Haksar on India's Sri Lanka Policy by Dr.V.Suryanarayan and Dr.Asik Bonofer; Published by Book Venture--Center for Asia Studies ; Pages 96 ; Price Rs.200/- ********************* The authors of the book under review are acknowledged authorities on Sri Lanka. Dr.V. Suryanarayan worked for over two decades with the Centre for South and South East Asian Studies—which he established. He was Visiting Professor in several Universities in USA, Sri Lanka and India. Winner of many international awards. He was part of an International Team that monitored the Presidential election in 1999.He is the author of seven scholarly books. On Sri Lanka Suryanarayan has few peers with his formidable knowledge and closeness with the main actors. His co-author Dr.Ashik Bonofer is an authority and teaches International Relations in Madras Christian College. He has undertaken immense research on Sri Lanka. Among the outstanding books of this year is Jairam Ramesh’s “Intertwined Lives—P.N.Haksar and Indira Gandhi”. Haksar was an eminent scholar, able diplomat and administrator par excellence .He was a leading strategic thinker of his age. The authors of the book under review have used Jairam Ramesh’s book as the peg to hang their thesis. Haksar’s views on Sri Lanka were largely influenced by the thinking of a great diplomat Thomas Abraham who was our Ambassador to Sri Lanka. This book is a clear and cogent delineation of India’s Sri Lanka policy and the evolution of polity and politics. Sri Lanka’s treatment of the Indian Tamil minority is accurately covered and the trauma and travails they have undergone captured effectively. The response and reaction of New Delhi to these developments are depicted clearly. Haksar’s responses are adequately highlighted. Shri.M.Ganapathi.former Secretary,Ministry of External Affairs, in his brief Foreword has written, “Haksar’s influence in the shaping of India’s policy vis-a-vis Sri Lanka was minimal.”Jairam Ramesh also confirmed this at the book launch. There is a meaningful exchange of letters Haksar had with Thomas Abraham who was Indian Ambassador to Sri Lanka. Abraham, a great diplomat, had the interests of the safety, security and well being of the Tamils at heart and this rubbed on equally on Haksar. Haksar was largely influenced by Thomas Abraham . Abraham put an end to two odious India-Sri Lanka Agreements of 1969 and 1974 as they were contrary to India’s policy towards Indian overseas. The Agreements were terminated on October 31,1981. Prof.Suryanarayan’s contacts with the main dramatis personae helps in clearer understanding of how India’s Sri Lanka policy was shaped, resulting in the India-Sri Lanka Accord in 1987 and its consequences. The first section of the book deals with India extending support to Sri Lanka in 1971. India sent five frigates to seal off the approach to the Colombo harbour. Also military equipment was provided ---- 5000 troops, six helicopters and 250 India troops to guard the Katunayake airport. The next section deals with Haksar’s visit to Sri Lanka. Buddhist monks played a commanding and negative role in the country. One of the monks assassinated Prime Minister Bandaranaike. Sinhalese goons destroyed 200 temples. An important quote in the book is from Prof.Dharmadasa-- “If we talk about the culture of Sri Lanka in its entirety....it is rooted in the Indian tradition... the deep structure of Sri Lankan culture is Indian.” One section is dedicated to the ethnic conflicts plaguing the island-state. Riots were engineered and encouraged by the Prime Minister Jayawardene deliberately attempting to destroy the economic foundations of the Tamils in the Capital city. Indira Gandhi appointed Shri.G.Parthasarathy as a Special Envoy to Sri Lanka. New Delhi decided to provide military training to Tamil militants and supply them with arms and ammunition enabling them to defend themselves. Contingency plans were drawn up to meet any emergency. However, a firm decision was taken that under no circumstances would India intervene in the internal conflict of Sri Lanka. One section is devoted to the important role of RAW--(Research and Analysis Wing) in Sri Lankan affairs from 1983. RAW got in touch with TELO/EPRL and EROS.The LTTE is rightly described as a Frankenstein’s monster. The assassination of Indira Gandhi was a major setback for the on-going Tamil struggle in Sri Lanka. With the arrival of Rajiv Gandhi the scene changed and G Parthasarathy was replaced by Romesh Bhandari. Government of India did not take part in the talks held in Thimpu but senior officials were present to provide clarification and other good offices. The Thimpu talks generated more heat than light. One section discusses the role of Sri Lankan Tamils.On many issues,the Federal Party and the TULF had taken positions that harmed Indian interests. Influential Tamils supported the Government. They did not show an iota of sympathy to the suffering fishermen. The authors analyse the India Sri Lanka Accord of 1987 which was diametrically opposed to what G.Parthasarathy stood for. It did not have a Sinhalese consensus. There were sharp differences within the Sri Lankan government. The IPKF was a serious misadventure.The IPKF was fighting an unseen enemy amid an unsympathetic population. They returned from Sri Lanka without fulfilling the objective which the Rajiv Gandhi Government specified. When the soldiers returned Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Karunanidhi refused to receive them on the plea that IPKF had killed innocent Tamils. India’s passive role in Sri Lanka after its bitter experience in “active” phase of the Accord and the LTTE’s assassination of Rajiv Gandhi resulted in making Tamil militants persona non grata in India. This led to India’s passive support to the elimination of LTTE in the Eelam war 2009.Sans doubt the Accord was conceived in haste, drafted badly and executed poorly. An important point brought out by the writers is the need for the involvement of the Indian States in the formulation of foreign policy concerning relations with neighbouring countries. Framers of the country’s neighbourhood policy will have to bear in mind the imperative need to bring about harmony and trust between the Centre and contiguous border States. India’s relations with several of its neighbours will have an immediate impact on these States. Contending that “on several occasions, interests and sensibilities” of the States were not taken into consideration, the book gives two illustrations — bilateral treaties of 1964 and 1974 signed with Sri Lanka to settle the issue of 9.75 lakh stateless persons of Indian origin living in that country and an accord in 1974 on the ceding of Katchatheevu to Sri Lanka. India’s Sri Lanka policy was based on few assumptions, the prominent of which was that India was determined not to permit a military solution to the ethnic problem in Sri Lanka. Recalling how former Prime Minister I.K. Gujral, as External Affairs Minister during the United Front government in 1996-97, got involved in West Bengal through Bangladesh in the successful finalisation of the Ganga Water Treaty of 1996, the book contrasts this episode with Tamil Nadu where competitive politics, according to it, vitiated the political atmosphere surrounding India-Sri Lanka ties. The book is compulsory reading for all students of South Asian politics and scholars dedicated to Indian Sri Lankan affairs. P.P.Ramachandran. 30/8/2020.

Our Moon has Blood Clots: A Memoir of a Lost Home in Kashmir by Rahul Pandita;Published by Penguin Books ; Pages 258 ;Price Rs 399/- ****************************** The book under review is journalist Rahul Pandita’s memoirs of his family’s flight from the Muslim-dominated Kashmir Valley during the onset of the violent insurgency. Pandita is the author of the bestselling Hello, Bastar: the Untold Story of India’s Maoist Movement and co-author of the critically acclaimed The Absent State. Traumatised by the pain, drudgery and hardship of exile, the Homemaker withers away. Her son picks up the pieces in this account of his family. Rahul Pandita was a young 14 year old when his family was forced into exile, first from the valley to Jammu and subsequently to Delhi. In this, he and his family joined thousands of others, mainly Kashmiri Pandits but also other ‘Muslims’, not in tune with the prevalent mood of the times and the violent insurgency that had gripped the Kashmir Valley. Like the other ‘displaced’, they became disoriented, unable to come to terms with why they had been targeted, not just by Islamist militants or ‘pro-aazadi’ forces but by the connivance of their neighbours with whom they believed they had excellent relations. To be forced out is traumatic enough; even more difficult to come to terms with is the fact that their dire situation evoked so little sympathy, forget help and support, be it from the administration or from the ‘rest of India’. Life in shoddy and inadequate relief camps or in rented accommodation, with inadequate money, no jobs, even access to schooling for children while being treated as ‘fair game’ by all those who could profit from their helplessness, further added to the agony. The more extreme accounts even saw them as erstwhile oppressors, privileged collaborators with the Dogra regime, who finally got their just desserts. This is a topical account of the ignored and “unfashionable" story of the purge of a thriving minority community backed by Islamist militants in Kashmir. Unlike many from his community, Pandita entertains no hatred for Kashmiri Muslims, not even to those who grabbed his ancestral house (after it had been ravaged by Islamists) and quietly made it their own. Pandita recounts an unexceptional childhood in a Kashmir “so beautiful", according to his grandfather, that “even the gods are jealous of us". Then comes the tough jolt: a page torn from the school magazine in class with a picture of a Hindu goddess covered in snot, celebrations when Pakistan win cricket matches against India, cries for Azadi renting the air—all “well-orchestrated to frighten the Pandits into exile". The escape is fraught with tension. Pandita writes evocatively about passing trucks filled with scared Pandits escaping to Jammu, the women “herded like cattle", and a man showing the family his fist and wishing them death. Stories are recounted of the degradation caused by exile: rapacious landlords, cruel neighbours, severe hardship, creeping xenophobia.The author and his family, like innumerable Pandits, were forced to live as refugees in Jammu before finally settling down in Delhi, changing houses as many as 22 times. "I have reduced my life to names and numbers, I have memorised the names of every Pandit killed during those dark days, and the circumstances in which he or she was killed. I have memorised the number of people killed in each district." Pandita recounts how the Pandits became “nobody’s people" with great precision. However,he has not tackled significant questions. Why did the minority Pandits also end up as “punching bags" in the hostilities? What provoked Sheikh Abdullah, bitter with India, to deliver a prescient warning to the Pandits in the 1940s, telling them to be “one among us, flee or be decimated"? Were the Pandits merely easy, soft targets or were there deeper forces and provocation at work? Pandita simply mentions that the killings of the Hindu minority “turned into an orgy; a kind of bloodlust", and the “armed terrorist" and the “common man on the streets" participated in some of the murders. Pandita skims the surface during a visit to a squalid Pandit refugee township on the outskirts of Jammu in 2011 and misses an opportunity to mine even more compelling tales in exile. He also visits one of the five resettlements set up for a few hundred Pandits who have returned to the Valley and finds them leading bleak and fearful ghetto lives, but the account is sketchy. The Pandits have been been in exile for two decades, and Kashmir, for Pandita, remains “a memory, an overdose of nostalgia". For the writer, who lives in Delhi, exile and homelessness is “permanent". It cannot be a happy state of mind. Only one who has undergone pain and witnessed it first hand could have written this moving account of how the Kashmir Valley forced the Pandits to flee . As exemplifying the larger story of a community torn asunder, it remains somewhat contentious. The accounts of the pre-1989 insurgency past, lyrical and evocative, fail to convey, at least to the non-Kashmiri reader, as to why if the inter-community relations were peaceful, did so many neighbours ‘willingly’ participate in the ‘ethnic cleansing’. Were there no cases of neighbours with a different mindset? Or were they too scared to help? In which case, what is one to make of all the protestations of Kashmiryat, a syncretic culture drawing on the best of the Sufi-Kashmiri Shaivate traditions? Even the Indian media was largely apathetic to the suffering of the Pandits. The Indian state would be accused of brutalising the Valley's Muslim people but what was ignored was "that the same people also victimised another people". This is the story that Rahul Pandita exposes with an evident sincerity. This is a powerful story, one that can't be ignored even as the Pakistan-backed separatist movement rages on, turning large parts of what was once a Sufi land into an Islamist hub. Unlike those who would want to sweep the ugly truth under a carpet, Rahul is prepared to call a spade a spade. He writes how ordinary Kashmir Muslims , at times, helped thugs who shout Azadi slogans to kill fellow Kashmiris in cold blood, only reason being that because they belonged to another religion. The narrative moves between personal story, community memory, historical accounts and ‘political’ judgement. Pandita writes, ‘One major untruth is that the Pandits were made to leave Kashmir under a government design to discredit the Kashmiri secessionist movement’ . ‘Another problem is the apathy of the media and a majority of India’s intellectual class who refuse to even acknowledge the suffering of the Pandits. No campaigns were ever run for us; no fellowships or grants given for research on our exodus. For the media, the Kashmir issue has remained largely black and white – here are a people who were victims of brutalisation at the hands of the Indian state. But the media has failed to see, and has largely ignored the fact that the same people also victimised another people.’ And finally, ‘Another untruth that leaves me fuming is the assertion that nobody touched the handful of Pandit families that had chosen to remain in the valley.’ This is a particular tragedy of Kashmir where every group competes with others for the privileged status of the ‘real’ victim. It is difficult to deny that such a rendering can rarely stand the careful scrutiny of history. What cannot be denied is the reality of pain and suffering. Pandita tries to establish that the madness of Islamic fundamentalists against Kashmiri Pandits enjoyed popular support and complicity of ordinary Kashmiri Muslims. “Killings of the Hindu minority,” Pandita writes, “had turned into an orgy; a kind of blood lust. By April 1990, the mask was completely off. It was not only the armed terrorist who took pride in such killings – the common man on the streets participated in some of these heinous murders as well.” This is the central theme. The author shows how Pandits became a target of a brutal ethnic cleansing. He points to the case of telecom engineer B.K. Ganjoo, who was shot dead in his attic by militants after a neighbour directed them to his hiding place. Similarly, he sees a trend in how the leading actors showed callous disregard to the plight of the Pandits while the organs of the state were aiding and abetting locals in usurping their properties. A great book to understand the real blood-stained history of the 'Paradise on Earth'. A brief timeline at the end summarises the events in chronological order for reference. If you need to understand the stark tragedy in Kashmir , this book is an absolutely vital document which is at once searing and revealing. PPR 23/08/2020.

The Elephant Whisperer by Lawrence Anthony with Graham Spence ; Published by Pan ;Pages 387 ; Price Rs 550/- ************************** All of us grew up with animals. Some had pets. Those who could not afford resorted to books of animals. From early years we were fed on Aesop’s Fables and the lovely animals of Panchatantra. As we grew up we had the company of the animals of Lewis Carrol , Rudyard Kipling and Paul Gallico We were promoted to the company of actual animals portrayed by James Herriot,George and Joy Adamson, Gerald Durrell, Jim Corbett and Kenneth Andersen. On this fantastic landscape there emerged a giant—Lawrence Anthony and his game sanctuary in Thula Thula in Zululand. He was a South African conservationist who was asked to accept a herd of “Rogue elephants in his Game Reserve”.It was certain that if he did not accept the herd would be killed. Lawrence risked his life to form a bond with these troublesome elephants. He realised what a special family they were—under the wise Matriarch Nana,her warrior sister Francis and the children who struggled to survive. Thula Thula is 5000 acres of pristine bush in the heart of Zululand—natural home to much of the indigenous wild life of Zululand including the majestic White Rhino,Cape Buffalo, Leopard, Hyena,Giraffe, Zebra, Wildebeest,Crocodile and many species of Antelope as well as Lynx and long pythons and white backed vultures. To learn the background of Lawrence. Anthony’s grandfather was a miner who immigrated to South Africa from Scotland on a mail ship in the 1920s. His father founded an insurance business and took the family around southern Africa as he set up offices in small towns. Lawrence was born on Sept. 17, 1950, in Johannesburg, and as a youth liked to roam the African bush with his pet German shepherd. He followed his father into the insurance business, then went into real estate development. In the mid-1990s, Anthony decided to turn his hobby into a career and bought one of South Africa’s largest game sanctuaries, Thula Thula reserve. Anthony’s most widely publicised work was after the United States and its allies invaded Iraq on March 20, 2003. Hearing that Baghdad had the biggest zoo in the Middle East, he was in Kuwait within days and packing a car with veterinary supplies before crossing the Iraq border in the wake of the United States soldiers. He arrived at the zoo finding clouds of flies swarming the carcasses of animals. Looters had stolen many others. Of the 650 animals in the zoo before the invasion, just 35 were still alive, mainly large ones like lions, tigers and a brown bear native to Iraq. They were in such sad shape, he said, that he initially wanted to shoot them to end their misery. Anthony worked in Baghdad for six months, often helped by American soldiers, who volunteered their time after a day of patrols. He bought donkeys to feed the carnivores. He hunted down one giraffe that had been stolen; another had been eaten by starving Iraqis. He rescued the Hussein family’s pet lions and tigers. When he left Iraq, the animals were healthy, the cages were clean and the zoo had been preserved. The United States Army’s Third Infantry Division gave Anthony a medal for his bravery. Anthony joined with Graham Spence, an author and his brother-in-law, to write a book about the experience, “Babylon’s Ark: The Incredible Wartime Rescue of the Baghdad Zoo”. Elephants were not part of his plan until 1999, when he got a call offering him nine of the animals — three adult females, three young elephants, an adolescent bull and two babies. He was told they were wild and troublesome .His common sense told him to refuse, but he was the herd's last chance of survival: they would be killed if he wouldn't take them. He devoted his life to animal conservation, protecting the world's endangered species. In the years that followed he became a part of their family. And as he battled to create a bond with the elephants, he came to realise that they had a great deal to teach him about life, loyalty, and freedom. The Elephant Whisperer is a heartwarming, exciting, funny, and sometimes sad memoir of Anthony's experiences with these huge yet sympathetic creatures. Set against the background of life on an African game reserve, with unforgettable characters and exotic wildlife, Anthony's unrelenting efforts at animal protection and his remarkable connection with nature will inspire animal lovers and adventurous souls everywhere. We all know that many animals grieve the loss of family and friends. Here's a wonderful acknowledgment of broken-hearted elephants mourning he loss of their human friend, Lawrence Anthony. His friend wrote, "Tonight at Thula Thula,the whole herd arrived at the main house, home to Lawrence and I. We had not seen them here for a very long time. Extraordinary proof of animal sensitivity and awareness that only a few humans can perceive. And Lawrence was one of them. Lawrence's legacy will be with us forever at Thula Thula." However, there is so much more to learn from the book. There’s the internecine and tribal warfare among the Zulus that at one point results in a contract being taken out on Lawrence’s life. There are the tales–sometimes happy and sometimes tragic—of the other animals that share Thula Thula with the elephants, including: crocs, rhino, cape buffalo, snakes, and—of course—the humans and their pet dogs. And, sadly, there’s a constant war going on against poachers that occasionally results in a firefight. The author is told these pachyderms are unruly and are to come into the possession of a big game hunter to be shot if he doesn’t take them. There are no elephants in the area of Thula Thula, and taking them on is a big risk. The neighbors are opposed because if the elephants get out they could cause untold damage—even if not maliciously. Furthermore, these elephants have had bad experiences with humans; the only adult bull had recently been killed—making them all the more hostile. These elephants have a history of escape, and when a herd of elephants wants to escape, it’s hard to keep them in. They are five or more tons of raw power. In fact, the herd does escape once early in the book, and a major drama unfolds as a result. There’s pressure on Lawrence to get rid of at least the matriarch and another female, Frankie, who is almost the same size as the matriarch and is even more aggressive. Eventually, he gets the herd to calm down through patience and an attempt to understand them. However, even as the herd becomes calmer and actually friendly toward Lawrence, there are always new challenges popping up. They add an adolescent who comes in alone, its entire family having been killed off. This history makes the new addition skittish, angry toward humans, and dangerously aggressive. By the book’s end, there is even a new generation being brought into the fold. A lot of the book is about communication, both the stomach-grumbling elephantine intraspecies communication and the interspecies communication between the author and the elephants. It turns out that elephants can communicate with others across great distances, most notably by stomach rumbles that largely take place at a frequency outside human capacity. There is also humour. There are times when all one can do is to accept that elephants will be elephants and gardens will be trampled and swimming pools will become watering holes. There’s no maliciousness. It’s just that five and six ton animals leave their mark wherever they go. They are intelligent but unsubtle creatures. Anthony persuaded African rebels who were wanted as war criminals to protect the few remaining white rhinoceroses prowling their battlegrounds. He fought to save crocodiles and other species. To preserve wildlife and their habitats, he showed antagonistic African tribes how they could benefit by cooperating in setting up game reserves to attract tourists. He worked with diplomats and lawyers to introduce a proposal to the United Nations to prohibit using conservation areas or zoos as targets of war. Since his death, his son Dylan told reporters, the herd has come to his house on the edge of their reserve every night. Anthony's story of his trials and tribulations in preserving a herd of African elephants is a parable for the continent. The Elephant Whisperer holds you rapt to the very last. P.P.Ramachandran. 16/8/2020.

 

KULWANT ROY

History in the Making : The Visual Archives of Kulwant Roy; Published by Harper Collins ; Pages 336 ; Price Rs. 4999/-

                       ************************

This is a magnificent coffee-table book

containing a priceless collection of photographs by Kulwant Roy from the 1930s to 1960s. The prints and negatives of these photographs remained forgotten in boxes for over twenty-five years after his death in 1984. The world must be thankful to their inheritor Aditya Arya, a photographer himself, for making it available. Arya, while cataloguing them, stumbled upon a rare and valuable visual archive, including many unpublished pictures, of a momentous era in India’s history. Some of these unusual pictures relate to Muslim League meetings, INA trials, the signing of the Indian Constitution, as well as significant post-Independence milestones such as the building of the Bhakra Nangal Dam.

 Indivar Kamtekar, eminent historian provides an illuminating text. 

 All those who wish to pierce the veil behind India’s ‘tryst with destiny’ must dip into this classic volume.

Author Adita Arya graduated in history from St.Stephen’s College, Delhi and plunged into professional photography. He has acquired expertise in the world of advertising and corporate photography.His works have been exhibited the world over and his photographs have been published by renowned global journals.

 He is the author of  " The Land of the Nagas ”, a photographic documentation of the Naga people and the first-ever exhaustive visual study of the masterpieces of Buddhist art at the Aichi monastery in Ladakh.

 Indivar Kamtekar is a name to reckon with in the field of teaching. He teaches modern history at the Jawaharlal Nehru University and has been a faculty member of the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta, and a fellow of the Indian Institute of Advanced Study at Shimla. For his doctoral thesis from Cambridge he selected the end of British rule in India.

Kulwant Roy was an Indian photographer, who was born in Lahore in 1914. As the head of the "Associated Press Photographs" he secured several iconic images of the Indian independence movement and the early years of the Republic of India. He joined the Royal Indian Air Force and specialised in aerial photography. After relinquishing his link with the RIAF, he moved to Delhi in 1940 and set up a studio, which later expanded into a full-fledged agency, in the Mori Gate district of Old Delhi. This area was to become an important centre of Press Photographs in the country. He followed Mahatma Gandhi , for a number of years, in his travels around India in a third-class train compartment; this endowed him with an insider status that meant that he was permitted to record many crucial events of and major participants in the independence movement, including Jinnah, Nehru and Patel—surely the dream of any photographer. Roy covered Jacqueline Kennedy's visit in 1962 to India and India's war with Pakistan in 1965.

To Kulwant Roy’s utter dismay, he noted that a new breed of aggressive young photojournalists acquired dominance. He heartily disliked this and hung up his camera and faded into obscurity. "No one knew him or his past," Arya said. Roy was a frequent visitor to Arya's parents' home in New Delhi, having known Arya's mother's family from Lahore. But by the time Arya was old enough to remember him, Roy was a poor and lonely man. "He never wanted me to be a photographer because of the hardships and the fact that one has to live a life a bit like a vagabond," Roy died of cancer, virtually penniless and with no children of his own and left Arya his photo collection. Arya is now dedicated to restoring Roy to what he sees as his proper place in the annals of Indian photojournalism. Roy sold many of his photographs to international news agencies during his lifetime and some of them are now found in archival collections, but they are rarely credited with his name. "For me making sure people know his name is as important as making 

sure they know his pictures," declared Arya.
 
 Arya believes that some of the images - for instance a picture of a loin-clothed Gandhi descending from a third-class rail car - could become as iconic as the vintage India photos taken by the celebrated Margaret Bourke-White and Cartier-Bresson. Again, Nehru's hand curled tenderly around grandson Rajiv's neck, Gandhi and Jinnah arguing in 1939, Nehru and Ghaffar Khan strolling in Shimla-these nuggets of history were captured through photographs by Kulwant Roy from 1940 to 1960.

Roy thoughtfully selected frames that attempt to capture moments of time that will make one pause, and revive hidden memory. This is an ultimate treasure trove for anyone, who loves photography. There are a wide range of rare exhibits from Roy's collection. He captured various moods, showing glimpses of political leaders in different facets of life. He, with his photographs, threw light on last years of British rule but didn't get the recognition. Moreover, he captured off-the-cuff moments of great leaders making them approachable figures.

Roy's photos depict rare glimpses of pre and post -Independence era and freedom fighters who have endured many years of conflict. We have rare photographs of the visit of Gandhi to meet Khan Abdul Ghafar Khan in the North East frontier province, visit of Sir Stafford Cripps to India in 1941, Simla Conference in 1945 , Muslim League meetings, fund raising by Gandhiji , building of Bhakra dam and visits of dignitaries.

The Nationalist movement is covered by tracing mainstream politics through portraits .Wonderful images of Mahatma Gandhi collecting money from a woman for Harijan fund, Mahatma Gandhi addressing members of INA at Harijan colony Delhi have been captured by Roy .

It is a mystery when a news photographer makes history from deadline to deadline, never really knowing when he might take a photograph that will determine how an entire era is remembered. Consider the famous photograph of Jawaharlal Nehru, Mahatma Gandhi and Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel at a Congress meeting in 1946. Gandhi, looking into the middle distance, is, as ever, talking mainly to himself; Nehru and Patel, one on either side, straining to listen in, Nehru looking intently at his mentor’s mouth, and Patel’s face showing the effort it took for him to lean over at an uncomfortable, forty-five-degree angle. Could Roy have dreamt when he took it that it would be the most memorable representation of those strained relationships? It was chosen as the basis for a commemorative stamp after Patel died.

Turning the pages of this majestic volume holds a lesson for us and that is that great men influenced history but they did not control it. Manmohan Singh in his Foreword has rightly written “..History in the Making takes us back in time to a momentous and inspirational chapter of our past. The images captured by photojournalist Kulwant Roy bring alive the years which saw the birth of an independent India. Kulwant Roy’s photographs are sources as well as products of India. I hope that more such visual archives are brought to light and given the recognition and importance they richly deserve”.

One tragic note. Roy travelled to Japan, Hong Kong, USA, Panama, Brazil and various European countries. The negatives and prints of photographs taken there were mailed back to his address in Delhi but were never delivered. A shattered man, he spent the next few years looking for the negatives and prints in garbage dumps and open spaces around Delhi.

We welcome such breath-taking books as also the India Photo Archive Foundation, which has been established to identify, preserve and document photographic legacies like the output of Kulwant Roy. It will contribute towards creating a culture of dialogue on diverse narratives of photographic archives which are landmarks of history.

P.P.Ramachandran.

9/8/2020.

LEGAL LUMINARIES

100 Legal Luminaries of India ; Published by LexisNexis; Pages 465 ; Price Rs 4500/-                                                                                      *********************  

 This is a magnificent Coffee Table book on 100 legal luminaries of India. It highlights the men behind the black robes—their personal desires, hobbies, pastime and the road map of success that distinguished them from the rest.

       

Behind the laudable project is a team comprising members who have experience in the legal field, journalism, research, content development, photography. Of course the team is fortunate to have as their Mentor, Lalit Bhasin, who is the President of the “ Society of Indian Law Firms”.

The volume is divided into four parts—it recounts the journeys of struggle and success of eminent counsel, law firms, in-house counsels and teachers of Law.

In each life-sketch of the luminaries what is succinctly furnished are the influences of their families and their own experiences as a child, parent, friend-  their remarkable success—how they captured “ heights of glory”. What makes them stand out is the boundless energy and zest for life which they display through their interests, lifestyles and hobbies ranging from music and theatre to travelling and trekking.

The first Section on “ Eminent Senior Counsels “ has 51 luminaries. Obviously in a brief review we cannot cover all and we select a few.

Abhishek Manu Singhvi, born with a silver spoon in his mouth believes in the motto—            “ Work hard, enjoy life and die with your boots on “. He holds the record for being the  youngest “ Senior” designated by the High Court at the age 34, the youngest Solicitor General at 37 and one of the youngest Vice-Presidents of the Supreme Court Bar Association at 39.

Fali Nariman is a celebrated constitutional jurist and an authority on international arbitration. He is noted for his humility, humour and eloquence. His integrity is impeccable. He resigned from the post of Additional Solicitor General in protest against the infamous Emergency. His son Rohinton Nariman is a sitting Judge in the Supreme Court of India.

 Indira Jaising is a pioneer in fighting on issues for women. A set of variegated cases argued by her include “ Rupen Deol, Mary Roys and the Landmark case of Githa Hariharan”. She always wanted to be in a profession that lent her opportunities to make critical difference to people’s lives. A Hindustani classical enthusiast, she sings and practices with her Guru, Shamsher Sing. Jaising is the first woman to be elected to the  U N Committee on elimination of discrimination against women and the first woman to become India’s Additional Solicitor General.

The present Union Minister for Communication and Information Technology, Shri.Ravi Shankar Prasad is the son of a highly distinguished Patna advocate. He argued and won in the case of a muslim prisoner incarcerated for 49 years without trial. He won for the victim freedom and a good monetary compensation. Prasad  was jailed during the Emergency and he used the time to study Hindu philosophy, Marxism and the classics. His wife Maya and Ravi share interest in Hindustani classical and Carnatic music.

Soli Sorabjee has unfailingly fought to uphold constitutional law as well as freedom of speech and expression. This octogenarian remains a strident voice of caution against injustice speaking up for tolerance and human rights. He has held several high international judicial posts. Of his four children Zia is a lawyer and two grandchildren are prospective lawyers. Soli is not all law. He is a lover of poetry and a Jazz buff. He plays the clarinet gifted to him by Benny Goodman and he started the Jazz Yatra in 1978.

Under the leadership of Dr.Lalit Bhasin, a Society of Indian Law Firms was established and it advises on matters of corporate law, taxation, contracts and intellectual property laws. The book has a section dedicated to 40 law firms. Dr.Lalit Bhasin has been a legend in the Indian legal firmament. He has annexed several awards but declared,  “I am the only second Indian to be made President of the Inter-Pacific Bar Association” His vision is to make India a hub of arbitration and mediation for international commercial disputes. Other law firms include, inter alia  those headed by Akil Hirani, Anand Phatak, R.N.Jhunjhunwala, Zia Mody.

There are four In-House Counsel members and ten Legal Educators. These ten highly respected teachers were the Gurus of the eminent lawyers appearing in the earlier parts of the book. A great tribute to the great masters.

This is an outstanding contribution to the legal history of Free India, The rich and opulent photographs of the luminaries, their families ( and their dogs too !) can match the best of the classics of Yosuf Karsh of Ottawa.

The book throws a flood of light on the luminaries and is compulsory reading for all lawyers, students of law and of Indian history. LexisNexis has covered itself in glory with this resplendent tribute to the best and brightest of those men  in black robes.

P.P.Ramachandran.

26/07/2020.

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SHAKESPEARE

Shakespeare by Bill Bryson ; Published by Harper Collins; Pages200; Price Rs 325/-

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An impressive series of biographies edited by James Atlas include “Muhammad” by Karen Armstrong, “Thomas Jefferson” by Christopher Hitchens and “Beethoven” by Edmund Morris. The latest in this series is “Shakespeare’ by Bill Bryson. Bryson, is of course the well known author of “A Short History Of Nearly Everything”, which book was short-listed for the Samuel Johnson Prize, bagged the Aventis Prize for Science books in 2004 and was also awarded the Descartes Prize in 2005. Bryson’s last book was the semi-autobiographical hilarious “The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid”. 

 The book under review is a biography of William Shakespeare which will cause several eyebrows to be raised—Since there are thousands of books on the Bard of Avon—why one more?. Reading the volume will make one realise that biographies of Shakespeare have so far been based on a jungle of wild speculation based on negligible, unverified facts.

Bill Bryson has waded through the entire Shakespeare-iana, sifted and recorded episodes in his research with considerable wit and commendable vigour. The biography is at once a vivid, fast paced work that encompasses every facet of the Bard’s life and times.

Facts unavailable hitherto tumble out of this cornucopia and a few are culled out and given for the entertainment and education of the reader.

Scholars have counted every word Shakespeare wrote, logged every dib and jot. Shakespeare’s works contain 138,198 commas, 26,794 colons, and 15,785 question marks ; ears are spoken of 401 times in his plays ; his characters refer to ‘love’ 2,259 times but to ‘hate’ only 183 times; altogether he left us 888,647 words, made up of 31,959 speeches, spread over 118,406 lines.

Much is made of Shakespeare’s learning—he knew as much as a lawyer, doctor or statesman or accomplished professional of his age. He is supposed to have deduced the orbital motions of heavenly bodies well before any astronomer did. Shakespeare was made into a Committee of Talents. His vocabulary showed a more than usual interest in medicine, law, military affairs and natural history. He mentions 180 plants and employs 200 legal terms.

However ,Bryson proves that Shakespeare’s knowledge was not all that distinguished. He gets his geography wrong. He puts a sail- maker in Bergamo-- the most landlocked city in Italy. If he knew Venice had canals, he gave no hint of it in the plays he set there. Ancient Egyptians played billiards. Caesar’s Rome has clock –the first one ticked fourteen hundred years later. Whatever his other virtues Shakespeare was not conspicuously worldly.

Shakespeare’s real gift was as a phrasemaker. Many of his phrases have entered the common language. Among them : one fell swoop, vanish into thin air, bag and baggage, play fast and loose, go down the primrose path, be in a pickle, budge an inch, the milk of human kindness, more sinned against than sinning, remembrance of things past, beggar all description, cold comfort, more in sorrow than in anger, tower of strength, foregone conclusion.

If we take the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, then roughly one-tenth of all the most quotable utterances in English are from Shakespeare- –an impressive proportion, indeed.

Shakespeare’s plays might have been lost except for the efforts of his close friends John Hemminges and Henry Condell who brought out a folio edition of his complete works. It contained 18 plays. The great repository of the First Folio today is a modest building two blocks away from the Capitol Hill in Washington D.C—the Folger Shakespearean Library.

Mention must be made of the ludicrous attempt of P.T.Barnum of “ Barnum and Bailey Circus” fame –who tried shipping to U S A the birthplace of Shakespeare , placing it on wheels and sending it on a perpetual tour round the country—a prospect so alarming that money was swiftly raised in Britain, through a Committee headed by Charles Dickens-- to save the house as a museum

and shrine.

 This reviewer had a chance to pay homage to Shakespeare at his birth-place and was deeply moved by the impressive manner in which it is preserved for posterity.

Lytton Strachey wrote , “the first duty of a biographer is to preserve a becoming brevity which excludes everything that is redundant and nothing that is significant”. Strachey who evolved a new genre of biographical writing could not have had a better disciple than Bill Bryson. Bill Bryson’s book is a tour-de-force and worth reading and re-reading many times. It is pure nectar.

P.P.Ramachandran.

19/7/2020.

RAVI VARMA

Raja Ravi Varma - Painter of Colonial India by Rupika Chawla; Published by Mapin; Pages 360; Price Rs.3950/-

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The Governor of Maharashtra - Shri. K. Sankaranarayanan, releasing the book under review said, Raja Ravi Varma was a rare phenomenon to have happened to the world of art and it was he who brought Indian paintings on the world canvas, gave ‘face’ to many Gods and Goddesses in the Hindu pantheon. If there was ever a painter who could claim to have completely changed the way popular Indian imagination pictured its Gods, Goddesses, myths and legends, then it was that charismatic Keralite Raja Ravi Varma.

This book by Rupika Chawla is an account of the painter from a royal family in the background  of colonial India, and the impact of  this milieu on his profession as an aristocratic itinerant painter. This lavishly illustrated book is a great collection of paintings from royal and private collections and museums, and works hitherto unseen, along with previously undisclosed maps, letters, photographs and other archival material.

For this magnificent Coffee Table book Chawla has travelled all over the country for long many years, prising out the slightest of secrets. This book offers fresh insights especially into the way he painted and obtained from the diary of the Raja of Aundh (near Pune), in whose court the prince-painter spent a lot of time painting. The Raja was a very careful observer and questioner and asked genuine questions. To quote the author, “he writes about the way Raja Ravi Varma painted, the hours he painted and about the time and trouble he took to get emotion on the faces he made, reworking them several times... He also writes about the painter’s fascination for the nine yard sari because it showed the body so well.” Chawla portrays the times the painter lived in. She shows us how this modern man with a vision was able to use turn-of-the-century technological innovations such as electricity, the railways, newspapers and oleographs.

The author, who is the wife of the ex-Chief Election Commissioner Navin Chawla, is a conservator of paintings based in Delhi who has restored several Ravi Varma paintings at her studio in Delhi and also gives training in conservation. Together with artist A. Ramachandran she organized the seminal exhibition on Raja Ravi Varma in 1993 at the National Museum, Delhi, which brought about a strong revival of the artist and his work.

This well-researched book traces the sources used by Ravi Varma, examines the techniques and methodology of his paintings, and discusses their conservation and the problem of fakes and copies and is a goldmine for historians, collectors, curators and art lovers.

Rupika Chawla revealed how she was fascinated by the Kerala painter and spent over two decades tracing his life, locating lost paintings, and interviewing descendants of his family members, friends and acquaintances. This book provides a peek into the artist’s inner world, his muses, visits to different parts of the country and the influences in his work.

The author declared that very little was known about this painter. Who was he? How was he able to make the kind of paintings he made, what motivated him, what was his background, the times he lived in, who were the people he knew, his collectors, the value of his art - then and now, his technique and method of painting, the people who were influenced by him and the value of his art today. In her research, all these questions were answered, and much more. Her favorite paintings were the Mysore collection. They were among the last that Ravi Varma did. In terms of composition, they are complex, well executed and exquisitely beautiful, while also concentrating and expressing the drama that involves their narrative. Ravi Varma balanced tradition and modernity, combined business enterprise with his love of painting, understood the commercial value of art and was a forerunner in propagating art. With that in mind he started the oleograph press and wished to make a museum but died before he could manage that.

Raja Ravi Varma was born on April 29, 1848, in Kilimanoor, Kerala. He belonged to a family of scholars, poets and artists. Noted in his family were Vidwan Koil Tampuran, author of the famous Kathakali work Ravana Vijayam; Raja Raja Varma, who painted after the Tanjore style, and Uma Amba Bai Tampuratty who composed Parvati Swayamvaram, a work for the tullal dance. As a small boy, he filled the walls of his home with pictures of animals, acts and scenes from his daily life, which impressed his uncle, Raja Raja Varma as the signs of a blossoming genius. The uncle, not only gave the first drawing lessons to his nephew, but took a keen interest in his further training and education with the help of the ruling king, Ayilyam Thirunal. When he was only 14, Ravi Varma was sent to Thiruvananthapuram where he stayed in the Kilimanoor palace and was taught water painting by the palace painter Ramaswami Naidu. Here Varma’s talent was nurtured by the personal interest of the King who exposed him to the famous paintings of Italian painters. Ravi Varma had been using the indigenous paints made from leaves, flowers, tree bark and soil which his uncle Raja Raja Varma prepared for him. His first set of oil paints was brought from Madras after noticing a newspaper advertisement.

Rupika Chawla has done detection of an extraordinary type for this book on the life and times of Raja Ravi Varma, considered by many to be India’s first modern painter. She has given us the portrait of a man in full by doggedly following the most evanescent of clues across India, ferreting out unknown Ravi Varma paintings, digging into dispersed archives, studying scores of his work, tracing his scattered descendants in pursuit of bits of information or some forgotten and damaged Ravi Varma canvas - even making the slightest of links lead into fascinating revelations.

The readers are taken on a journey and we can almost visualise the painter prince’s life unfold before us and Chawla draws for us a picture of his artistic struggles. We also learn more about his models and muses. The author has effectively used the diaries of his younger brother C. Raja Raja Varma - they worked and travelled together on commissions.  A man ahead of his times, he was a marketing genius and shrewd entrepreneur. He set up the Ravi Varma Fine Arts Lithographic Press to make his art more accessible, to travel far beyond the circle of wealthy patrons. Not satisfied with the quality of the prints in India, he dispatched a man to Germany in 1893 to find an expert chromo-lithograph printer who could help them produce superior Indian-made oleographs. The young German Fritz Schleicher came to India and became the printer and manager of the oleograph and chromo-lithograph workshop. Chawla tracked down Schleicher’s grandson, Robert Sandhu, to garner fascinating details about the collaboration between Schleicher and the Varma brothers.

Till Ravi Varma arrived on the scene, Indian art was wondrous, metaphoric, symbolic, abstract, geometric and much more but never directly representational of the retinal reality. Most importantly, Hindu Gods were not perceived to be made in the image of man. They were portrayed by the depiction of their attributes in hundreds of different styles and manners. But the setting up of the Ravi Varma Press in 1894 in Bombay changed all that. Soon, from Simla to Trivandrum and from Calcutta to Bombay, every middle-class Hindu home in the 20th century was and is decorated with highly affordable prints of Ravi Varma’s “natural and realistic” renderings of Lakshmi, Saraswati, Rama, Sita and Hanuman, to name just a few. Moreover, Ravi Varma’s penchant for the dramatic pageant influenced popular theatre and films, thereby increasing the impact of his artifice manifold.

In the latter half of the 19th century, the medium of oil on-canvas itself was new to India and Ravi Varma’s chosen style of painting European realism (though outmoded in Europe by then) - was still unfamiliar and novel here. But once Ravi Varma had mastered both his technique and his style around the 1870s, there was no stopping him. His familial links with the Travancore ruling family ensured a network of connections that led to a spate of commissions ranging from tiny states like Pudukottai, Aundh and Bhavnagar to big ones like Mysore, Baroda and Hyderabad. He was much sought after not only for his portraits but also for his “thematic” paintings depicting pivotal scenes from Hindu myths and Sanskrit literature.

Paradoxically in contrast to his immense mass appeal and popular influence as India’s first painter of iconic images, the life and legacy of Ravi Varma had never been seriously studied till now. This volume, which admirably fills a gap, is not a heavy academic tome. In style and substance, it is hugely engaging, carrying its scholarship with a remarkable lightness of grace. Chawla’s chronicling of Ravi Varma’s life and works is full of anecdotes from secondary sources such as accounts of his patrons, colleagues and friends, the most important among these being the diaries kept by his beloved brother C. Raja Raja Varma, who was his pupil and partner in virtually all of the commissions and enterprises that Ravi Varma undertook.

What makes this book  significantly different is that it covers brilliantly social, cultural and political life in colonial India - especially that of the native princes and attempts to underline the newly emerging dynamic link between technology and a colonised society bound by moribund feudal values that was aspiring to modernity, freedom and democracy. So the “shortening of time and distances” by the coming of the Railways, the place of art “in the time of mechanical reproduction” and the double-edged politics of cultural nationalism all come into focus in this absorbing narrative of a painterly transience.

05/07/2020