Contrarian history

From the Ruins of Empire by Pankaj Mishra; Penguin; Price: Rs.699; 356 pp

This is truly an extraordinary book of scholarship and history. It prompts reflections on several unanswered questions which have haunted the minds of all right thinking people of India, indeed Asia. Foremost among them is how and why did the British and other imperial powers have such an easy passage of entry, loot and conquest in Asia — especially in the huge landmasses of India and China — during the 19th and 20th centuries?

The general impression within middle class India, raised on texts written by historians steeped in the western tradition is that the ancient civilisations of the oriental world were so enfeebled by sloth, greed, cruelty and exploitation of their native rulers, that their people welcomed foreign rule. British historians claimed that imperial rule imposed modern law, order and justice systems, introduced western science and technologies, and injected egalitarian concepts such as secularism and equality before the law into hierarchical oriental societies riddled with patently unjust social orders.

Certainly, the vast majority of pre-independence and free India’s children are not aware that this unbalanced view of history which glossed over the excesses of exploiting imperialists, was vigorously contested by several unsung intellectuals including preachers, writers and journalists in India, China, Japan and other Asian countries. For instance how much — if anything at all — do Indian scholars and students know about Jamal al-Din-Afghani, a highly revered scholar-journalist who travelled across the Islamic world in the 19th century warning the effete rulers of Delhi, Afghanistan, Persia, Egypt and the Ottoman empire in Istanbul, that the texts of British historians were “marked by the hands of English self-love, with the pens of conceit and pencils of deception, and inescapably they do not relate the truth and report reality”?

Al-Afghani ploughed a lonely furrow because in the latter half of the 19th century when he began advocating the cause of pan-Islamic unity, Western, particularly British imperialism was at its zenith, and the elites of the oriental world were dazzled by European science, technology, learning and organisational ability. It impressed Indian Muslims such as Sir Sayyid Ahmed Khan, founder of Aligarh University, who exhorted the Muslim community to profit from the “style and art of Englishmen”, and in 1876 described British rule in India as “the most wonderful phenomenon the world has seen”.

Other Indian intellectuals were not as gullible and were able to see through the sanctimonious humbug of British imperialism driven by sustained greed, and little real regard for the welfare of the native population. Swami Vivekananda, regarded by Mishra as India’s most famous thinker of the 19th century, described British rulers and troops as demons “fearsome-like wild animals who see no difference between good and evil… dependent on material things, grabbing other people’s land and wealth by hook or crook”.

In this excellent and fluid volume beyond trodden paths, Mishra forays into the suppressed history of pillage of Asia and the humiliations heaped upon its people, focussing upon three great civilisations — India, the Muslim world and China. The book begins with a recitation of a watershed but under-reported event in world history — the defeat in 1905 of a mighty Russian armada by a small Japanese fleet in the Tsushima Strait. According to the author, the resurgence of Asia began to assume shape after Japan’s naval victory in Tsushima because “for the first time since the Middle Ages, a non-European country vanquished a European power in a major war”.

The reverberations of the Japanese naval victory were felt around the world. In Calcutta, the British viceroy of India, Lord Curzon described it as a “thunderclap through the whispering galleries of the East”. In South Africa, a then unknown lawyer named M.K. Gandhi opined that “so far and wide have the roots of Japanese victory spread that we cannot now visualise all the fruit it will put forth”.

The news from Tsushima also uplifted the spirits of nationalists within the great landmass of China, then ruled by the Manchu dynasty. Contrary to western historical narratives of oriental despotism, China with its high civilisation and Confucian culture of 2,000 years, had a thriving economy right until the end of the 18th century, and enjoyed a trade surplus with the West which the latter had to make good in bullion. This trade surplus was the stimulus for the British strategy of forcibly dumping opium grown in India (exclusively for China) upon the Chinese populace, in pursuance of a self-proclaimed right of international “free trade”.

All efforts by the imperial government in Beijing to stop this nefarious trade were contested by warships and troops dispatched to protect British mercantile interests. In pursuit of asserting the right to free trade — which addicted over 10 million Chinese in the 19th century to opium — in 1859 British gunships sailed up the Yangtse, bombarded Canton and torched the emperor’s Summer Palace, a humiliation which still rankles the people of China.

But even as western powers following the lead of the British, demanded ever greater concessions and trading rights in China, the clarion call for resistance to their depredations was given by a Chinese scholar Liang Qichao, who is introduced by Mishra as “China’s first iconic modern intellectual whose lucid and prolific writings... inspired... the much younger Mao Zedong.” Liang’s long struggle to present an anti-western pan-Asian philosophy for Asia’s transformation — in which cause he invited Rabindranath Tagore on a less than successful lecture tour of China in 1924, is detailed in this seminal work.

From the Ruins of Empire recounts the efforts of Al-Afghani, Tagore and Liang Qichao among other Asian intellectuals, to crystallise a pan-Asia development philosophy based on social harmony, larger group interest and limited consumerism as an alternative to western individualism and unbridled consumerism. These efforts, the author admits, were less than successful in their time. The nation states of Asia attained their freedom from colonial rule by adopting and adapting western-style nationalism and ideologies such as secular democracy in India and communism in China, while the countries of the Islamic world lapsed into dictatorships which often warred with each other. Nevertheless, according to Mishra, the seeds planted by Jamal Al-Afghani, Liang Qichao, Tokutomi Soho (in Japan) didn’t wither in the soil. He connects the pamphlets, tracts and writings of these influential thinkers — curiously all journalists — with the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and revival of Confucianism in China.

From the Ruins of Empire is a compelling alternative history of the ascendant nations of Asia. It exposes doctored and motivated historical narratives which brainwashed the victims of imperial powers in Asia, to believe that their allegedly chaotic and enfeebled societies welcomed the rule of technology-enabled and highly cultured western colonialists as an alternative to anarchy.

Dilip Thakore

Byron revisited

Childish Loves by Benjamin Markovits; Norton/Penguin; Price: Rs.499; 398 pp

This inventive novel narrates two interrelated stories. In the main one, the author Ben Markovits is travelling around the US and England in pursuit of information relating to a recently deceased colleague, Peter Sullivan, whose writings form the engaging secondary narrative.

Sullivan was a teacher at a prestigious private school in New York, an eccentric figure with a scandal in his past, but one of Markovits’ few friends as a fellow teacher. After Sullivan’s death, Markovits receives a package containing three works of fiction written by his friend, all well-researched fantasias from the life of the famed English Romantic poet, Lord Byron (1788-1824). In the course of Markovits’ investigations and efforts to publish and promote his friend’s work, he unveils intriguing trivia about Sullivan’s relationship with a male student during his teaching days in Boston, discovering hidden sides of his friend reflected in these stories.

Sullivan’s stories explore a facet of Byron’s life generally left unexamined by most biographers. The first tale, ‘Fair Seed-Time,’ is drawn from Byron’s childhood during a summer vacation. Lord Grey, “a fair, lively, acceptable-looking young man,” has rented the poet’s ancestral home for the summer and makes a lasting impression on the young, cash-strapped nobleman. Much later, Grey invites Byron into his bed, providing the boy an experience which, while quickly glossed over by the writer, stays etched in his memory for life. The story deftly balances historical details with rich insights into its characters, especially Byron, who comes across as a precocious, spoilt child of privilege, not yet “mad, bad, and dangerous to know,” though hints of his future persona are perceptible.

Sullivan’s next story, ‘Behold Him Freshman!,’ unfolds in Byron’s first year at Cambridge University, where the poet spends his time wining, dining and roistering with fellow students, occasionally attending lectures. He meets William Bankes, who hires choir boys to sing to him and his friends in his rooms during afternoons. Inevitably, there are hints that they do more than just hear them sing. One of the boys, Edleston, becomes infatuated with Byron, and they spend considerable time together. An orphan, he eagerly laps up the attention Byron lavishes on him. At the same time, the young poet is also in a sexual relationship with Mary, the daughter of a printer who has published some of his poems. Complications ensue when Mary becomes pregnant and Byron is forced to leave the community, and is well set on the path to earning his infamous reputation.

The final story, ‘A Soldier’s Grave,’ recounts Byron’s adventures in the last months of his life, leading a ragtag band of adventurers in the fight for Greek independence. Establishing his headquarters in Missolonghi in anticipation of heroic deeds, the militant Byron spends most of his time dealing with infighting among his followers and paying off local officials. He also becomes heavily involved with a young Greek boy, Lukas Chalandristsanos, for whom he develops a strong attachment. This, indeed, may have been the love Byron was searching for all his life. But Lukas exploits Byron’s affections, stealing money and undermining his authority. This chaotic situation, together with his failing health, makes life painfully difficult for the poet, who nonetheless manages to compose some of his most moving poems during the final phase of his life.

In this fictional biography of Byron, Markovits transforms his research into compelling parallel narratives. Childish Loves highlights the connections between fiction and reality, as also between teachers and students. While leaving full motivation a mystery, it sheds light on pederasty, hitherto a taboo subject.

Charles Green