First imperial defeat

Return of a King — The Battle for Afghanistan 1839-1842 by William Dalrymple; Bloomsbury; Price: Rs.799; 602 pp

The mountain nation of Afghanistan (pop. 30 million) — less a nation than a conglomeration of mutually antagonistic tribes which unite only when invaded by foreign armies — has proved to be a graveyard of mighty powers. Primitive and backward Afghanistan is perhaps easy to conquer, but impossible to retain. A study of the First Anglo-Afghan War spanning 1839-42 would have saved the Soviet Union which invaded Afghanistan in 1979 only to throw in the towel a decade later, and the US which took over the country in the aftermath of the bombing of the twin towers in New York in 2001, a mountain of grief.

Better late than never, the well-known India-centric historian William Dalrymple has written a deeply researched narrative of the ignominious rout of a 20,000-strong British expeditionary force which easily took Kabul in 1839, and installed a puppet king (Shah Shuja) at a time when British imperial power was at its zenith. The British feared that the Russians, in alliance with Persians, would invade and conquer Afghanistan to serve as a base for the invasion or subversion of the British Raj in India. These fears were baseless. But their apprehensions were probably stoked by the fact that in 1798 Napoleon Bonaparte had also taken Egypt. “Through Egypt we shall invade India,” he wrote. “We shall re-establish the old route through Suez.” But Napoleon’s India ambitions were thwarted when his fleet was destroyed by Admiral Nelson in the Battle of the Nile (1798).

Nevertheless, the British had good cause to worry about trouble on the north-west frontier. A brilliant Polish nobleman, Viktorovitch Vitkevitch, who had initially fought against the Russian occupation of his country before becoming a Russian agent, was sent to negotiate with the then ruler of Afghanistan. Although he was eventually disowned by his Russian masters and blew his brains out when he was still in his early 30s, Vitkevitch’s activities further fuelled British suspicions of Russian designs on Afghanistan and India. Be that as it may, a warped rationale was given for sending British troops, led by British officers but manned mainly by Indian and Gurkha soldiers, into Afghanistan in 1839.

Two famous paintings sum up the disastrous First Anglo-Afghan War — Lady Butler’s The Remnants of an Army, in which a badly wounded British army surgeon Dr. Brydon, almost falling off his horse, is shown arriving at the walls of the British-garrisoned town of Jallalabad. The common perception is that he was the only survivor of the ill-fated British invasion of Afghanistan. Dalrymple’s exhaustive research shows that there were hundreds of others, but they were either sold into slavery or taken prisoner. Some survived in mountain caves, but only through cannibalism.

“It was nonetheless an extraordinary defeat for the British and an almost miraculous victory for the Afghan resistance,” documents Dalrymple, in this gritty narrative of the disastrous First Anglo-Afghan War. However, he confirms that the overwhelming majority of British army officers, soldiers and camp followers perished, either in battle or from the cold, starvation and exhaustion.

The savage practices of the Afghan tribals are chillingly depicted in this page-turner. For instance, we learn that it was a common Afghan practice to sever the genitals of their enemies and stuff them into their mouths, while they were still alive, before delivering the coup de grace. In retaliation, British-commanded troops committed grisly atrocities as well. After the humiliating defeat, they took revenge on the Afghans with their ‘Army of Retribution’ which razed entire villages, killing men, women and children without the slightest compunction.

Despite the massive defeat, there were instances of great British bravery, even when the situation was hopeless. That is the subject of the second famous painting of the war, depicting the last stand of the 44th Essex Regiment. Reduced to 22 officers and 45 men armed with 20 muskets and two rounds of ammunition each left between them, they made their last stand atop the hill of Gandamak. “Many felt their regiment had been disgraced after running away from the hilltop of Bibi Mahru, and now they were determined to die fighting and so redeem the regimental honour. They formed a square and defended themselves, driving the Afghans several times down the hill, until they had exhausted the last of their rounds, and fought on with their bayonets. Then, one by one they were slaughtered,” recounts Dalrymple.

The huge irony is that there was no need for the British to have mounted this offensive. The Russian threat was non-existent, and the war was the outcome of a combination of errors and serious mis-judgements of incompetent commanders. The British officers also outraged Afghan honour by taking Afghan mistresses during their occupation of Kabul. The thoroughly dissolute kafir firangis, with their “puppet king” (who was soon assassinated by his own god-son), were held in utter contempt by the Afghan populace. Several British officers cravenly abandoned their troops and fled. It was some of these very troops that later rebelled in 1857 in the Indian mutiny — the First War of Independence which eventually ended British rule.

Dalrymple has written an enthralling book which has already received critical acclaim. Recounted with vivid detail, it’s the outcome of painstaking research drawing on original Afghan sources, and also recreates the machinations of British politics of the time for the general reader.

This reviewer’s only complaint is that the narrative leading upto the British invasion of Afghanistan could have been abridged. We are almost into 200 pages before the action begins. Dalrymple’s attempt to draw parallels between the Anglo-Afghan War and the current situation in Afghanistan is also somewhat far-fetched. President Hamid Karzai, corrupt though he may be, is no “puppet” installed by the US. He was democratically elected. And, unlike the British in 1842, the Americans and their allies did actually defeat the Taliban after the 9/11 World Trade Centre attack. It’s another matter that the Americans are now slowly pulling out of the country, and the Taliban is re-grouping.

Rahul Singh

Saving Planet Earth

Ecological Intelligence by Daniel Goleman; Penguin Books; Price: Rs.350; 276 pp

Study after study confirms that the ecological crisis imperceptibly descending upon humanity is of truly frightening proportions. Yet, it has not really sent alarm bells ringing except within a small circle of the environmentally-conscious. Most people prefer to turn a deaf ear to warning drumbeats signaling a looming ecological disaster. Although a growing number readily acknowledge that the environments we inhabit have undergone sharp degradation, that our streets are palpably clogged with rubbish and vehicles, and the air we breathe is thick with dust and smoke, the dominant opinion is there’s nothing we can do to about it.

This attitude, as Daniel Goleman explains in this well-researched and timely work, may indeed be widespread, but it needs to be challenged if we are at all serious about ensuring a sustainable future for humanity and Planet Earth. We cannot, Goleman reprimands us, just blame irresponsible governments and greedy corporates for rape of the environment. Nor can we expect to remedy the situation by reining in runaway governments and corporates. The truth, says Goleman, is that every individual around the world is actively involved in the destruction of nature, through the consumption choices he/she makes, although this is something we are rarely aware of. Therefore, if the choices we make are substantially altered, it’s still possible to save Mother Nature from unchecked destruction.

Goleman builds up an impressive argument for producers and consumers to cooperate to save the world by making intelligent production and consumption choices. All manufactured goods contain a combination of elements extracted from Nature, and every act of production results in some depletion of natural resources. In addition, packaging, rampant advertising, delivery of consumer products and waste disposal all have a crucial, though often not adequately recognised ecological impact. All this must be factored in, Goleman argues, to measure the environmental cost of a particular product. Consumers must learn to purchase and consume with greater awareness — almost meditatively — basing their decisions not simply on product price and packaging, but after considering the ecological cost of the items they purchase.

The more ‘ecologically intelligent’ about their choices consumers become, the more effectively will they be able to educate producers about environment sustainability, writes Goleman. Ideally, producers should provide prospective consumers detailed information of the products they manufacture — not just information about their chemical composition and, in the case of food products, their calorific value, but also the amount of energy and other resources expended in producing them, wages and working conditions of employees in the production chain, the amount of waste produced, methods of waste disposal and the impact of all this on the environment. Armed with this information, consumers can choose between competing brands with greater discrimination and on the basis of their ecological costs.

Given the ominous reality of the global environmental threat, Goleman’s advocacy of universalising ecological intelligence makes good sense, reminding us that although the problem is so huge that none of us can individually make much of a dent, every little effort of every individual counts. This book makes a substantive case for global ecological activism, which goes beyond targeting a few eco offenders to forcing industry to comply with strict ecological standards. It’s a goal worth striving for.

Goleman’s thesis goes much further. But strangely, he sees ecological intelligence sitting comfortably with liberal capitalism, and even making it more humane and efficient. ‘Ecological intelligence’, as Goleman defines it, has no problem with the underlying premise of capitalism of maximising consumption. Yet he is strangely silent on this very premise that encourages non-stop depredation of bio and physical environments worldwide. No matter how innocuous a product may seem, its production entails damage to the environment, an interference with measurable impact.

To save Mother Nature therefore,  it isn’t enough to produce and consume ‘ecologically intelligently’, as Goleman posits. The world will be prettier and more peaceful if runaway consumption gives way to a more ecologically sensible view of life, based on a premise which is the mirror opposite of materialist ideologies — the reduction of desires to needs. For, as Mahatma Gandhi famously remarked: “The world has enough for everyone’s need but not for everyone’s greed.’’ This awareness is true ‘ecological intelligence’, but an ideology the author can’t seem to stomach.

Yoginder Sikand