the propaganda organ for Nazi youth edited by the “Reich Youth leader,” Baldur von Schirach.

Bhatta also propagated the virtues of Nazism in India, as evidenced in a long article written in Kannada and published in a south Indian journal, the date of publication of which is lost. The article, titled ‘Youth and Young women’s movement in today’s Germany,” glorified the Hitler Youth Movement.

Due to his reputation as a publicist approved by the Nazi regime, Bhatta was named the editor of the bilingual (English/German) Azad Hind magazine, which was published in Berlin from 1942 to 1944. It was the journal of the Free India Centre (FIC), established in Berlin jointly by the German Foreign Ministry and Subhas Chandra Bose, who had landed in the German capital in April 1941, seeking Germany’s help to drive the British from India.

Bhatta’s role as an editor of Azad Hind was largely representational, as the actual editing was done by other anti-colonial Indians from the FIC.

Notable among the few articles written by Bhatta for Azad Hind is one titled ‘Loyal India’ (9/10, 1942). This pro-German essay blamed the Indian “princes ruling their nominally independent states, as well as their less regal counterparts – the landholders and indigenous capitalists – for betraying their own people and their motherland in supporting Britain and fighting Germany.”

Another article, “Subhas Chandra Bose and his struggle,” published in 1943 (Issue 5/6) expressed reservations about the “compromising politics” of Gandhi and the right wing politics of the Indian National Congress and criticised them for failing to mobilise the masses for a violent overthrow of British rule. It is doubtful whether Bhatta actually wrote this article, which went against German wartime policy of praising both Gandhi and Bose.

Articles advocating Bose’s politics

Bhatta’s articles advocating Bose and his politics that appeared in the Nazified German press are likely to have been actually penned by him. In May 1942, for example, he wrote an article titled “Fighter for India: Subhas Chandra Bose`s path” for the Pariser Zeitung, an organ of the Nazi occupying authorities in France. This article scrupulously followed the parameters set by Nazi politics.

Similarly, Bhatta’s article on the celebration of Gandhi’s birthday by Bose and the FIC, published in the Völkischer Beobachter in October 1942, toed the German line. This event and such articles reflected the change in Germany’s propaganda policy towards India after Joachim von Ribbentrop became Germany`s Foreign Minister in February 1938. Ribbentrop was keen to use Indian nationalist aspirations for Germany’s benefit as war with Britain looked inevitable.

Under his influence German propaganda began to express its strategic support for the Indian anti-colonial movement led by Gandhi and the Indian National Congress. The aim was to destabilise the British Empire by stirring up political disturbances in its most profitable colony. Supporting Subhas Chandra Bose was another manifestation of this policy.

In 1943, a book titled Indien im Britischen Weltreich (India in the British Empire) appeared under Bhatta’s name as a part of a book series on India, published by the ‘Special Department India’ (Sonderreferat Indien or SRI) of the German Foreign Ministry. The SRI was set up in 1941 in response to the demands of Subhas Chandra Bose.

Publication of a series of books on India, both as a propaganda venture and to provide utilisable knowledge to German policy makers and press representatives, figured at the top of the SRI`s work plan. The eight books of the series were ostensibly authored by four Germans and four Indians.

Actually, however, the manuscripts of the Indians were rejected by the editor of the series, the Indophile Franz Josef Furtwängler, on the advice of the Indologist Ludwig Alsdorf. The manuscripts by the Indians were rewritten by Furtwängler, Alsdorf and the Indologist Hermann Beythan. This distrust was largely due to Alsdorf`s (and Furtwängler`s) racialised prejudices against Indians.

Nevertheless, it is a testimony of Bhatta`s political acumen that he capitalised on “his book” by sending a copy to Franz Alfred Six, high-ranking SS officer (Oberführer) and important functionary of the SD, in 1943. In the same year, Six had become the head of the “Cultural Political Section” of the Foreign Ministry which controlled the SRI.

Bhatta had met Six in 1939 through the mediation of Hauer. In his answer to Bhatta, Six claimed that he would read the book as soon as he could find time, adding that he had heard from his staff that “your book represents an especially valuable contribution to German-Indian collaboration,” thereby acknowledging the propagandistic worth of such politically useful knowledge.

Letter to Nehru

Bhatta’s last archival trace is an undated letter that he wrote from a farm in the French zone of occupation in south Germany to Jawaharlal Nehru in 1947. In this letter, Bhatta requested the prime minister of independent India to include him in the Indian Embassy that was soon to open in Switzerland. Through the letter, Bhatta presented a highly manipulated version of his time in Germany.

He claimed that he consistently defended India in the German press, for which he was imprisoned by the Nazi authorities for two weeks in 1939. Only the threat of a hunger strike could induce the SS to release him. Bhatta`s letter makes it clear that the British knew about his collusion with various Nazi organisations and were searching for him. The Indian External Affairs Department replied tersely in a letter dated 1st April, 1947, that there was no vacancy in the Indian Embassy in Zurich.

(This is an essay based on The Nazi Study of India and Indian Anti-Colonialism: Knowledge Providers and Propagandists in the ‘Third Reich’, by Baijayanti Roy, published by Oxford University Press (Oxford), 2024.)

Dalmia Plans for Humayun’s Tomb ‘Under Consideration’ But Govt Says Restaurant, Elevators Won’t Be Allowed

U-turn comes after The Wire reported controversial details from the cement giant’s ‘vision document’ for the UNESCO heritage monument.

New Delhi: A memorandum of understanding may have been signed with a corporate-run non-governmental organisation whose vision document envisaged restaurants, cafes and elevators smack on top of the majestic gateways to Humayun’s Tomb but the Ministry of Culture is now rushing to clarify that it will not allow this.

The ministry’s about-turn came after a news report in The Wire last week on controversial plans put forward by the Dalmia group’s Sabhyata Foundation that had heritage experts up in arms. In a written statement, the Ministry of Culture has clarified that no restaurant or cafe will be permitted inside the tomb complex. It added that there is no sound-and-light show planned, nor will cooking be allowed onsite. If a café or special events are permitted, these will be outside the “core” area of the monument, the ministry has added. 

View of the fine dining restaurant in the South Gate of Humayun’s Tomb. Source: Sabhyata Foundation ‘vision document’ for Humayun’s Tomb

As per the action plan prepared by the Sabhyata Foundation for Humayun’s Tomb and three other protected monuments in Delhi, a “fine dining restaurant” on top of the South Gate of Humayun’s Tomb and a café atop the western entry gate were planned. These would be accessed by elevators installed abutting the historical structures, Besides, sound and light shows, “Sufi nights”, qawwali shows and other such events were also planned. Apart from Humayun’s Tomb, the Sabhyata Foundation has been chosen to adopt Safdarjung’s Tomb, Purana Qila and the Mehrauli Archaeological Park. With historians and conservationists aghast at the plans which could damage the monuments, the ministry has said these have not yet been cleared by the Archaeological Survey of India.

The ministry told The Wire, “While Comprehensive Action Plans have recently been received from the Sabhyata Foundation, they are currently under examination by the ASI. It may be noted that the Sabhyata Foundation will not be permitted to create any amenities in the monuments adopted till such time the CAPs are approved by ASI.”

File still under ‘consideration’

Interestingly, the ministry says the action plan submitted by the Dalmias is still under consideration.  But The Wire has copies of the Memorandum of Understanding signed by the group and the Archaeological Survey of India. The MoU provides the legal basis for the scheme.

As per the Adopt a Heritage Scheme 2.0, the entity that “adopts” the monument, called a “Smarak sarathi” will submit a “comprehensive document” called the “pakka chittha” that will be “finalised after incorporating the vision of the Smarak sarathi”. “The consolidated document thus prepared shall be called the pakka chittha and form the basis for signing of MoU between Smarak Sathi and ASI for each adopted CPMS”. The Wire has copies of three of the four MoUs that have been signed based on the “vision document” submitted by the Dalmias.

Questioning the ministry, ASI officials speaking to The Wire on condition of anonymity, said, “The MoU is a legal document that provides a template for the work to be done. It is signed on the basis of a vision document submitted by the Smarak sarathi. And the vision document clearly states what all the Dalmias intend to do, not just at Humayun’s Tomb but at Safdarjung’s Tomb, the Mehrauli Archaeological Park and Purana Qila.”

Calling The Wire’s story “misleading with insinuations far removed from facts”, the ministry said, “The CAPs for Purana Qila and Safdarjung Tomb have been submitted by Sabhyata Foundation but the same are under examination, and not yet finalized/approved by ASI.” 

The Wire has a copy of the MoUs that have been signed for Safdarjung Tomb and Mehrauli Archaeological Park. The question is on what basis were the MoUs dated March 7, 2024 signed with the Dalmias if the CAP is still under consideration. Similar fine dining restaurants, private events, qawwali performances are planned at these sites as well. Humayun’s Tomb is a memorial and home to 130 graves. The other venues too are a memorial to the dead and questions are being raised about the propriety of singing and dining at such venues.

The ministry also says that contrary to what The Wire has reported, a Sound and Light show is not even planned at Humayun’s Tomb. “As the matter of a Sound and Light show at Humayun’s tomb is not under consideration at present, the question of relocating any trees for the purpose does not arise.” 

View of the proposed sound-and-light-show. Source: Sabhyata Foundation ‘vision document’ for Humayun’s Tomb.

However, page 5 of the MoU for Humayun’s Tomb clearly says a “cultural/sound and light show” will be amongst the amenities which will be ticketed. “A dedicated bank account would be opened for receipt of rent for Cafeteria, Souvenir and Publication Kiosks and revenue from Light and Sound Show and Interpretation Centre (if any)”. The Wire had reported that as per the Dalmia’s vision document, trees were to be “relocated” for better viewing of the sound and light show.

The ministry says, if in the future a sound and light show is considered for Humayun’s Tomb, “it shall be ensured that the script is historically authentic and that the location for the show do not adversely impact either the conservation of the monument or its visual integrity”.

‘Cafeteria outside, no fine dining inside’

Nevertheless, the ministry told The Wire, “It may, however, be categorically stated that no ‘fine-dining restaurant’ inside the core premises of the Humayun’s Tomb or café atop the gateway of the monument will be permitted. Even if a cafeteria is permitted by ASI, it will only be outside the core premises of Humayun’s Tomb and no cooking of food items shall be allowed. Similarly, no elevators abutting the historical structure of Humayun’s Tomb shall be permitted. Holding of special events or fine dining inside the core premises of Humayun’s Tomb shall also not be permitted by the ASI. Even if any events are permitted in future, it shall be ensured that they are conducted outside the core area and are consistent with the essential character of the monument.” 

The ministry’s disavowal of the Dalmia group’s plans is bound to raise questions about its entire ‘adopt a monument’ scheme, including the manner in which corporate partners with little interest or knowledge about the preservation of ancient monuments were selected. Indeed, opposition MPs had opposed this ‘privatisation’ of India’s ancient monuments at the time.

In its story last week, The Wire had also reported on other attempts at erasing the Mughals from Delhi including shutting down the museum at Red Fort. The ministry has now said that the museum will be shifted to the barracks as originally planned once the site is upgraded. On cracks appearing in monuments due to the underground metro, the ministry admitted that Jantar Mantar has developed cracks but no scientific study has been done so far to assess the impact.

“While no specific scientific study has been carried out so far to assess the impact, if any, of the vibrations produced due to metro rail movement on monuments in Delhi located close to the metro network, no cracks have been observed in these monuments attributable to such movement. Though a few minor cracks have been noticed in the Samrat Yantra of Jantar Mantar, ASI has a well-established procedure of monitoring and repairing such cracks so that they do not pose any danger to the monument concerned.”

The ministry also said that the Qutab Minar is regularly cleaned of insect droppings. The illumination of monuments attracts insects and their droppings corrode the surface of the monument.