Jaswant Singh and M A Jinnah

There has been an enormous kerfuffle in India over the new book by Jaswant Singh on the life of Mohammed Ali Jinnah, founder of Pakistan, and sometime barrister, man of the world and supreme constitutionalist. The book alleges that Patel and Nehru are equally - if not more - to blame for Partition in 1947 which created the states of India and Pakistan, and laid the foundations for Bangladesh, out of British India. Jaswant Singh has been expelled from the Hindu nationalist BJP. His book has been banned in Gujarat - I have no polite words for Narendra Modi and his administration - and a few other states are planning to follow suit.

Jaswant’s thesis is not new, neither do I think he is a great historian. However, he does deserve kudos for daring to speak against received wisdom in India. In historical circles, the role of Gandhi, Nehru, Patel and Jinnah in India’s partition is very well known and well documented. I would ask you to read Stanley Wolpert’s “Shameful Flight”. The title of the book comes from a speech by Churchill in Parliament in March 1947. By then in opposition, this was a phrase he used in an emotional speech decrying the haste with which the Mountbatten plan required the British to partition India and leave. Even as an unreconstructed Empire-apologist and a near-racist, he was accurate in predicting the bloodbath and the chaos that would follow. But I digress. Wolpert traces the evolution of the Partition plan. Once the 1946 Interim Government was in place, Patel and Nehru had a taste of what power felt like. They were not willing to delay Independence, perhaps conscious of their own mortality. So was Jinnah. On the other hand, Gandhi proposed the Confederacy with Jinnah as Prime Minister, which was rejected outright by Nehru. Gandhi’s view was that Jinnah’s extremism would be tempered once he had the reins of administration in his hands. He may well have been right. But he proposed this structure knowing fully well that Partition meant a bloodbath, a sore that would fester for years and years. As it indeed has done, with frequent wars between India and Pakistan, the rise of Islamic terrorism in India, the emergence of a virulent Hindu nationalism in India, the nuclear weapon, and so on.

Gandhi is a cliche in India - however I would recommend very highly Rajmohan Gandhi’s biography of his grandfather to help the modern Indian understand who we are talking about when they see his smiling visage on a 500 Rupee currency note. The book is very honest and it is by no means a hagiography of a famous man. Gandhi's many failings as a human being are faithfully exposed. However, the detailed account of the way the Patition Plan was accepted by Patel and Nehru makes for very sad reading. Rajmohan pieces together events over a couple of days in June 1947, in sequence, from various sources, such as the diaries of Lord Pethick-Lawrence, the diaries of Maulana Azad, the memoirs of Leo Amery, etc. In that short period, everything was done and agreed, starting with an encounter in a car at Gol Market reminiscent of a John Le Carre thriller. And then when the Mahatma comes to the Working Committee meeting to talk again about the confederacy idea, he realises that a deal has been done. Azad then asks, “Is it necessary to detain the Mahatma any more?”. No answer from Patel or Nehru. Gandhiji gets up and walks off, knowing that India has been split. An extremely poignant recounting.

Both books moved me. I remember reading the last 100 pages of Wolpert flying from Delhi to Madras in February 2008. And when I put down the book on Gandhi I had tears in my eyes. Now, whenever I listen to “Vaishnav Jan To” – indeed when I write the name of this song – I have strong feelings rise in me. What a great life, what a great soul. With all his imperfections and quirks and idiosyncrasies, he lived a great life of conviction and courage. We as Indians should be doubly proud.

Which brings me back to Jaswant. While I have a lot of appreciation for his formidable strengths as a human being and as a politician, it is a bit rich, for someone who flirted with Hindutva and was silent during the Godhra/Gujarat incidents to now talk about Mahatma Gandhi or Nehru or Patel. He does not have half the courage of a Gandhi or a Nehru. Now that he is in the evening of his political life, may be this is a confession of sorts. I don’t know. Epiphanies are always welcome whenever they arrive. So one should be grateful, I suppose

The Worli Sea Link

I am in Mumbai, and I had an opportunity to travel on the new Worli Sea Link that connects the Bandra coast to Haji Ali (apologies to those not familiar with Mumbai). It is a remarkable piece of engineering, with a beautiful suspension bridge right in the middle. If ever any one wants to see the power of thought and the rule of physical law (that is mathematics and physics) you have to see a suspension bridge. The entire section of road is held by metal stays that are suspended from two or more concrete supports at each end. This is the stuff of real life that changes lives. Recently, driving back from Normandy to Calais from Carentan, I took the A13 which crosses the Pont du Normandie - another magnificent piece of work. Also a suspension bridge, and also a solution to what could have been - literally - an insurmountable engineering problem. The Pont du Gard at Nimes should be in this list. It crosses the river Rhone, and is an aqueduct built by the Romans around the 1st century AD. They built well. A few years ago there were severe floods in the region, and the Pont du Gard was one of the few structures to stay intact.

We in India need to learn the art of building once and building well. A project like the Sea Link defines the ambitions of a nation. Do we want to be a civilisation that shapes the earth for the good of those who live on it today and for eternity. And I do not mean yet another shopping mall. Do we believe in the future? When we build without engineering foresight and proper planning, we are telling our children that we did not believe that they would come to exist. It states that we do not believe in posterity. That our generation lacked ambition. We did not believe in ourselves enough to think that we would be capable of handing down a patrimony. I could show all the projects that we have undertaken that have not stood the test of time. The Mandovi bridge. The Bhakra Nangal dam that develops cracks. The thousands of miles of shoddy roads. Ask these planners to take a trip to Volubilis in Morocco or to Libya or Tunisia to see the Roman roads, still there, and sometimes capable of taking 4x4 traffic.

The Worli Sealink bypasses Mahim, which as any Bombayite knows, is an olfactory delight for anyone passing through it. However it also bypasses the Lady Jamshedji Road (the main road that connects Bandra to Dadar). This road - also known as the Mahim Causeway - was built in 1856 or so by Lady Jamshedji. She built it at a cost of Rupees One Hundred Thousand, and gave it to the city. Earlier, traders had to load up boats at Bandra and cross over to the other side. Now, they had a road. The impact on commerce and on the growth of this astonishing city was phenomenal. It is hard to quantify the magnitude of the generosity in today's money. But it never hurts to remember what happens if you build once, build well, and build for the future.

I came across a letter in the FT, (http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/9ce6a3d2-8159-11de-92e7-00144feabdc0.html) deriding India's efforts to try and stem the decline of the Himalayan glaciers in association with China. Now, we are talking about two countries that are villains in Western eyes, for refusing to toe the line on emission cuts. And now they get together to try and save the glaciers without first cutting emissions. This German academic, no doubt echoing the Indian rope trick, asked about the "Indians magic tricks to rescue the world from global warming".

The “magic trick” that India needs to continue to pull – as she has done with some success – is to provide a degree of economic development to its teeming millions, guaranteeing them a chance at living a small part of the middle class life that I am sure Prof Sendler enjoys in ample measure. And she has to do this while making sure her borders are safe, her democracy and civil liberties are reasonably secure, her various communities strive to find common cause rather than yield to those who exploit differences, her forest and natural wealth are preserved – I could go on.

Mr Jairam Ramesh, the Indian minister who flatly refused to entertain the notion of unilateral emission cuts recently, is not a stupid or unreasonable man, and I am sure he reads the same literature as Prof Sendler. If the current path of economic development that India is on were to be arrested because India yields to concerns about emission control, the result would be social and economic chaos which I am sure the West will do very little to solve. If there is an alternate path, let it present itself. Until then, India has no choice.

If Prof Sendler would care to review the same evidence, he would perhaps realise that his country is the third largest polluter per capita in the world in terms of CO2 emissions into the atmosphere (Cf David Mackay, “Without the Hot Air”). The Indian position is not a simple one – this is because India’s development problem is not something that can be simplified. It needs to be understood, and I would urge Prof Sendler to do just that.

Having said all this, it is high time India and China collaborated on how to make their economies greener, and establish intellectual leadership in technologies that enable this path. Some of them are obvious measures. I am sure there are more things that can be done.

Letter to the Financial Times July 28 2009

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/3dc824b8-7b0d-11de-8c34-00144feabdc0.html

David Milliband’s article in today’s FT (“How to help Afghans defeat the insurgency”) was a tedious rehash of all the traditional arguments that have been trotted over the years in favour of intervention for the sake of it. With current troop levels, the increasing public distaste for the bodies of our brave soldiers coming back home, and the lack of options to do something about it, there is no way NATO can credibly create an Afghanistan that will stop being a haven for Al-Qaeda. The Taliban fighter tolerates casualties and military defeats, because he is looking at the longer term when NATO will inevitably not be around.

Our best chance of reducing the Al-Qaeda threat in Afghanistan is by co-opting Afghanistan’s neighbours – Pakistan and Iran. Securing Pakistan will require the active co-operation of India, who need to put the past behind them. India need to understand that if Pakistan disintegrates under Taliban pressure, the jihadi element will be at their doorstep. India need to enable Pakistan to divert troops to their Western frontier so that the army can put pressure on the Pakistan Taliban and prevent them from gaining a hold. Britain and the West can certainly help in securing the frontier areas through measures designed to boost civil society.

With Iran, the recent turmoil has shown that it has the makings of a normal society that has aspirations like the rest of us, and this fact needs to be exploited. Mr Milliband needs to consider steps that secure a strategic alignment of interests between Iran and the West. The Iranians do not like the Taliban any more than we do. The threat of drugs is a very real danger to Iranian society. Post 9/11 there was a degree of co-operation between the West and Iran. We need to revive it.

If Mr Milliband considers NATO’s role to be a limited engagement, putting pressure on the Taliban while we secure Pakistan and Iran, it would make a lot of sense. But we cannot let our soaring ambition be converted to military targets when we really do not have the capability or the willingness to do anything about it. Britain should help Afghanistan’s neighbours believe it to be in their interest to defeat the Taliban and do something about it, and if they succeed, our job will have been done.

Musings on Wootton Bassett and La Cambe..

During my years in the UK I have had to spend a good portion of my time in Swindon. It is home a lot of tech companies, in the go-go days of UMTS this was the place where it all got done. I never really placed Swindon anywhere in the "charm" rankings of place in the UK - and this island is full of such spots. Its been a few years since I have visited this area, having spent the last few years in the arms of Paris, but recently I have had occasion to want to visit this town again.

Near Swindon is a small town called Wootton Bassett. Quite undistinguished in many ways, but very typical of the small, self-contained Cotswolds village that also serves as a commuer village for those working in London or Oxford or elsewhere.

Of late, Wootton Bassett has developed a practice that has become quite notable for its impact, and a certain very deep sense of decency.

Whenever a British soldier dies in combat, his body is brought to Lyneham AF Base by the RAF and it is taken by hearse, wrapped in the Union Jack, to where he or she is finally laid to rest. And this route passes through Wootton Bassett.

For the last three years or less, the town crier or the head of the local British Legion receives a call notifying him that the cortege is about pass. Then, by word of mouth, the entire town assembles on the road that the cortege takes. The undertaker, in a black hat, meets the cortege and escorts it in a slow march through the town. And the whole town, shoppers, shop assistants, commuters, stand in silent salute as the fallen soldiers are driven through the town. It all began spontaneously three years ago when someone noticed that the hearse with a coffin wrapped in a flag was being driven through the town and no one bothered.

Now everyone observes this simple ritual, that in many ways is so quintessentially British. Simple, solemn and above all spontaneous.

Why do we honour our war dead? Lets set aside the obvious reasons - they are our fathers and sons and mothers and daughters and brothers and sisters, who fell doing their duty. They died for us. They died doing something we never had the guts to do, and they died while serving, which is probably a privilege that was denied to us.

I think the real reason they deserve the honour is because of the manner of their falling. All death is ultimate and awful in cases. But dying in war has to be one of the messiest ways to go. As the fog of war descends on the battlefield, dignity is set aside and primeval instincts take over, and someone dies and someone lives, and no one can really say how it all happened. While soldiers expect to die in battle, no one wants to. There is fear. There is cowardice. There is genuine heroism and great compassion. But in that moment there rises a cauldron in which all human life is reduced to a set of random instincts and emotions. Death and destruction. In this cauldron fall these young men and women. For this and this reason alone they deserve our honour and respect.

Recently I was in Normandy and I stood at Pointe-du-Hoc, and wondered at what drove 255 men to scale up a cliff overhanging the Channel to assault a well-entrenched German gun emplacement, with about half of them dying and falling off into the sea. The answers to this question have been provided by historians and glorified by a hundred Hollywood movies. I wanted to feel some of the solace that the fallen experience removed from the justification that triumph provides. Victory makes it all seem worthwhile, and that did not satisfy me entirely.

So I went instead to La Cambe, where the German War Graves Commission maintains the graves of 22,000 fallen Wehrmacht soldiers. I drove up there on a beautiful June day that in Normandy makes you wonder how so much of violence was endured there 60-odd years ago.

On a large green campus topped by a cross set on a mound, are the serried ranks of graves of the fallen. Thus far, not very different. But what you see are mainly German visitors, who come to the little chapel at the entrance and consult the Namenbuch that has the names of the fallen. Then they repair to the site of their fallen father or relative, and pay homage. History records that the Germans lost. But not all of the fallen were criminals. They were young men - some of whom died hurt, bleeding, crying for their mothers or loved ones, praying for the end. The faces of the visitors are not triumphant in the cause though grieving in their personal loss. They are just the faces of those who lost a loved one.

So whoever you are - Indian, Pakistani, Chinese, French, American - whatever you may be. Next time you see a dead soldier being taken to his or her grave, stand up and stay silent for a minute. You owe them that much.

What do Bach and Bradman have to do with the price of fish?

I am new to blogging. People tell me I am very talkative and argumentative, even - but I have never written a blog. Of late a very good friend went on sabbatical and started to blog, and you may say he has acted as inspiration. I thought, why not turn all those thoughts and opinions and put them down where I can read them, and may be others so inclined can comment on them?

Why am I doing this? I am at a crossroads in terms of life, and I feel there are many people out there who could be like me. I am looking to empathise. I have some views on the world as it presents itself to me. This is an attempt to join the debate.

I do not intend to change the world. But if someone reading this feels that I have had a point of view that interests them, that would be my reward.

Coming to the title: My life has been dominated by several passions all related to the letter B:

Bach: - my absolute passion for music and for audiophile sound...something that causes grief to my wife when I insist on the ideal "sound stage"...

Bradman: - well, I cheated in the interests of alliteration. I mean sport. The sheer joy of competing in a team sport, win or lose, is something everyone should experience, whatever the level at which you play.

Business: - I have been a corporate slave for 25 years, and in that time, it has given me a lot of meaning to have been a part of the commercial world.

Buddies: - I have a few friends, and my life has been eminently enriched by all of them. I would not be what I am without them.

Bandhu:- Paraphrasing from the Hindi/Sanskrit - my family. They mean a lot to me.

Books:- Ever since I was so high, I have read and collected books with a passion.

And there are other things beginning with B.... I will say no more.

So here goes. One more blog to add to the noise. Apres moi le deluge.