Books

Passion, eloquence and erudition

Great Speeches of Modern India edited by Rudrangshu Mukherjee; Random House; Price: Rs.395; 446 pp

In the history of all nations there’s no shortage of examples which prove that great orators and oratory can move mountains and multitudes. In ancient India, the profound discourses of the philosopher-prince Krishna — as recorded by the poet-sage Vyasa — became the bedrock of Hinduism and Indian civilisation. In ancient Greece, great philosophers such as Plato and Cicero orated from public forums delivering percipient wisdom which laid the foundations of western civilisation. And as recounted in William Shakespeare’s epic tragedy Julius Caesar, Mark Antony delivered one of the greatest public addresses of all time which moved the cynical proletariat of ancient Rome to mutiny and rage, and changed the course of world history.

Fortunately modern, especially 20th century India was also well-served by great orators who moved the down-trodden masses to mutiny and mass mobilisation during this country’s unique freedom movement, which humbled arguably the greatest empire in world history and precipitated the end of British imperialism. Rudrangshu Mukherjee, editor of the Kolkata-based daily The Telegraph, has rendered the nation and civic society great service by compiling this rivetting compendium which presents an eclectic mix of epochal speeches delivered by charismatic Indians — mainly in politics but also from other walks of life — whose words turned the tides of history in the period spanning the 19th to the early 21st century.

Although he concedes that great speeches are meant to be spoken and heard rather than read, and that a "good orator brings to a speech something more persuasive and moving than the power of the written word", Mukherjee believes — and rightly so — that certain public addresses "retain their emotive charge" even in the printed form. But this is a somewhat subjective collection — not even one of the many momentous public speeches or annual Union budget analyses of the late Nani Palkhivala which attracted perhaps the largest middle class audiences in post-independence India’s history and turned public opinion against neta-babu socialism, is included in this anthology. Ditto C. R. Rajagopalchari (Rajaji), founder of the pro-private enterprise Swatantra party, whose learned oratory provoked the first major electoral revolt against the hegemonic Congress party in the general election of 1967. One suspects these omissions are because Palkhivala and Rajaji represented ‘right wing’ economic opinion which is anathema to Kolkata intellectuals. However, to be fair, two speeches of the late JRD Tata and even one of RSS stalwart V.D. Savarkar (challenging the "dangerous cult of absolute non-violence") are included.

The chronological sequence in which the great speeches are presented in part one of this anthology enables the reader to discern the incremental tempo of India’s freedom movement. In 1885, while inaugurating the Indian National Congress, Womesh Chandra Bonerjee pleaded with Parliament in Westminster for India "to be governed according to the principles prevalent in Europe (which) is in no way incompatible with our loyalty to the British government". Two decades later, in a stirring address, the ageing Bal Gangadhar Tilak aggressively asserted that "Freedom is my birth-right. So long as it is awake within me, I am not old. No weapon can cut this spirit, no fire can burn it, no water can wet it, no wind can dry it."

Five years later, Mahatma Gandhi on trial before an English sessions court judge for exciting hatred and disaffection towards the government of India, unreservedly castigated British rule in India, stating that "in its totality (it) has done more harm to India than any previous system".

It is impossible in the space allotted for this book review to highlight more than a few pearls of wisdom drawn from inspirational public addresses of great leaders and thinkers who shaped the course of Indian history in the 19th and 20th centuries. One has to read them to experience a rush of emotion which will often dim the reader’s eye while simultaneously offering illuminating insights into the men and women who presented them to the public. This eclectic selection inter alia includes the famous discourse delivered by Swami Vivekananda to the Parliament of Religions in Chicago (1893); Lord Curzon’s plea to Indians to preserve their ancient monuments (1900); Rabindranath Tagore’s ‘crisis of civilisation speech’ — his last public address — in which he lamented that "the dire poverty of the Indian masses (has) rent my heart" (1941).

In the second part of the book as well, 27 memorable public addresses made by prominent individuals who shaped post-independence India’s history and character — Pandit Nehru, Dr. Ambedkar, Satyajit Ray, Jayaprakash Narayan, Indira Gandhi, Dr. Manmohan Singh, Rajiv Gandhi and Narasimha Rao among others, are presented in extenso, each prefaced with a valuable contextual introduction penned by Mukherjee.

Although they seem anaemic and pusillanimous compared with the soul-stirring addresses of the leaders of the freedom movement — a deterioration which Mukherjee ascribes to the emergence of the new tribe of professional speechwriters — nevertheless they cast considerable light on the milestone trials and tribulations of India during the past six decades after the assassination of the Mahatma in 1948. The 49 speeches in this compilation offer a unique blend of eloquence, passion and erudition which has become all too rare in contemporary India led by ill-read rabble rousers and tunnel-vision technocrats masquerading as leaders of the people and public opinion.

Twilight of a dynasty

The Last Nizam: The Rise and Fall of India’s Greatest Princely State by John Zubrzycki; Picador India; Price: Rs.395; 382 pp

When he was born on October 7, 1933 in Nice, France, before he was presented to his grandfather the seventh Nizam Osman Ali Khan at the King Kothi palace in Hyderabad the following year, his arrival into the world was a big ticket event. Cannons boomed in Chowmahalla palace, which was brilliantly lit up for a fireworks display, and all govern-ment employees in the kingdom of Hyderabad (pop. 16 million) were given the day off. "On his Turkish grandfather’s side he could trace his descent to the first Caliph Abu Baker, and on his mother’s side his family tree went directly to the Prophet Muhammad himself. Osman Ali Khan believed that as the first offspring of the union of the two greatest Muslim dynasties of their time, Prince Mukarram could be groomed to become not only the spiritual leader of Islam but also the ruler of India’s largest Muslim state," writes John Zubrzycki, a Sydney-based journalist ("who has travelled and worked in India for over thirty years") in this captivating biography The Last Nizam.

His Exalted Highness Mukarram Asaf Jah VIII was destined to reign as the eighth Nizam of Hyderabad with a long list of titles including "the Rustam of the Age, the Aristotle of the Times, and the Ruler of the Kingdom". But alas the fates — more accurately history — intervened. By the time the young prince who was briefly enrolled in the Doon School and at Harrow entered his mid-teens, the 562 kingdoms, princedoms and principalities of which Hyderabad was one of the largest and richest, had transformed into independent India. Nizam Osman Ali made a valiant attempt to declare landlocked Hyderabad an independent state before bowing to the inevitable. On December 6, 1948 he ordered that the Constitution of India should become the constitution of Hyderabad.

Nevertheless, life in independent India for Nizam Osman Ali and his pampered grandson in particular was not uncomfortable, despite the Nizam having to provide for his own and his sons’ harems and an entourage of dependents whose number was estimated at several thousand. Under an agreement signed between Osman Ali Khan and the government of India on January 25, 1950 (the full text has never been made public), for surrender of his feudal estates, the Nizam was guaranteed annual compensation of Rs.2.5 million in addition to an annual privy purse of Rs.5 million, free of all taxes.

Moreover the Nizam’s (and after Osman Ali’s death Mukarram’s) tax-free private inheritance — also guaranteed by the government of India — included a mind-boggling 2,200 properties spread across Hyderabad and Berar, cumulatively adding up to real estate larger than Belgium. In addition, the family trust controlled by him owned 25,000 diamonds weighing over 12,000 carats; more than 2,000 emeralds and 40,000 rows of pearls larger than quail’s eggs.

Right up to Osman Ali’s death in 1967 the relationship between the Hyderabad dynasty and the government of India was good and in 1967 as per his grandfather’s wish, Mukarram was ‘crowned’ the eighth Nizam of Hyderabad — by a special order of the President of India — at a glittering ceremony at Chowmahalla palace in Hyderabad. But in 1971, the solemn privy purses compact between the government of India and pre-independence India’s princes was unilaterally abolished by prime minister Indira Gandhi at a time when she was at the peak of her popularity. Nevertheless, though he had been deprived of his privy purse and had no temporal powers, the family’s fabulous wealth was inherited solely by him. Mukarram still was the wealthiest citizen of India and indeed the richest prince in the world.

But a gentleman’s life of leisure was denied to him. Mukarram hadn’t foreseen that thousands of relatives of whom he knew nothing would file law suits claiming slices of the Asaf Jahi fortune. More than 476 persons claiming to be direct descendants of the seventh Nizam and 1,945 others claiming descent from the sixth Nizam, initiated legal proceedings against him in India’s over-burdened courts, notorious for the law’s delay. The unkindest cut of all was when his son Azmat and daughter Shekhyar filed a case in the Supreme Court declaring their father to be "mentally incompetent" and incapable of managing his finances.

Too pained to live in Hyderabad and contest these cases, Mukarram shifted base to Australia, where he bought a half-million acre sheep farm near Perth. But after spending 20 years and millions of dollars in the Australian outback, he abandoned his bankrupt farm with its dusty, empty paddocks and moved to Istanbul where, now 72, he lives a totally secluded life in a modest two-bedroom apartment. The ‘Conqueror of Dominions’ is now the anonymous Mr. Jah and acknowledges Turkey as his country of residence.

Zubrzycki’s first book is a racy, well-researched narrative of the twilight years of the Nizam-ul-Mulk dynasty, set against the backdrop of the British retreat from their Indian empire. The story of Mukarram Jah, the last Nizam and heir to India’s greatest Muslim dynasty since the Mughals, is detailed with sympathy. It’s a sad tale of an individual who is spending his life’s autumn as a prisoner of his palaces, zenanas and untold billions.