A Gigantic Book of Indian History Translated Here

     This writer has once discussed an article by the author of this book, Ramachandra Guha, a very active Indian historian based in South India, on the idea of India.  Recently, India After Gandhi, The History of the World's Largest Democracy, his 2007 book from Picador, over 800 pages, has come out in a complete Japanese translation in two volumes of 500 pages each.  It goes to the credit of Mr.Sato Hiroshi to have made it a very readable and accurate work.
     As is suggested by the title, this is the history of the sixty years of the independent India.  Naturally it is Jawaharlal Nehru who dominates the scene, at least in the first half.  It is toward the end of the first volume of the translation that he passes away.  But his legacies are seen even afterwards.  Look at these, for example.  'The grievously mistaken dismissal of the communist government in Kerala aside, Nehru took seriously the idea of an opposition'(p.518).  'In Nehru's time the Congress was a decentralized and largely democratic organization'(ibid).  Guha also pays a high tribute to Nehru's policies of establishing the IITs and retaining English as significant in bringing about today's position of India as an emerging economy, in contrast to some critics who are unsympathetic to Nehru's legacies.
     Needless to say, Gandhi did not make a final exit from the scene by the assassination.  His relevance is discussed at many junctions.  What is rather refreshing is the attention the author  pays to the third man in the Triumvirate, Vallabhbhai Patel.
     Guha does not try to give his conclusion to every issue.  He rather lets materials tell their own story.  The book is therefore full of exerpts from reports, letters, or episodes and jokes, which make it an entertainment of a high level.  The author expresses his particular indebtedness to the papers of P.N.Haksar, a long-time principal secretary to Indira Gandhi(p.434).  I have, however, heard about Haksar's secret China visit from his close friend, but it is not there in the book.
     The book will serve, more widely than deeply, as an omnipotent guide to any student of Indian/South Asian history.  Let me pick up several issues here which have caught my interest, and see how the author has tackled them.
     (1)On the Border war with China.  Could it have been averted?  I would think yes.  But China should have informed India a few years earlier of her stand on the border issue, the opposition parties of India should have been less compelling on the Prime Minister for a solution, and the Dalai Lama should not have been granted political asylum in India.
     (2)On the Kashmir issue.  A God-given opportunity presented itself in 1965 when Pakistan-instigated revolt in the Muslim-majority Kashmir came to nothing, Pakistan's military invasion failed, and the idea was brought home to the people as well as Sheikh Abdullah, their natural leader who was in an Indian jail at the moment, that it would be futile for them to aim at independence or inclusion in Pakistan.  All that was needed at that point was a fair election on the Indian side, but this was conspicuous by lacking, and it became a missed chance.  But the subsequent history shows that possibilities for a fair solution are still there in the Valley.
     (3)A three-fold struggle in the countryside.  The book discusses the upsurge of the middle castes/dominant castes/OBCs in different parts of the country, and the upcoming movement of the hitherto downtrodden groups.  They, together with the upper castes, make it a three-fold struggle.  To put it in another way 'most Indians were defined by the endogamous group into which they were born'(p.606).  Against this, people like Kamaladevi Chattopadhyaya, a distinguished woman worker who was also close to Gandhi, said that people consider them only in terms of their own social groups and not as Indians, and every social group wants to be recognized as 'backward'.  It doesn't seem that Guha has taken up the issue as a whole.
     (4)The position of satyagraha.  When winding up the Constituent Assembly debates Dr.Ambedkar said, among others, that now that India had got her Constitution, 'We must abandon the method of cd, nc and satyagraha'(p.121).  It would be interesting to look into what Gandhi himself said on the then hypothetical situation like this.  It is also worth examining under this light the various non-constitutional movements in the independent India from the movement which toppled the government in Kerala to JP movement to the recent Anna Hazare movement in 2011.
     (5)The idea of India.  This is the topic discussed earlier in connection with Guha's article.  In this book also these words appear several times.  It is worth noting that Chapter 6 on the Constitution-making is entitled 'Ideas of India'.  It is interesting that as Guha says a large number of people, Indian or otherwise, have on various occasions prophesied that such ideas would end up in failure, and they have invariably proved wrong.
     Guha does not define these words, but it is apparent that pluralism(p.752), for example, is a part of such an idea.  But is India really pluralist?  Has not Hindu fundamentalism made Hinduism simple and monolithic?  Or have not Gandhian, and then official, policies towards Harijans tried to assimilate them, rather than treat them as a part of the Indian pluralist culture?
     In concluding, I would like to say one small thing on the Constitution-making, not in India but in Japan, as is described in this book.  The author says that in sharp contrast to India 'this(Japan's) document had been almost wholly written by a group of foreigners(Americans occupying the country)'(p.122).  First, this is not the whole story.  Second, this might encourage some politicians in Japan, and there is no dearth of them, who are keen on removing the anti-war Article 9 from the Constitution under the beautiful name of having our own Constitution.
                 

Crime in Iraq:Ten Years On

     On those days fateful to the people of Iraq, I was a guest at a University in India, and was keenly watching the TV.  The huge American war machine, already accumulated in Kuwait and elsewhere, was being deployed across the Iraqi border.  Once such an accumulation is made is it no longer possible to go back?  Because of face-saving?  By the way I had long been under a prejudice that face/face-saving was an Oriental(including my country Japan) concept.  But that is wrong.  The other parts of the world also are not without those expressions, which is natural enough.  But before talking of face-saving, the US and the UK, both members of the Security Council, have violated the UN article not allowing the member countries, even just member countries, the threat or use of force.  They, and whoever collaborated with them under the name of the Coalition of the Willing(to violate international law) were already violating those rules for months.
     But without any reason?  Of course there was.  But that was a wrong one.  That was hypocritical, and almost a lie, though I am not in a position to say if those lies were told knowingly.  But did they, from the President and the Prime Minister downward, seriously believe that Iraq had got weapons of mass destruction, whether nuclear, chemical or biological, when no concrete evidence had been brought before them?
     Of course the greater part of the world lent no ear to such stories.  That was the meaning of the Security Council unable to pass a resolution approving of the invasion.  The other three permanent members, together with august meetings like the NAM, kept a distance from the Coalition.  Why did some countries want a war?  Did they not know that modern wars are likely to kill, and kill many?  And the invaders would also suffer casualties?  More than 4,000 US soldiers died, many more are suffering from mental trouble, or are remaining homeless.  It is reported that the dead and wounded are heavier among certain racial/ethnic groups.  Does this all suggest that the war was after all waged in the benefit of some?
     On those first days of the war some well-known US journalists were also marching on the tanks.  Some prestigious newspapers sent an astonishingly large number of correspondents(compared to their copies sold), and showed where each of them was reporting on a particular day.  Of course there was nothing else to report than the triumphal US march in the beginning.  Did it not occur to them that, while the invaders were relatively unscathed at the time, there were the common people of Iraq ahead.  
        

"Disappointing" is an Understatement

     I was looking forward to Mr.Obama's Middle East peace speech, and listened to it broadcast from Ramallah, West Bank, in the 21 evening, local time, with great enthusiasm.  President Abbas spoke first, and then Mr.Obama.  Only for ten minutes.  If he had had anything new to say to the world, he would have surely wanted more time, but it was apparent from the start that the conference would be a short one.
     He came from Jerusalem, spent just for four hours in the West Bank, and went back to Jerusalem, as if it was where he belonged to.  He certainly had a two-hour talk with Abbas.  But as usual he ignored Hammas leaders.  Why not going to take legitimately elected leaders into confidence?  How to proceed with a peace proposal of any kind then?  As usual the answer was that they were terrorists.  There were five rocket attacks on Israel the previous night.  The Israeli children were in danger.
     This writer is not at all in a position to approve of such attacks.  I am simply saying that it is unfair in many ways.  Obama should meet the 'terrorist' leaders and let them put forward their conditions and give his own to them and discuss them together.  He only said instead that there should be direct negotiations.  Between the stronger and the weaker? Negotiate the settlement issue?  When the bulldozer is said to be working even while Obama is talking?  The settlement issue is in everybody's mind, as is also the question of how is the US going to mediate?  All that Obama said on the point was you cannot reach an agreement before you begin negotiations.  This in fact means that he is withdrawing from the peace process.  If not, what then?  A joke?
     Even in that ten short minutes Obama said, again and again, that he supports the 'two states' plan, with a viable Palestine on one hand.  But he threatened to use a veto last year when Abbas wanted to propose a new and elevated status for Palestine at the UN.  A clear double standard.  I regret that Obama did not hear what the journalists wanted to say, by restricting the questions to just one or two.
     One thing more is the nukes in the Middle East.  Iran may be or may not be aiming at having nukes of their own.  Ten years ago the US was trying their best to persuade the whole world, through the mouth of no other than the then Secretary of State, present at the Security Council, that Iraq had got their weapons of mass destruction and so should be attacked.  The cost was great.  But the world is not as uncertain on the Israeli nukes.  What is the US going to do with them?  Again a double standard?