Category Archives: India

by Joel | 11 January 2007 · 6:25 pm

Indian Travel Tales from Vilayet, 1765

The [French] houses in the country are built of stone slabs, with roofs of terra cotta tiles. As the bamboo doesn’t grow here the scaffolding for the roofs is built of wood. The poorer classes live on a diet of broth and barley-bread and wear coarse wool or clothes woven from hemp, of which ropes are also spun. Most of them cannot afford leather shoes. Paris, the capital of France, is several hundred miles from either Calais or Nantes. Frenchman and foreigner alike sing high praises of the buildings and gardens of that city, its artistic innovativeness, scientific and technological advancement, the polished manners, cultivation, well-spokenness and wit of its inhabitants. In these respects it far surpasses all other cities in the Firinghee world.

The French claim that they have taught music and horsemanship to the English. Wealthy Englishmen send their children to French schools to polish up their manners and taste. The French say that the present excellence of the English in the arts and sciences, trade and industry, is the result of French education; in the past, when they lacked this education, they were ignorant like the mass of Indians. However, even the French admit that the English have always been outstanding soldiers.

The French say that the lower classes of Englishmen do not go to foreign countries to seek trade or employment because, being stupid and without any skills or business acumen, they would fail to earn a decent livelihood….

The [Scottish] Highlanders wear a jacket and a cap, but neither breeches nor boots. The lower part of the body is covered by a skirt called a kilt, but the knee is bare and cotton stockings are worn on the legs. Instead of shoes they wear wooden sandals fastened to the feet with leather straps. They carry a double-edged sword. I was told that their courage was beyond compare. But they are also simple-minded and doltish.

A Highlander who had gone to London was sightseeing about the bazaars, followed by a curious crowd of Englishmen and boys. One of the Englishmen in sport lifted the skirt of the Highlander’s kilt from behind. He was overcome with shame at this, but at the same time his wrath was inflamed and with a stroke of his sword he cut off the offender’s head. The Police and townspeople surrounded him but could not force him to surrender. He undauntedly stood his ground, prepared either to kill or die: He wounded many people, and on whichever side he charged they fled before him. No one had the courage to approach him, far less seize him. Word of this strange situation eventually reached the King, who sent a courtier to summon him. The Courtier went before him and said, ‘His Majesty has sent for you.’ On hearing the King’s name the Highlander immediately bowed his head and followed the royal envoy. When he appeared in the royal presence the King asked why he had heedlessly murdered a man. The Highlander knelt on one knee, according to the custom of Vilayet, bowed his head and after making obeisance, replied in a respectful tone, ‘When that man exposed a shameful part of my body I felt my honour had been ridiculed, and therefore in a state of rightful anger I struck him dead. But when I received your royal summons I hastened to surrender myself to you and I feel proud to have been permitted to kiss your threshold. Otherwise none would have been able to capture me alive.’ The King was impressed by this simple and courageous man’s defence and pardoned him.

There are amusing stories about the English too, particularly their country people, who are ignorant and stupid. One of them went to town where he was feted by a friend. He greatly relished a sheep’s liver kebab, which he had never tasted before, and took down its recipe. Before returning home he went to a butcher and bought a sheep’s liver, which he tied in a napkin and carried in his hand. A pie dog came up from behind, snatched the liver, napkin and all, and scampered off. The rustic shouted jeeringly after the dog, ‘You silly beast, you’ve got the raw liver, but the recipe is in my pocket!’.

Such stories only prove the truth that Allah did not create all five fingers equal. There is no country in the world where there are no stupid and ignorant people. In fact, everywhere they are the majority.

SOURCE: Other Routes: 1500 Years of African and Asian Travel Writing, edited by Tabish Khair, Martin Leer, Justin D. Edwards, and Hanna Ziadesh (Indiana U. Press, 2005), pp. 322, 325-326

See Wikipedia for the various meanings of Vilayet.

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by Joel | 3 October 2006 · 8:06 pm

Shia Syncretism and Parallels Elsewhere

In the days of the British Raj in India, Ashoura was an important date on the calendar of colonial officials, who inevitably had to contend with Shia customs and procession routes that raised Sunni hackles and, at times, Hindu objections…. Every year British administrators would brace themselves for fights and riots and negotiate Shia procession itineraries and rules of conduct for each community. Today British administrators do much the same thing in Northern Ireland, when the late spring and summer “marching season” sees groups such as the Protestant Orange Lodge approach with demands to process through Catholic neighborhoods.

Ashoura’s powerful focus on sorrow (azadari) and pageantry has a parallel in Catholic Lenten rituals, such as the Holy Week and Good Friday “Way of the Cross” processions and Passion plays that preface Easter Sunday observances in many places. Even the more extreme practices of some Shias, such as shedding one’s own blood through a small cut on the scalp, resemble rituals such as those of the Penitentes, a lay Catholic brotherhood originally formed on the Iberian Peninsula. In rural southern Colorado and northern New Mexico, Penitentes hold special Holy Week reenactments of Christ’s sufferings. They wear crowns of thorns and carry heavy crosses, and are even tied to the crosses and raised from the ground. Shias congregate in husayniyas (abodes of Husayn)—known as imambaras (courts of the imam) in South Asia—where they pray, chant, and lament Husayn’s death. This too has a parallel in the Penitentes’ moradas (places of worship), where they mark the sufferings of Christ.

Ashoura is a time of commemoration and penance for the vices and errors of humanity. The first Ashoura observance appears to have taken place in 684 C.E., four years after Husayn’s death, when a group of penitents gathered at Karbala with blackened faces and torn garments. Every year since, the Shia have shown that they continue to share in the day’s sorrow. Scholars have drawn attention to the resemblances between the rituals of Ashoura and pre-Islamic Iranian and Mesopotamian rites celebrating cosmic renewal, as well as rituals surrounding the death of Dionysus in Greek mythology and Osiris in Egyptian mythology. The Shia’s narrative of sorrow and faith was similarly enacted in the perennial language of ancient civilizations.

Over the years and the miles, the Shia faithful have adapted Ashoura to variations in local culture. As a result, an observance at Lucknow, in northern India, looks quite different in some ways from one in Nabatiye, in southern Lebanon. In Iraq, hundreds of thousands walk long distances to Karbala, sometimes in scorching summer heat, much as Catholic pilgrims still march between the cathedrals of Notre Dame de Paris and Chartres in France. Ashoura in northern India reflects contact with Hindu symbols and festivals. Many of its practices, while recognizable to local Hindus, would seem strange in the eyes of Shias from the Middle East.

Elephants led the processions of the royal Ashouras in Lucknow in the nineteenth century, and the crowd carried large replicas of the grand Shia places of worship in Lucknow and Iraq on their shoulders for many hours…. In Awadh in the nineteenth century, Hindus routinely participated in Ashoura. They adopted Husayn as the god of death, “his bloodstained horse and severed head lifted aloft on Umayyad staves presenting no less terrible an aspect than Kali Durga with her necklace of skulls.” Hindu influence shaped Ashoura rituals—for instance, extending the festival to ten days, the same as the festival of the goddess Durga. In Hyderabad, in southern India, it is customary for Hindu fakirs, with red streaks painted on their faces, and equipped with drums and whips, to walk in front of the main Ashoura procession. They flagellate themselves as they ask onlookers for alms in Imam Husayn’s name. Incense sticks burn in urns, in the tradition of Hindu religious gatherings in congregations for prayers or the reading of dirges. Hindus come to these meetings dressed in the saffron color of their religion, which provides a sharp contrast to the black worn by Shias. Before leaving, the Hindu visitors stoop over the urns and rub the ash of the incense on their eyelids, paying homage to Imam Husayn and receiving his blessing in the ways of their religion.

SOURCE: The Shia Revival: How Conflicts Within Islam Will Shape the Future, by Vali Nasr (W. W. Norton, 2006), pp. 45-48

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by Joel | 6 April 2006 · 3:05 pm

Italian POWs in India, 1944

One of the most intriguing organized units involved in road building [in India] was the Italian Auxiliary Pioneer Corps. This was raised from so-called Italian ‘co-operators’. During 8th Army’s campaigns against the Italians in 1941 and 1942, thousands of Italians had been brought to POW camps in India as they could not be taken to Britain. At first, the Italians were something of a nuisance in a jocular sort of way. They were adept at spreading anti-Allied propaganda to the Indian population – for example on the backs of cigarette packs with one or two cigarettes left in them. British military intelligence was particularly struck by one jape. The POWs had fabricated an Italian fascist flag from old clothes. They captured a vulture which flew into their compound and tied the flag to it. The unfortunate bird was seen flapping around the surrounding villages for hours displaying the insignia of Mussolini’s new Roman Empire. After the fall of the dictator and the German invasion of Italy, however, many Italian soldiers who were not committed fascists agreed to work on the Allied side. The valleys of Assam were alive with the sounds of the songs of Sorrento.

SOURCE: Forgotten Armies: Britain’s Asian Empire & the War with Japan, by Christopher Bayly and Tim Harper (Penguin, 2004), p. 426

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by Joel | 2 April 2006 · 3:29 pm

Muninn on Indian Political Traumas

Konrad Lawson of Muninn is too good a fieldworker to be a historian. Here are a few snippets of his account of a conversation with a Punjabi Sikh convenience store owner in Madison, Wisconsin, where he attended a conference on political trauma.

Hardeep gave me his own ten minute version of the partition [of India in 1947], which I will condense and roughly paraphrase, “The partition led to the unnecessary death of about a million people. It was the fault of three of the biggest fools of the 20th century, Gandhi, Nehru and Jinnah. Lord Mountbatten warned them that this partition was crazy. It is like all of the Americans moving to Canada and all of the Canadians moving to the United States. Gandhi was an idiot who did not know the minds of the people. Jinnah was a troublemaker, and he refused an offer of the presidency. You know what I think? I think Gandhi and Nehru should have killed Jinnah, killing one man would have saved a million and there would have been no partition.”

I confessed that I knew close to nothing about Indian history but I was curious why 1) he didn’t seem to blame the English for anything at all. 2) Wouldn’t killing Jinnah have inflamed muslim sentiment and generated even more religious violence? To the former, Hardeep felt that, “The British gave us English and an education. They are the reason why India is so great today and there are Indians all over the world. Why the fuck should I care who is in charge as long as they are a real leader. The British were leaders – a leader can tell when something will be a disaster, Lord Mountbatten knew that partition would be a disaster.” Apologists for the imperial civilizing mission would have approved. In response to the latter issue he said, “Are you kidding me? You don’t understand India. I come from a small village. We didn’t have a fucking clue what was going on in the next village and it is the same all across India. If they had killed him at the right opportunity, most of India would have never known better.”…

I didn’t agree with much of what my new friend had to say but the conversation, which involved much more than what I have reproduced here, was very educational. Even if I found many of his views objectionable, and his generalizations and dismissals problematic, I was fascinated by the interesting combination of views he entertained and a particular kind of logic which he was perfectly at ease in deploying. He was adept at applying his religious and philosophical principles to any and all situations. On the other hand, nothing seemed sacred or absolute to him, and sometimes I couldn’t help getting the impression that he was consciously mocking his own his positions even as he defended them, a highly unusual blend of articulate conviction and perpetually ironic delivery.

Very educational, indeed. And entertaining.

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by Joel | 2 April 2006 · 1:38 pm

An Indian Army Refugee, 1942

With the creation of the Indian National Army, the connections that colonial rule had forged along the [British Southeast Asian] crescent were beginning to resurface. Nor was it just the politics of the Japanese Empire that were doing this, but also a flow of refugees that was beginning to make it across the crescent to territory still held by the British. Among the hundreds of thousands of displaced persons wandering through Burma in the later months of 1942 were a few members of the Indian army who had evaded capture in Singapore. These men bought valuable but disquieting news of the Indian National Army to the British. They included Captain Pritam Singh of 2/16 Punjab Regiment. Having seen Indian officers slapped and beaten by the Japanese in a ‘demonstration of love towards the Asiatic races’, as he put it, he decided to escape north by taxi and train in civilian clothes. He bought a false Japanese passport in Penang and got into Thailand. Further north, he stayed for some time with a Kiplingesque character called Khan Zada. The Khan was a Pathan who had spent twelve years in jail in Calcutta for murder, but ended up as a butcher on the Thai-Burmese border. Now aged seventy, he had recently shot his son in the thigh for some mild misdemeanor. Evading Japanese spies and staying in gurdwaras (Sikh temples), Pritam Singh eventually ended up in Kalewa, where the refugees had recently died in thousands. He shaved his head and beard to be less conspicuous and finally escaped into British India via Imphal.

SOURCE: Forgotten Armies: Britain’s Asian Empire & the War with Japan, by Christopher Bayly and Tim Harper (Penguin, 2004), pp. 258-259

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by Joel | 2 April 2006 · 1:33 pm

Gandhi’s ‘Soul Force’ Turns Violent, 1942

Quit India began as another of Gandhi’s great non-violent displays of ‘soul force’. There were huge demonstrations and sit-ins (hartals) in major towns in the first two weeks of August [1942]. These were put down with police firings and baton charges. Labour unrest was quelled with particular vigour because the government was fearful of its consequence for war production. Within a few weeks this popular movement had taken on a rather different character. An organization began to appear at the grass roots rather than among the homespun-clad leadership, who were by now almost all in jail. By 15 August a new pattern had emerged of a systematic attempt to sabotage Britain’s war effort based on smaller population centres along major lines of communication or near important factory complexes. Telegraph lines were cut, railway lines were ripped up and bridges dynamited. In all 66,000 people were convicted or detained, of whom about a quarter, including most of the Congress leadership, were still in jail in 1944. About 2,500 people were shot dead.

This was undoubtedly a serious revolt, and one that directly threatened the war effort. Armed groups attacked several of the weakest points of the Indian railway network, derailing trains and bombing signal boxes at essential junctions. In one incident two Canadian military officers were pulled off a train and murdered…. Even sixty years on it is still difficult to say whether this month-long campaign was organized to a plan or whether the enraged local political leadership was reacting to British repression on the hoof. The savagery of the British response – police shootings, mass whipping, the burning of villages and sporadic torture of protestors – was testimony to the fact that the Raj was seriously rattled.

SOURCE: Forgotten Armies: Britain’s Asian Empire & the War with Japan, by Christopher Bayly and Tim Harper (Penguin, 2004), pp. 247-248

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by Joel | 7 March 2006 · 12:40 pm

South Asia’s Nationalist Time Zones

The Acorn has a mind-boggling post about the time-zone politics of South Asian nations.

Officially it was to save daylight. But the standardisation of time is just another way in which the countries of the subcontinent seek to assert their distinct national identity. Start with India, which in a style befitting the character of its polity, centralises its reference meridien by splitting the differences, ending up five and a half-hours ahead of UTC….

But it is Nepal that wins the prize for asserting a distinct national identity. It is five hours and forty-five minutes ahead of UTC, or 15 minutes ahead of Indian Standard Time.

A Sri Lankan commenter adds background on Sri Lanka’s latest fidgeting with time:

The President’s office informed the public today that the clocks in Sri Lanka would revert back to the old time i.e. Indian standard time from April 14, 2006 onwards. April 14 is the traditional Tamil/Sinhalese New Year (known in India as Baisakhi), a major public holiday in the island.

The shift back to old time is intended to accommodate the political powerful Buddhist monks and astrologers who never accepted day light savings time in 1996. Parents had also complained that school children had to leave for school when it was still dark. The decision in Colombo also puts the clocks in the island in line with the LTTE which never adopted the original time change in its territory.

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by Joel | 9 January 2006 · 5:56 pm

Indian Sati, German Totenfolge in Universal Context

The September 2004 issue of Journal of World History has a thought-provoking article on a much maligned, but not nearly rare enough phenomenon: the Indian custom of sati (= suttee). Author Jörg Fisch’s title is Dying for the Dead: Sati in Universal Context. Here’s the conclusion (courtesy of The History Cooperative).

Sati, the burning of widows in India, has probably been the best-known (and the most despised or lamented) Indian custom in Europe since the ancient Greeks. Comparisons with other customs usually have been made on the phenomenological level, especially with the burning of witches and heretics. Here it is suggested to introduce comparisons on the functional level. The main question is thus not what happens, but what the function and purpose of the act are. Seen in this perspective, the central aspect becomes the connection between this world and the other world, between the living and the dead. On the basis of a belief in a hereafter that is an immediate continuation of this life, both worlds are connected by an act in which a dead person is followed, voluntarily or by force, in a public ceremony, by one or several living persons, thus emphasizing the continuity between the two worlds. The particulars of the ritual, whether it is killing or self-killing, and the manner of killing are, from a functional point of view, unimportant. Usually, this manner corresponds to the manner of disposing of the dead. Thus, for example, in Indian castes that bury the dead, sati is usually performed by burying alive. In other contexts, the method of killing is to preserve the body of the followers as intact as possible, so as to enable them to do their duties in the hereafter, which often leads to strangling.

Following into death thus defined can be shown to have occurred, in the course of history, in most areas of the world for a longer or a shorter time, with the notable exception of Western Europe [Eva Braun?–J.], for which there is no satisfactory explanation so far, due to the lack of sources. Two further important questions cannot be answered either: we can only guess the context in which such customs had their origin, as we don’t know when they developed, and we do not know whether there was a kind of diffusion from one point of origin or whether the relevant customs developed independently from each other in different places. The only exceptions are Southeast Asia, where the occurrence of widow burning makes Indian influence very likely, and Japan, where there was probably Chinese influence.

Following into death is of special interest because it links two worlds and thus religious with sociopolitical aspects. It is a matter of life and death. As it is physically impossible to accompany every dead person, the question of who has the right to be followed and who has the duty to follow arises. Following into death thus not only becomes a mirror of social structure and political power; it also can influence them. There are two main functions in this framework. Especially in India, sati reflects, confirms, and strengthens the subordination of men to women [vice versa, surely–J.]. In many other places it has the same effect for the superiority of the ruling groups. The ceremony of killing the followers shows the long-term results of social and political power struggles.

Following into death presupposes certain religious beliefs (as a necessary, not a sufficient, condition). Wherever beliefs in a final judgment prevailed over beliefs in a transfer of this world into the other, following into death either vanished, if the beliefs of the people at large changed, or were suppressed, if foreign conquerors had sufficient strength to abolish them. This is what European colonialism did, mainly with humanitarian arguments, but basically because of its own religious background.

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by Joel | 25 September 2005 · 3:55 pm

Bix on Judge Radhabinod Pal

The Indian appointee to the [Tokyo war crimes] court was sixty-year-old Radhabinod Pal of the High Court of Calcutta. Pal had been a supporter of the pro-Axis Indian nationalist, Chandra Bose, and a longtime Japanophile. Unlike most Indian elites, who condemned both British and Japanese imperialism and never embraced the ideology of the Greater East Asia Coprosperity Sphere, Pal was an outright apologist for Japanese imperialism. Arriving in Tokyo in May, he accepted his appointment under the charter in bad faith, not believing in the right of the Allies to try Japan, let alone judicially sanction it any way. Determined to see the tribunal fail from the outset, Pal intended to write a separate dissenting opinion no matter what the other judges ruled. Not surprisingly he refused to sign a “joint affirmation to administer justice fairly.”

Thereafter, according to the estimate of defense lawyer Owen Cunningham, Pal absented himself for 109 of 466 “judge days,” or more than twice the number of the next highest absentee, the president of the tribunal, Sir William Webb himself (53 “judge days”). Whenever Pal appeared in court, he unfailingly bowed to the defendants, whom he regarded as men who had initiated the liberation of Asia. Pal, the most politically independent of the judges, refused to let Allied political concerns and purposes, let alone the charter, influence his judgment in any way. He would produce the tribunal’s most emotionally charged, political judgment. Many who repudiate the Tokyo trial while clinging to the wartime propaganda view of the “War of Greater East Asia,” believed that the main cause of Asian suffering was Western white men–that is, Pal’s “victors.” They would cite Pal’s arguments approvingly. So too would others who saw the war primarily in terms of the “white” exploitation of Asia.

SOURCE: Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan, by Herbert P. Bix (HarperCollins, 2000), pp. 595-596

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by Joel | 11 December 2004 · 9:35 pm

To: Commander Jamalpur Garrison, 10 December 1971

In late November 1971, the Indian Army decisively invaded East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) in support of the Bengali resistance army, the Mukti Bahini (‘freedom fighters’).

At Jamalpur, near Dhaka, the Indian brigadier, Hardit Singh Kler, surrounded a Pakistani unit led by Lt. Colonel Ahmed Sultan. On 10 December the two officers exchanged letters. The first, written by the Indian brigadier, was taken across the front line by an elderly man who delivered it by hand.

To,

The Commander Jamalpur Garrison

I am directed to inform you that your garrison has been cut off from all sides and you have no escape route available to you. One brigade with full compliment of artillery has already been built up and another will be striking by morning. In addition you have been given a foretaste of a small element of our air force with a lot more to come. The situation as far as you are concerned is hopeless. Your higher commanders have already ditched you.

I expect your reply before 6.30 p.m. today failing which I will be constrained to deliver the final blow for which purpose 40 sorties of MIGs have been allotted to me.

In this morning’s action the prisoners captured by us have given your strength and dispositions, and are well looked after.

The treatment I expect to be given to the civil messenger should be according to a gentlemanly code of honour and no harm should come to him.

An immediate reply is solicited.

Brigadier HS Kler. Comd.

The reply was sent a few hours later:

Dear Brig,

Hope this finds you in high spirits. Your letter asking us to surrender had been received. I want to tell you that the fighting you have seen so far is very little, in fact the fighting has not even started. So let us stop negotiating and start the fight.

40 sorties, I may point out, are inadequate. Ask for many more.

Your point about treating your messenger well was superfluous. It shows how you under-estimate my boys. I hope he liked his tea.

Give my love to the Muktis. Let me see you with a sten in your hand next time instead of the pen you seem to have such mastery over,

Now get on and fight.

Yours sincerely

Commander Jamalpur Fortress.

(Lt. Colonel Ahmed Sultan)

The next morning the fight did indeed begin when Lt. Colonel Sultan tried to break out of his garrison. Over 230 of his men were killed. They died in vain. When the Indian brigadier had written ‘your higher commanders have already ditched you’, he was absolutely right. The military and political leadership in Dhaka already knew that the war was lost….

Pakistan’s hopeless military situation on the ground was matched on the diplomatic front. The Indians’ diplomatic position would have been far worse if [Gen.] Yahya [Khan] had acted with greater speed and determination to isolate Delhi for what was, after all, a blatantly illegal invasion of a foreign country. Amazingly, Yahya failed to raise the Indian invasion of Pakistan formally at the UN Security Council. He probably feared that any ceasefire resolution would include a provision that he had to negotiate with the Awami League–something he was determined to avoid. But whatever the rationale, it was a significant blunder.

The Security Council did nevertheless discuss the situation in East Pakistan but successive resolutions were vetoed by either Russia or China. The Russians, backing India, wanted any resolution to include commitments for a transfer of power to the Awami League; the Chinese, backing Pakistan, did not. In his capacity of foreign minister, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto went to New York but was unable to affect the course of events. With Pakistan’s unity on the verge of destruction and frustrated by the Russians’ Security Council vetoes, Bhutto decided to make the best of a bad job and strengthen his own political position back at home. On 15 December he told the Security Council that he would never address them again. As he ripped up some Security Council papers, he asked: ‘Why should I waste my time here? I will go back to my country and fight.’ It was the speech of a leader in waiting.