Variegated views on India

Short takes

By

Randeep Wadehra

Defragmenting India by Harish Nambiar

Sage. Pages: ix+241. Price: Rs. 350/-

Nambiar, a seasoned journalist, and his friend Rohan go on a motorcycle trip across India. Vapi is their first stop where Nambiar detects changes in attitudes among his childhood friends – largely due to the changing socio-political climate in the state. Thence they go to places in central, east and south India. Nambiar presents a mosaic of contrasting trends, attitudes and realities, which do not constitute a definitive picture of India, yet is fairly comprehensive even if slightly disjointed. So, we have Taraz, the first generation Bahai immigrant from Iran, who has married an Indian Bahai of Iranian descent; he is often mistaken for a Muslim in Sambhalpur – a small town in Odisha – which he now calls home where Hindu rightist forces are making their presence felt by targeting the local Christian school, which is also the most sought after for admissions. Conversely, the Navayaths of Bhatkal – of Arab-Iranian-Indian descent – present a liberal Muslim face that is getting increasingly pockmarked by the community’s youth joining the ISI sponsored fundamentalist Muslims. Then there is the ugliness of the post Babri Masjid Mumbai riots and growing isolationist trend in the megalopolis where Hindus and Muslims are increasingly getting convinced that it would be better to live among co-religionists to ensure lasting peace. A dangerous argument, because if familiarity breeds contempt then ignorance breeds prejudice, which leads to demonization of the other.

But all is not lost. Nambiar talks of the family of Ramiah – an ex-soldier – in Bangalore. Their ambivalence towards religious identity is heartening indeed. Again, Surekha, a Catholic who had married a Parsi, is bringing up her children in a liberal atmosphere wherein religion is a source of values, nothing else. While reading this travelogue-cum-anthropology-cum-sociopolitical analysis one is left wondering about the manner in which history has embedded multiculturalism in the nation’s psyche. For example, there is a delightful speculation regarding the ethnic origins of Konkan’s Chitpavan Brahmins, which ranges from Jewish to Greek!

Freedom movement and Indian Muslims by Santimoy Ray

National Book Trust. Pages: xvi+159. Price: Rs. 60/-

Historiography is invariably a stepchild of bias. This much one understands while going through the various versions of “history” including that of India; as Voltaire had remarked, ancient history is nothing but an accepted fiction. One can say the same of other periods too. Even as secularists tried to “rectify” the “prejudices against Muslims” that had crept in during the British period, courtesy the British historians like Elliot, Dawson, Briggs and later on Todd, Elphinstone et al, and Indians like Jadunath Sarkar and RC Mazumdar who had adhered to James Mill’s framework, there has been a raging debate about the facts and truths about past events, especially since the arrival of Muslims in India.

This slim volume would certainly be of interest to those who intend to study the various versions of India’s history.

Anna: 13 days that awakened India by Ashutosh

Harper Collins & India Today. Pages: xviii+226. Price: Rs. 199/-

Karl Marx had once remarked, “Hegel says somewhere that all great events and personalities in world history reappear in one fashion or another. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second as farce.” Well, the jury is still out on Team Anna even as “The Empire” – as Ashutosh loves to describe the present political establishment – is doing its utmost to discredit Anna, or at least smudge the halo around his head by throwing mud at his star supporters like Kiran Bedi, Prashant Bhushan and Arun Kejriwal. The author, while clearly critical of the political establishment, has used his redoubtable journalistic skills to present a balanced picture of Team Anna’s struggle for greater transparency, probity and accountability in the country’s politico-administrative system.

Published in The Tribune dated June 3, 2012