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Save
the trees, save the tribals
Review by Ashu
Pasricha
Tribal
Development & Environment by Gautam Vohra. Har-Anand, New
Delhi. Pages 220. Rs 295.
FROM
a molten mass of fire we became living beings, from living
beings to animals, from animals to human beings, but man is not
the crown jewel of evolution. Man has to be surpassed. He has to
preserve himself. The future is in our hands — so extinction
is not inevitable.
There is no
such thing as historical determinism or mechanical necessity.
The past tells us that there is hope for mankind if it is able
to use the freedom, the responsibility in the right way. The
future of man appears not merely as a succession of probable
futures, but an array of possible futures and a conflict over
preferable futures. But he has to put in efforts to convert the
possibles into the probables in pursuit of the preferables.
An amazing
mastery over environment has been achieved as a product of
modern science and its cumulative evolution during the past
centuries. Technology —that is, science-based knowledge —
has a liberating power if wisely chosen, freeing man from
drudgery.y.
In fact, the
very success of science and technology has caused a backlash.
There is a great debate among environmentalists, technologists
and economists about the danger of an unlimited application of
science and technology for accelerating industrialisation,
causing the exploitation of natural resources and bringing out
the anti-life impact of technology itself.
The
technomaniacs fail to see that the human life span is the
unchanging yardstick, and it is not man who must adapt to the
storms generated by science, but science and technology must
adapt to man and this adaption means more than a simple
limitation of scientific activity. There is a growing feeling
among many that we are going too far and the vastly increased
power which technology has placed in the hands of man has not
been matched by his ability to use it with discrimination.
Earth, the only
planet we inhabit, is a single living, pulsating entity and, the
human race its interlocked extended family. The land, water,
forest and atmosphere which constitute its environment, get
support from some 0.36 million species of plants and more than a
million species of plants and more than a million species of
animals. The unprecedented human interference in environment has
upset the delicate ecological balance of our planet.
Ruthless
exploitation of non-renewable natural resources has played a
havoc and if it is allowed to continue, can result in a series
of major ecological disasters which can disrupt life on the
planet.
An opportunity
to ponder over this problem is provided by the book under
review, "Tribal Development and Environment" by noted
environmentalist Gautam Vohra. The Ministry of Environment and
Forests has provided funds for a study fearing that the
environment of the adivasis and the adivasi way of life are
under threat, or rather have been inspite of the development
programmes which have been initiated for their benefit. Indeed,
some claim that the tribals are in trouble because of the
development programmes of the government.
The Development
Research and Action Group (DRAG) launched this study to
determine the extent to which tribal customs, traditions and
practices had been destroyed or preserved. For, everyone agrees
that there is much that we can learn from them, much that modern
society could benefit by. That is why Jawaharlal Nehru and
Verrier Ellwin made such a fuss about the need to ensure that
steps were taken to preserve tribal culture and the unique
identity of the tribals.
DRAG had put up
a proposal to bring out a manual on the contribution of NGOs to
tribal welfare, especially with regard to restoring the tribal
habitat. The objective was to document what they had achieved
and the obstacles encountered while working among the adivasis
in different parts of the country. Such documentation could, it
was felt, serve as a guide to action for grassroots groups.
In the event,
the investigations led to uncovering the nature of the changes
that were taking place or had taken place in adivasi lifestyle
as a consequence of the development strategy followed since
independence. This has become a major part of the study as
without an appreciation of the impact of the policies of the
government, the damage caused to the way of life of the adivasis
cannot be comprehended.
The British
initiated the process which marginalised the tribals, and the
process has gathered pace since they left. This has involved, in
the main, the destruction of the tribal habitat; once the
forests began to disappear, the impact on the adivasis was
dramatic. Any effort to help them — as a range of programmes
designed ostensibly for their benefit seek to do — cannot but
be palliatives in the absence of an environment within which
they had survived for millennia.a.
The study has
been divided into two sections. The first section deals with
those areas that are almost entirely tribal either because the
laws of the state have enabled them to remain that way or
because of geophysical reasons. In Arunachal Pradesh and
Nagaland where laws prohibit the settling of people from outside
those states, the impact has not been that visible, that
obvious. In Ladakh, cut off from the rest of the country by its
harsh geographical structure, the tribals have not felt the
winds of change in all their ferocity. But with regard to the
adivasis living in other states the impact has been all too
evident.
The second part
deals with the tribals of Bihar, Orissa, Madhya Pradesh,
Maharashtra and other states. They no longer possess a distinct
identity. Their environment has been destroyed (the forests in
which they lived have largely disappeared) in the development
process and they have thus lost whatever was unique to them. The
tragedy is that the development process has not benefited them
either; rather in many cases they have been its victims (the
large hydroelectric projects, for instance, have uprooted
essentially tribals from their homes). To use a crude metaphor,
the adivasis are like a washerman’s dog which belongs neither
to the home nor the riverbank: dhobi ka kutta, na ghar ka, na
ghat ka.
The author
wonders if the adivasis adapt themselves to some government
steps, is it in their hands to decide whether they want to
preserve their own culture; else will they become
indistinguishable members of a society which has given in to
western consumer ethos, an ethos that has invaded the rest of
India?
How was this to
be achieved? Perhaps by seeing to it that there was no
interference in the pockets where they live. But would this be
in the adivasis’ interest? For, while the areas they inhabited
could well turn into islands of "backwardness", the
tribals would be no more than museum pieces, anachronisms of a
bygone age while the rest of India forged ahead.
Whether the
tribals wanted to be treated in this manner is a question that
has not been addressed in this study if only because the
development process, imposed from the top, has seen to it that
the tribals would not be bypassed.
All is,
however, not lost as demonstrated by the work done by NGOs in
restoring tribal environment in Orissa, Bihar, Maharashtra and
other states: forest protection, afforestation and
conscientisation exercises have enabled the adivasis not to
remain passive victims of the Centre’s development policies.
This comprehensive and
searching book argues that we can only make sense of
environmental issues if we consider them as part of a more
encompassing process of social transformation. The book provides
a thorough discussion of the central themes in the emerging
discipline of environmental sociology and will be required
reading for students of environmental social sciences.
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After
three tumbles, Atwood
gets the nod
Review by Deepika
Gurdev
The Blind
Assassin by Margaret Atwood. Bloomsbury. Pages 521. Singapore
$ 38.500.
MARGARET
Atwood finally emerged winner of the Booker Prize, Britain’s
top fiction award, for "The Blind Assassin,"
published by Bloomsbury. The Canadian author had been tipped
to win since the shortlist was announced on October 5, 2000.
"The Blind Assassin"is Atwood’s 10th book and was
her fourth nomination for the prestigious prize.
She has been
shortlisted for the Booker Prize on three previous occasions
— with "The Handmaids Tale" (1986), "Cat’s
Eye" (1989) and "Alias Grace" (1996).
In awarding
the prize, chairman of the panel of Booker judges, journalist
Simon Jenkins commented: "The Blind Assassin"is a
complex book that works on many different levels.
Far-reaching, dramatic and structurally superb, it
demonstrates Atwood’s immense emotional range, as well as
her poet’s eye for both telling detail and psychological
truth.... Three times she has been the bridesmaid and now she
is the bride."
After
receiving the award, Atwood told the literati-studded
gathering at the award ceremony at London’s Guildhall:
"It is a very great honour and deeply gratifying."
She added:
"I think the good thing about prizes is that they help
lots of readers read books they otherwise wouldn’t know
about or read. That’s the positive function prizes like this
perform. A short-listing for this prize automatically brings
the short-listed writer into public view."
Surprisingly,
she spoke of children’s author Beatrix Potter as being a
major influence on her writing.
Margaret
Atwood was born in Ottawa, Ontario, on November 18. 1939. She
is the author of more than 25 books, including fiction, poetry
and essays. Among her most recent works are the bestselling
novels "Alias Grace", "Cat’s Eye" and
"The Robber Bride", and collections "Wilderness
Tips" and "Bluebeard’s Egg". Among the many
honours she has are the Canadian Governor-General’s Award,
The Sunday Times Award for Literary Excellence in the UK, and
Le Chevalier dans l’Ordre de Arts et Les Lettres in France.
She lives in Toronto with the novelist Graeme Gibson.
For the past
25 years, Margaret Atwood has written works of striking
originality and imagination. In "The Blind
Assassin", she stretches the limits of her
accomplishments as never before. Atwood takes the art of story
telling to new heights with a novel that unfolds layer by
astonishing layer and concludes in a brilliant and wonderfully
satisfying finish. The result is a novel that is entertaining
and at the same time profoundly serious.
Atwood’s
female characters here are as complex and intriguing as they
are in "Cat’s Eye". Her descriptions are so
specific that every aspect of the setting comes vibrantly to
life, and it is easy to imagine every detail.
"The
Blind Assassin" is a tale of two sisters, one of whom
dies under ambiguous circumstances in the opening pages. The
plot is deceptively simple. The survivor, Iris Chase Griffen,
sold into a loveless marriage at 18 to a politically prominent
industrialist, is now 82 and poor, living in Port Ticonderoga,
a town dominated by her once prosperous family. While
bewailing her unreliable body and deriding those who try to
help her, Iris reflects on her far from exemplary life and,
more importantly, on the events surrounding her sister Laura’s
mysterious and tragic death. The novel opens with these
simple, resonant words: "Ten years after the war ended,
my sister Laura drove a car off a bridge."
Iris
initially seems a little cold-blooded about this death in the
family. But as Margaret Atwood’s most ambitious work
unfolds, with several nested narratives and even an entire
novel-within-a-novel, we are reminded of just how complicated
the familial game of hide-and-seek can be: "What had she
been thinking of as the car sailed off the bridge, then hung
suspended in the afternoon sunlight, glinting like a
dragonfly, for that one instant of held breath before the
plummet? Of Alex, of Richard, of bad faith, of our father and
his wreckage; of God, perhaps, and her fatal, triangular
bargain."
Meanwhile,
Atwood launches into an excerpt from Laura Chase’s novel
"The Blind Assassin", posthumously published in
1947. In this double-decker concoction, a wealthy woman
dabbles in blue-collar passion, even as her lover regales her
with a series of science-fiction parables. Complicated? You
bet. Mercifully, the novel reads far more smoothly than its
convoluted method of delivery would suggest.
The author
puts all this variegation to good use, taking an expert
measure of the reader’s capacity for self-delusion and
complicity, not to mention desolation. Almost everybody in her
sprawling narrative manages to — or prefers to — overlook
what is clearly in plain sight. And memory is not much of a
salve either, as Iris points out: "Nothing is more
difficult than to understand the dead, I’ve found; but
nothing is more dangerous than to ignore them."
Yet Atwood
never succumbs to post-modern cynicism. On the contrary, she
is capable of great tenderness and as the readers immerse
themselves in Iris’s spliced-in memoir, it is clear that
this buttoned-up socialite has been anything but blind to the
chaos surrounding her.
Told in a
style that captures the colloquialisms of the 1930s and the
1940s, the novel has many threads and a series of events that
follow one another at a breathtaking pace. As everything comes
together, readers discover that the story Atwood is telling is
not only what is seems to be, but is much, much more.
The praise of
her talents on the back of the jacket are certainly not
over-indulgent and "The Blind Assassin" truly lives
up to all the hype that now surrounds it. It moves smoothly
from start to finish, and all of the stories, articles, and
reflections pull you deep into the lives of the Chase sisters,
and all are essential for the novel’s unexpected conclusion.
Iris’s musings and Laura’s novel never feel gimmicky or
false. It is positively engrossing and I realise yet again
that Atwood is certainly a great writer.
P.S.: My
tryst with Atwood began in 1990 after my visit to Canada, when
one of the families I stayed with gifted me the entire Atwood
collection (works till 1990). Since then it has been a silent
prayer to see the author win the Booker. Its finally happened
and now the waiting for the next novel begins.
The Booker
Prize for Fiction, worth £ 21.000 ($ 29,980) to the winner,
is now in its 32nd year. The winning book this year was chosen
from a shortlist of six books from 120 entries in all. Each of
the short-listed authors receives £ 1,000 along with a
designer bound edition of his or her book.
The Booker is
Britain’s most prestigious literary award, sponsored by food
company Booker. Open to entries from Britain and the
Commonwealth, the shortlist is, invariably, a lightning rod
for criticism. This year’s shortlist too had brought the
usual clamour for a literary warfare. Booker judges also
reportedly bemoaned "not all of them produced their best
novels this year".
Traditionally, the prize
means a windfall for the author in terms of soaring book
sales. Last year’s winner, J.M. Coetzee’s
"Disgrace" sold over 100,000 copies in hardback and
remained on the bestseller list for three months following the
announcement of the prize.
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A
new tale, an old classic
Review by R.P. Chaddah
Belief (A
Novel) by Nikhil Kansnabish. Pages 154. Rs 150.
Miri Jiyori (A Love Story) by Rajnikanta Bordoloi and translated
by P. Kotoky. Rs 195.
Both books
published by Spectrum, Guwahati
IN
the past five years or so Spectrum Publications, Guwahati, has
brought out outstanding fiction and poetry from North-East India
for the readers of literature in this part of India. Spectrum
has been doing yeoman service to Assamese literature by getting
the classics translated into English. They have also published
some writers who actually write in English.
The novel
"Belief" is written originally in English and the
other love story, "Miri Jiyori" by the famous Assemese
writer of the late 19th century Rajnikanta Bordoloi, is a
translation by P. Kotoky, a retired professor of English from
Guwahati University.
"Belief"
by Nikhil Kansnabish, according to the blurb on the dust jacket,
is "a promising adult novel with contemporary
socio-political tones and it borders on the theme of patience
and justice. The book is the second novel of the writer and it
revolves round the theme of the makings of a novelist. In strong
autobiographical undertones the writer talks of the trials and
tribulations of a budding novelist and a frustrated one at that.
Only the "belief" and faith of his beloved coupled
with some friends’ concern for his literary ambitions, sees
him through the publication of his "master piece"
which is hailed by one and all.
Overnight the
protagonist-novelist gets a celebrity status, so much so that
some hooligans attack him in the market place for what he has
written against them in his novel.
What is
astonishing is that he goes to an advocate for advice. The
advice is "The attack was a blessing in disguise. The
attack certainly publicised you and your novel. I advise you to
use the attack as the subject of your next novel...."
The writer
seems to get all the drive and inspiration from a close reading
of Shobha De’s various novels and De like, tries to capture
the imagination of the reader by giving regular dollops of the
so-called erotica and also a bit of romance and foreplay leading
to the obvious final act.
"I
heartily welcome you to my life. Flood the desert of my life
with your love". Like in films, the book "The
Splinters of the Sun" becomes so popular that some film
makers approach the novelist-hero Dhritibrata Datta for movie
rights of the novel. Everything in the novel happens in a span
of 150 pages.
In the book the
hero might have written a tremendously popular novel, but the
present book carries all the weaknesses of a first or a second
book — a thin story line, lack of insight into the psyche of
various characters and, of all things, why he wants to become a
novelist just because he is a man with literary ambitions? The
present reviewer did enjoy reading the one-liners which the
novelist has injected into the format of the book.
"No
difference lies between love and politics. Both are games."
or,
"By
arguments you can’t get your ideas across to your listeners if
they’re unable to understand you." or,
"The
beautiful women woo the millionaires thinking that money makes
matrimony magnificent and life lustrous."
* * *
From a novel
which is set in the late 90’s of the 20th century we come to a
translated novel of the late 19th century. The novel is "Miri
Jiyori" and it has been translated into English after more
than a hundred years of its first publication in Assamese. The
novel tells a simple story of love, which flourishes on the
banks of the river Sovansiri and ends in tragedy around the same
river.
It is about the
love of Panei and Jonki which does not find sanction from the
family of the girl Panei, the girl rebels and runs away from
home. The couple does find some moments of bliss and happiness
in a far off village but that was not to be. They are found out
and are hacked to death.
The story is
reminiscent of the famous Heer Ranjha, Romeo and Juliet, Laila
Majnu, Sassi Pannu and others. The story is simply told in the
first person and the writer’s sympathy for the star-crossed
lovers is all too apparent. The translator appears to be too
faithful to the Assamese text and has not been able to say the
story in its nuances of English.
The novel runs
into all but 60 pages and a good number of pages have been
devoted to the translation of various popular songs of those
times. At best, the novel presents the history of the Miri tribe
of Assam, now known as Mishings, their social background,
traditions, customes and superstitions and also the natural
beauty of the land and the people of North-East India. The novel
in its original Assamese has endured as a classic of true love,
but the translated version, I fear, does not have that sweep or
style to sustain it as a "classic". The novel ends on
a moralistic note.
"The love of Panei and
Jonki led to terrible consequences. Old Tamed learnt a good
lesson as to where the greed of gold leads. Here we finish the
tragic tale.... Let’s hope that henceforth it well be all will
with the Miri families."
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World
listing, but about USA
Review by Bimal Bhatia
The World
Almanac and Book of Facts 2000. Editorial Director Robert
Famighetti. World Almanac Books, New Jersey. Pages 1024. $
10.95.
ALMANACS
make useful reference material because you find in them facts or
some background information that you need in a hurry, without
having to scurry off to the library. Also in them you will find
light stuff that you can browse through in leisure over a cup of
coffee. Compiled in this neat volume you have brief information
about nations of the world, economy, travel, health,
personalities and a wide range of issues that the general index
with a fine print running into 29 pages indicates.
The focus and
worldview, however, is definitely America-centred, as my survey
of the previous year’s chronology of events showed. I looked
for the US view of the Kargil war in the summer of 1999, an
event which put Kashmir on centre-stage and contrasted Pakistan’s
brashness as a nuclear weapon state with India’s responsible
restraint. President Clinton even cancelled his schedule on the
fourth of July — US Independence Day — to meet Pakistan’s
Nawaz Sharif and hammer some sense into him.
No entry on
Kargil but a full-page on the conflict in Kosovo. To know about
Kargil you must search the chronology and get to know about what
happened in two bits like this. "India Attacks Islamic
Forces in Kashmir — New fighting flared on May 26 in
Kashmir, which was claimed by both India and Pakistan. Some 500
armed Islamic militants had occupied positions on the Indian
side of the ceasefire line. India said that Pakistan was backing
the militants. From early May, clashes between the militants and
the Indian army had left 300 people dead. On May 26, India began
attacking the militants from the air. On May 27, Pakistan shot
down two Indian jets that, India said, had crossed into Pakistan
air space unintentionally.
"Islamic
Militants Reportedly Leave Kashmir — The latest conflict
between India and Pakistan showed signs of quietening down with
the reported departure of Islamic militants who had occupied the
disputed region of Kashmir. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif of
Pakistan promised President Clinton in Washington, July 4, to
restore the ceasefire line in Kashmir, which the militants had
crossed. His ability to impose this commitment on his own
military remained uncertain, and on July 7 leaders of the
militants vowed to continue fighting to establish an autonomous
Islamic state in Kashmir. As a border meeting on July 11,
military commanders agreed to a settlement, with a full
withdrawal of the militants set for July 16. Clashes continued
however. Muslims killed 20 Hindus on July 20 in three attacks in
Kashmir, 16 were reported dead in the battles on July 21. Indian
military officials said on July 26 that the militants had been
pushed out of Kashmir, ending the crisis at least for the time
being."
That is Kargil
for you — from the US eyes. The death in a plane crash of John
F Kennedy Jr along with his wife Carolyn Baassette and
sister-in-law on July 16 consumes more space. You can’t grudge
this. JFK Jr was a celebrity in his own right, and Americans
like to know and talk more about famous people — just what the
international media picked up during those fateful days in July
when we all sat glued to the TV.
* * *
The ten top
news stories of 1999 listed in the almanac should give you an
idea of the media priorities across the Atlantic.
-
Bill
Clinton’s impeachment and subsequent acquittal.
-
Kosovo
conflict and the air strikes against Yugoslavia to force a
Serbian pullback.
-
Twelve
students and a teacher fatally shot by two teenagers who
later killed themselves. This incident fuelled a national
debate in the USAover gun control and the harmful
influence of violence in the media.
-
Death of
King Hussein of Jordan.
-
Turkish
earthquake in which 16,000 perished.
-
JFK Jr’s
plane crash.
-
East
Timor’s vote for independence from Indonesia and the
ensuing massacre in Dili.
-
Severe
drought and high temperatures in the eastern USA.
-
Launching
of the campaign for the 2000 presidential election.
-
Dawn of
the new century and millennium (officially the 20th
century does not end until Dec 31, 2000).
* * *
Did you know
that President Bill Clinton receives an annual salary of $
200,000 (taxable), and an annual expence allowance of $ 50,000
(nontaxable) for costs resulting from official duties. In
addition, up to $ 100,000 a year may be spent on travel expences
and $ 19,000 on official entertainment (both nontaxable),
available for allocation within the executive office of the
President
A bill passed
by Congress will entitle future US Presidents to a salary of $
400,000 beginning in 2001. That is a 100 per cent hike, but
warranted because the President’s pay has not been increased
since 1969.
Now there is
some added incentive for "Bore" or "Gush",
and their fate should have been decided by the time you read
this.
* * *
Some notable
quotes in 1999.
"As I
stepped out, I felt like putting a jacket over my head — so
embarrassed." — King Abdullah II, the new king of Jordan,
on having to take a six car motorcade, instead of a taxi, to see
a movie during a visit to Washington DC.
"This is a
terrible mistake because I used up all my English ... Grazie all’Italia.
Grazie all’America."
— Italian
actor/director Roberto Benigini, after winning his second
Academy Award for his movie "Life is Beautiful".
"Mommy
made a big mistake."
— Former
White House intern Monica Lewinsky when asked what she would
tell her future children about her relationship with President
Bill Clinton.
"Now that
the Senate has fulfilled its constitutional responsibility,
bringing this process to a conclusion, I want to say again to
the American people how profoundly sorry I am for what I said
and did to trigger these events and the great burden they have
imposed on Congress and on the American people."
— President
Bill Clinton, following his acquittal in his impeachment trial.
"And you
had the audacity to go on national television, show the world
what you did, and dare the legal system to stop you. Well, sir,
consider yourself stopped."
— Circuit
Court Judge Jessica Cooper to Dr Jack Kevorkian before she
sentenced him to prison for his videotaped mercy-killing of a
patient suffering from Lou Gehrig’s disease.
* * *
More than 40
million people in the USAhave some form of arthritis — about
23 million are women and 285,000 are children. While the cause
for most types of arthritis is unknown, scientists are studying
the roles played by genetics, lifestyle and environment.
Alternative
medicine is picking up in America. Although alternative
treatment is not usually reimbursed by health insurance
companies, and estimated one in three Americans uses some form
of alternative medicine.
There are 1,600 licensed
homoeopaths and 2,000 lay homoeopathic practioners in the USA,
generating a revenue of $ 560 million. In naturopathy 2,000
licensed practioners and a like number of lay persons work to
generate $ 460 million. Chiropractic (releiving pain by joint
manipulation) has 60,000 licensed practioners with a listed
revenue of $ 14,500 million, while massage therapy has 30,000
licensed and 130,000 other practioners generating $ 6,850
million. Ayurveda, described as India’s tradional system of
natural medicine, hasn’t probably taken off fully to merit a
listing of its practioners.
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Crystal
clear animal lover
Review by Shalini
Kalia
Mad dogs
and an English Woman by Crystal Rogers Penguin Books, New
Delhi. Pages 186. Rs 250.
So many
faiths, so many creeds
So many paths that twist and wind,
When just the art of being kind
Is all this sad world really needs.
THE
lady who hated the leash" — that is the epithet that
crosses one’s mind when one reads about the tenacious white
woman called Crystal Rogers who made India her home for more
than four decades and strove till her last days to care for
fellow beings in misery, whether people or animals, more so
the latter, because they cannot spell out their misery. She
opened a series of shelters. The Animal’s Friend founded in
Delhi in 1959, which she ran for 20 years before moving on to
Jaipur where she set up a charitable trust called Help in
Suffering. This time, she also opened her doors for people who
had nowhere to go.
Finally,
moving to Bangalore in 1990, she founded Compassion Unlimited
Plus Action, another animal welfare organisation.
Her
autobiography, however, refuses to fit in the usual
interstices of writing about the self. Crystal, in fact,
effaces the self and writes in the first person as a third
person. We get very little insight into her family, except a
peep into the characters who might have helped her in her
formative years.
The reader
has to wrench open her personal files which barely reveal what
really made her the person she was. She talks of her father as
a dear friend and guide and his lessons on caring and she
eventually tried to internalise his love of nature. Her mother
too held the view that nature is the best teacher, but Crystal’s
fascination for her father and his beliefs was lifelong and
stretched to the rest of her life. Her mother shares the
margins of her story with her three elder brothers.
Instead of
being merely a run-of-the-mill list of achievements, the story
is a sharing of experience, a gentle guide for the uninitiated
into the sufferings which comes by virtue of sharing other
people’s pain. Her style is anecdotal and even then it is
pared down to the essentials. A team of people, which include
the publishers, have restructured and filled out accounts of
persons, places, things and, of course, animals, for the book
to read like a story, a combination of the best of the odic
and the picaresque traditions.
A sketchy
account of her childhood leaves the reader amused in more than
one way. Quaint spellings, "Jellundar" and "Amritsa"
accounts of quirky pet names — a white guinea pig called Mr
Macdonald and the case of the pet baby duckling which had been
hatched by an old hen — are only some of the characters
which trooped in and out of her childhood.
For some
psychologists who believe that children are like wet clay till
the age of five, there is some cheer. For Crystal, it was her
father, Colonel G.W. Rogers, who moulded her into a
compassionate soul and stroked her love for animals. Although
he had retired from the Indian Army, he always wanted to
return to India. Perhaps Crystal inherited the yearning.
A fairytale
childhood spent partly in Switzerland, where she remembers
boating with her father, picking berries and listening to the
sheep bells down the mountainside, her first flicker of
interest was kindled... "racing barefoot down a slope
after a bunch of colourful, fluttering butterflies. Not to
catch them. Not to break their wings. Not to preserve them in
a jar to show off to friends... (but) to share their
freedom." But her compassion comes out in her dislike for
a little playmate who killed butterflies because "she
said they ate clothes!"
Her first
memorable tryst with animals was at the age of five with an
Irish terier called Paddy. Later came a series of nets, some
regular and some offbeat. The pony, Blacky, and a dog, Bob,
which saved their tent from being burgled. By this time, the
family had also travelled to India. Later came the parrot, the
guinea pig and the duckling. During this period, however, her
father died. She missed her boating expeditions and the walks
when he would talk to her about the trees and animals and
about the value of caring and sharing. Her mother too had
wanted her to grow up as a "nature’s child".
Her earlier
adulthood is chronicled as a series of drifts till she started
serving as an ambulance driver during World War II in 1941. It
was when she was serving at a mobile canteen and library that
she came across a man whose death, more than his life, changed
her destiny. Partners in solitude, Crystal and Jim, an RAF
officer, came together because of their love of nature, music,
animals and travel. Mutual admiration took on shades of love
in spite of her doubts over the difference in their age.
Perhaps this was the anchor that she had been looking for
after her father’s death.
Hopes of a
blissful future together ended with Jim’s death in an air
crash. For years she sought comfort in spirituality and
mediums. Her ship slowly steered towards its purpose when at
the age of 50 she reached India. The apathy of Indians to the
plight of diseased and dying animals as well as destitutes
horrified her. Possibly, the prophecy of a medium who had
predicted that "animals in need of help will always be
bought to you" was going to come true.
Even though
she came to India "prepared for change and prepared to
change", she had to contend with frustrating bureaucratic
hassles and red tapism. From her first animal shelter on the
deserted outskirts of Delhi, her journey towards saving
animals from men and men from others of their own kind began.
From contending with religious fanatics, who thought she was
desecrating sacred grounds, to dealing with ghosts, the police
and hostile neighbours, she pacified one and all. Snakes,
scorpions, epidemics like distemper and friction among the
staff also took their toll on her energy and finances. Money,
of course, was a perennial problem. Aspersions cast on the
work by every passing Tom, Dick and Harry angered her all the
more. Help was few and far between.
What angered
her even more were the deliberate tortures animals were
subjected to. The methods of torture were different in the
East and the West. While special farms and slaughter houses in
the West bred animals solely for the purpose of feeding their
populace and their vast cosmetic and fur industry wrecked
havoc in the lives of mute creatures which could in no way
protect themselves, in the East they were exploited more for
earning a living as in the case of the snake charmer or the madari
or the bhaluvallah or the poor farmer who used his
skeletal pair of oxen to plough the unyielding earth.
Crystal
pleads the case for not using animals for testing cosmetics,
drugs, foods and various items of daily use. She cites the
case, familiar to most of us, of thalidomide, which was
declared safe for pregnant women after animal trials and led
to thousands of children being born with horrifying
deformities.
Age crept upon earlier than
she thought. But neither that nor any amount of squabbling
within her own organisations could stop her. She died forever
ready to serve the cause so dear to her heart. Apart from an
error in the book where the blurb claims her to have been born
in India, while the first line of the Prologue says that she
was born in Bedford (I presume there is no place by that name
in India), the book is put together well.
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Sri
Lanka, LTTE, India all
in a tangled web
Review by Subhash
Verma
By P.A
Ghosh APH Publishing Corporation, New Delhi. Pages xxviii +
215. Rs 500.
ETHNICITY,
regionalism and communalism, along with poverty and
unemployment are some of the problems faced by the Third World
countries. These problems have generated separatist movements
and posed serious challenges to these states. However, the
type and degree of intensity of these movements vary from
country to country.
It is not
true that before independence ethnic tensions were alien to
these societies. The only difference was that due to national
independence movements and the presence of a common enemy in
the form of the colonial rulers, these tensions did not
surface in the politics of these countries.
Recently,
however, these tensions have acquired a dimension of violence
and extremism. It is important to mention that the cause of
ethnic tension is not exactly the same everywhere. In general,
however, it is the socio-political deprivation as perceived by
an ethnic community, which leads to a conflict between
contending communities and between these communities and the
state.
In the
post-independence period many of these states adopted
discriminatory policies against certain communities by denying
them legitimate civil and political rights. The political and
economic structures inherited from colonial rule were used
without making any changes. Moreover, the absence of necessary
improvements in governance to suit geographical conditions and
linguistic and religious requirements of the minority
communities further aggravated the situation.
These
communities felt that they were denied their share in national
wealth, education and employment. On the one hand, this
weakened their faith in the state system and, on the other
hand, they started viewing other communities as their enemies.
This ultimately led to the emergence of secessionist
movements, which not only adversely affected the process of
nation-building but also resulted in the division and
disintegration of some of these states.
Ethnic
diversity has been almost universal and has existed throughout
history. Sri Lanka is no exception in this regard. But here,
its nature has been changing from time to time. Therefore, the
present conflict cannot be seen merely as a continuation of
the traditional conflict. The author has presented a detailed
and comprehensive account of the genesis and various
dimensions of Sri Lankan ethnic crisis.
The book is
divided into six chapters which include the introduction. The
first three chapters deal with the origin of the ethnic
conflict and the causes of the emergence of the Tamil Eelam
movement. The last three chapters examine the geo-strategic
importance of Sri Lanka and India’s security concerns, and
the impact of the Lankan crisis on India’s domestic life and
the security environment in South Asia.
India’s
response to these challenges, the changing motives of the IPKF
operations and the cost, cause of the failure and the lessons
learnt are also explained. In order to achieve the above aims
and objectives, the author has adopted a historical,
geographical, descriptive and analytical approach.
Sri Lanka is
a multi-racial and multi-religious state. Different segments
of the population are along ethnic, religious and linguistic
lines. The Sinhalese are in majority and are concentrated in
the western and southern parts of the Island. They are mainly
Buddhist. The Tamils, on the other hand, are the largest
minority group. They are of Dravidian origin and are
predominantly Hindus.
The racial
antagonism in Sri Lanka goes back to the evolution of the
Sinhalese and Tamil communities. The historical perception of
these two communities with each other has coloured their
perceptions of the present problem. According to Buddhist
mythology, the Sinhalese are early migrants from north India,
whereas the Tamil chronicles claim that some Sri Lankan Tamils
were the first to inhabit Sri Lanka and the Sinhalese came
much later.
Therefore
both communities have been putting forward rival claims in
establishing their racial and cultural superiority and
administrative hegemony over each other. The Sinhalese,
instead of treating the Tamils as a minority, view them as a
dominant community by virtue of the fact that they are backed
by those from South India. Both groups have been suspicious of
each other. The Tamils feel that they may be swamped by the
Sinhalese. The fact, however, is that the Tamils of South
India and SriLanka together grossly outnumber the Sinhalese.
This is seen by the Sinhalese as a potential threat to their
existence. This was the beginning of the Sinhalese animosity
to the Indian Tamils who were seen as undesirable elements in
Sri Lanka.
Apart from
historical and cultural factors, some other factors also
played a prominent role in the discord between the two
communities. First, there were the discriminatory Citizenship
Act of 1948 and 1949. These Acts were basically designed to
deny citizenship and voting rights to the Indian Tamil
settlers in order to divide the Tamils in the island.
The second
important issue which gave rise to the ethnic crisis was the
Sri Lankan government’s policy of colonisation in the
Tamil-dominated areas. The Sinhalese called it simply a policy
of land distribution and settlement from the densely populated
areas of southwest to the northern and eastern provinces. In
fact, it was planned to reduce the Tamils to a minority
community in their traditional homeland. The Tamils saw it as
a direct threat to the survival of their community.
Discrimination
against the Tamils in education, in services and in economic
activities was another factor which played a crucial role.
Various educational and employment policies, initiated by
different governments in the post-independence period were
anti-Tamil in nature.
Under the new
policy of standardisation students from the underdeveloped
areas were given preference over those from the advanced areas
like Jaffna and Colombo. Not only this. A new policy of
district quota and area weightage was also introduced in 1972.
This policy was called Special Marking System subject-wise and
medium-wise.
Although
these policies were applicable to all the communities, the
Tamil suffered the most because of their heavy stakes in
education. Consequently, the number of Tamil students in
higher education and subsequently in government jobs came down
drastically.
Besides this,
the Tamil-dominated areas were also neglected while
establishing new industries and initiating other economic
activities. For instance, the Sinhalese were given preference
while issuing export-import licences. This caused frustration
and resentment in the Tamil population.
Another
reason for the cultural discord between the two communities
was the Official Language Act of 1956 which declared that the
Sinhalese would be the only official language of Sri
Lanka.This was considered by the Tamils as ethnic
discrimination in their homeland. The new Constitution
inaugurated in 1972 not only reiterated that the Sinhalese
would be the sole official language but also conferred special
privileges on Buddhism.
The intense
anger and resentment due to continuous discrimination and
deprivation of the Tamils in every sphere of life ultimately
convinced them that their collective salvation lies only in
the creation of a separate state and that they must attain it,
even through violent revolutionary means if necessary.
Initially,
India did not pay much attention to the ethnic problem in Sri
Lanka and considered it as an internal one. The nature of
Indian involvement in and its policies towards the Sri Lankan
ethnic crisis has never been static. In the beginning, it was
labelled as covert involvement, which later on became a
mediatory role. Finally, it took the shape of direct
intervention.
At one stage,
the idea of involvement was just to diffuse the pressure
exerted by the people of Tamil Nadu in the form of statewide
bandhs, strikes and attempts at self-immolation, etc. to
support or to save the fellow Tamils in Sri Lanka. This was
clear in 1980 to 1987 when Tamil guerrillas were provided all
help in establishing their offices and training camps in
Chennai.
A factor that
determined the nature of Indian involvement was the
apprehension of threats to the security environment in the
south of the country by the continuing tension in Sri Lanka.
It was feared that it could lead to a possible covert or overt
intervention of extra-regional powers in Sri Lanka. In this
context, the US stakes in Sri Lanka were quite understandable
in view of its desire for exclusive harbour facilities in the
Indian Ocean. On the other hand, it is possible to believe
that India supported the Tamil groups in order to put pressure
on the pro-western Jayewardene government.
There was a
perception in Indian governmental circles that Jayewardene’s
approach to various countries, such as the USA, Pakistan and
China, for military and political support was inimical to
India’s security interests in the region.
Second, the
Indian government’s approach to the conflict in Sri Lanka
was also moulded by the impact this conflict had on the
politics in Tamil Nadu. The people of Tamil Nadu have close
ethnic, cultural and religious links with the Tamils in Sri
Lanka. Therefore they felt that they could not remain silent
spectators to atrocities committed on fellow Tamils in Sri
Lanka.
Under the
pressure of this public sympathy, political parties in Tamil
Nadu also extended support to the Tamil movement in Sri Lanka.
Obviously, they did this to safeguard their own political
interests. This attitude of the political parties, in turn,
had its impact on the political parties at the national level.
All these
factors forced the Indian government to intervene in the
situation. Yet, India was not interested in an independent
state of the Sri Lankan Tamils. It only wanted to solve the
crisis by playing a mediatory role. The Indian intention was
to make it clear to the Sri Lankan government that India could
not tolerate the mediation of other regional or extra-regional
powers because such an intervention would directly affect
India’s regional security concerns. This attitude became
clearly visible when Indira Gandhi repeatedly told Jayewardane
that developments in Sri Lanka affected India and thus India
could not be regarded just as any other country.
In 1987 the
Sri Lankan government launched Operation Liberation against
the Tamil guerrilla forces. This gave a new turn to ethnic
crisis in Sri Lanka. An important development that resulted
from this was that the phase of India’s covert and mediatory
role changed into direct intervention.
Accordingly,
on June 4, 1987, India took a drastic step when it allowed the
Indian aircraft to enter Sri Lankan air space and drop 25
tonnes of relief supplies at Jaffna under the operation
code-named "Eagle". Not only this, Rajiv Gandhi,
then Prime Minister of India, warned Jayewardene to desist
from military occupation of Jaffna. These developments
culminated in the signing of a peace agreement between India
and Sri Lanka on July 29, 1987.
The initial
objective of the agreement was to ensure the protection and
promotion of socio-political and economic interests of the
Tamil people in a united Sri Lanka, and suspension of all
military action against the Tamils by the Sri Lankan armed
forces. In return, Tamil militants were to give up the idea of
a separate Tamil Eelam. The understanding was that political
and diplomatic negotiations are the best possible methods to
deal with the ethnic problem.
In the
beginning, the LTTE’s reaction was positive and it
reluctantly accepted the agreement. But after some time it
dissociated from it by saying that it was an unfair agreement
which India was trying to impose on it. Consequently, in
October, 1987, the LTTE resumed its violent activities.
Following these events, on October 9, 1987, India decided to
forcibly disarm the LTTE. This is how the role of the IPKF was
transformed from peacekeepers to peace-makers.
Sri Lankan
Tamils who initially cheered and welcomed the IPKF, turned
hostile towards it and the whole mission failed to achieve the
desired result. Whatever may be the role played by the adverse
climatic conditions and other geographical hurdles, the major
causes of the failure of the mission was the great ambivalence
in India’s political and military strategy. Second, the
Indian government did not have a well-planned and consistent
policy on the crisis.
India failed
to conceive a situation where its armed forces, intended for
peace-keeping, would be drawn into a protracted armed conflict
with the LTTE. Not only this, it was also observed that the
IPKF had neither a perception nor a mandate during its
operations in Sri Lanka. Moreover, warring factions were not
party to the agreement of 1987.
In addition
to this, for a successful operation the IPKF, on the one hand,
should have sought local public support and, on the other
hand, it should have mastered the environmental and
geographical conditions. The IPKF failed because it was sent
with a confused motive. At the very least, it was proved a
hasty decision.
However, it
is significant to note that whatever may be the cause of
failure, the deployment of the IPKF decidedly saved the,
island republic from territorial disintegration. It also
helped in bringing normalcy to public life and reviving the
administration in Jaffna. Furthermore, it made possible to
hold three consecutive elections — namely, of the Provincial
Council in 1988, the presidential election in 1988 and the
parliamentary election in 1989.
In overall terms, it can be
concluded that Tamil nationalism is deeply linked to the rise
of Sinhalese nationalism. The LTTE’s demand for a separate
state is primarily because of the continued Sinhalese control
over successive governments and the discriminatory policies
adopted by these governments, which ultimately resulted in the
growing gap between the socio-political and economic
conditions of the Tamil community and those of the Sinhalese
community.
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BOOK
EXTRACT
India that is
hidden but fascinating
(This is extracted from
"The Other India.")
Jai, AIDS
Devi!
Review by Stephen
David in Mensikethanahalli (Karnataka)
THIRTY
km out of Mysore on the Mysore-Mandya highway, a milestone
reads: "AIDSamma Temple. 2 km." There are
Bhagwatiamma and Kamakshiamma, two powerful female deities,
enshrined with the power to destroy evil and grant wishes to
the faithful. There are other ammas who draw strength from
Hinduism’s vast and varied pantheon.
But AIDSamma?
Curious? Then
take the detour, and chances are, even before you reach the
shrine at the heart of Mensikethanahalli in Bannur taluk, the
villagers would have educated you about how this is no
ordinary temple, but a symbolic propitiation to what they
believe is the goddess or "amma" of AIDS, the four
letters that spell death.
There is
eagerness — and pride — as the villagers speak. A pride
that comes from being self-taught. As recently as two years
ago, they knew nothing of Acquired Immuno Deficiency Syndrome,
the result of HIV infection. The conservative, poor farming
village of 1,300 had never heard of the killer. But today they
not only know about the scourge, they also want to spread that
awareness to as many people as they can.
This strange
mix of science and religion is a compulsion that was born out
of loss. In May, 1997, Kalegowda, a 37-year-old farmer,
succumbed to AIDS. Ten months later his wife Marisidamma
followed. Their cruel deaths — two healthy people wasting
away in front of their eyes — shocked the villagers, more so
since they could not fathom the cause. Village elder Ramegowda
recalls how perplexed they had been at Kalegowda’s cremation
when they were not allowed to go near the body. "Our
brother was treated like a pariah on his last journey",
he says sadly.
But two men
from Mysore — Surya Kumar and Ningegowda Girish — changed
all that. Teachers at the local government high school, the
two of them would commute to Mensikethanahalli from Mysore by
bus everyday. On the way, they would discuss the way in which
the villagers had been affected by the death of the couple.
And about how they could not afford to remain ignorant about
AIDS.
Kumar, Girish
and the school headmaster, Ilyas Ahmed, soon hit upon an idea.
They began writing simple slogans in Kannada about the malaise
on the walls of the school building. The response was
overwhelming. In no time, the villagers were motivated enough
to learn more about the killer disease. They began asking
questions on their own and arming themselves with information.
They even went from house to house to share what they knew.
As the
self-education campaign gained momentum, the idea of a shrine
was floated by the schoolteachers. A contractor who was
building a library block for the gram panchayat, or village
council, readily offered to provide material for the AIDS
temple. Within weeks, the villagers, under the leadership of
Madegowda, an influential elder, pooled about Rs 4,000 —
even school children contributed — and the shrine, a
concrete slab on a foundation, was constructed.
Propitiating
the gods to fight physical ailments such as plague and small
pox is an old practice in Karnataka, much like the rest of the
country. It is believed that prayer serves as an effective
deterrent and hence many such temples have come up. Though
many of these do have deities, the AIDSamma shrine has a
painting of a boy and a girl with a red "virus"
marked on it. Each morning, the locals come here, light
incense sticks or camphor and offer puja. They also make sure
they are up to date with the information in Kannada inscribed
on the temple pillars: everything from what AIDS is, to how it
is caused and how it can be prevented.
K.S. Nanjunda
Dixit, a temple priest, feels the Karnataka Government should
take the initiative and build temples to AIDSamma in all
districts to help spread awareness. He points to how even
school-going children in Mensikethanahalli are now aware of
the disease, thanks to this medium of education. "We have
to be careful in our interaction with people," offers K.C.
Vanitha, a 15-year-old schoolgirl. "One wrong move and we
are finished."
* * *
Defying
gravity
by N.K. Singh
in Nimar (MP)
IT
defies all the established laws of gravity but try telling
that to the tribals of Nimar region in western Madhya Pradesh
who, using ancient skills handed down over the ages, irrigate
their fields by forcing water uphill — without the use of
pumps or other similar devices.
With the help
of a generations-old technique the Bhilala and Bhil tribesmen
here break the flow of streams and divert the water, sometimes
up to heights of over 50 ft. "It’s amazing,"
marvels Anupam Mishra, a Gandhian environmentalist and author
of a book on ancient water bodies.
"It’s
very simple actually," says Jaimal Singh, a Bhilala
tribal and anti-gravity irrigation expert. Once the stream is
dammed, he explains, its flow is diverted through small
channels towards the tops of small hills where the fields are
located.
Circuitous
routes and intricate bends are used to avoid steep gradients
in sending the water uphill, and advantage is taken of the
natural siphoning process and the sheer force of an impounded
stream.
Only the
tribals possess the requisite skills for this, according to
Thakur Shivcharan Singh, a local landlord who employed tribal
workmen to introduce the technique in his fields. "Ask
any plains-man to use this technique," says the impressed
Thakur, "and I am sure he will fail."
The technique
is in great demand, and so are the technicians. Two famous
practitioners of the art are two Bhilala brothers from the
Devnalaya village in Khandwa district. The younger brother,
Jam Singh, is in a neighbouring village setting up an
irrigation system for which he was paid Rs 1,450. The elder,
Gul Singh, is helping a relative build a similar system. Says
Jaimal, his son, with pride: "Not everyone knows the
art."
Thirty years
ago, Gul settled in Devnalaya, buying a barren hillock for a
song. Today the tribals use the technique to irrigate more
than 40 acres of land spread along the 30 ft high hill,
growing cash crops such as cotton and peanuts.
In a
landscape devoid of greenery, and with government funded
irrigation facilities almost non-existent, the enterprising
tribals have become objects of envy. The systems they have
developed in the area are impressive. In one case, a Bhil
tribal took water first up and over one hill and then, using a
siphon made of bamboo, took it up another hill to where his
fields were located. Says Jaimal: "Every bend in the
canal means we can lift the water up one foot."
To create
such a system, an "expert" first surveys the area
and blocks the stream, then creates a furrow around the
hillock with a ploughshare for the water to flow. If the water
refuses to follow a particular route, a different one is
taken.
The entire
operation takes no more than a fortnight.
The system,
as Jaimal points out, has various advantages. It costs almost
nothing to build, nor is it dependent on a power source.
Further, the time taken to build the system is relatively
short and the maintenance cost negligible.
The only
breakdown can be caused by vagaries of nature. If rainfall in
the area is scanty and the stream dries up, nothing can be
done. And for a majority of farmers, one bad crop is a serious
setback to survival. For example, Shivpratap Singh, who had
used the technique for almost six years to irrigate a large
part of his 100-acre farm, recently abandoned it in favour of
the conventional tubewell.
Others may
soon follow, replacing the ancient art with modern methods of
irrigation. Much of this also has to do with the social impact
of modernity even in remote rural areas, with joint families
splitting up, land disputes rising — inheritance often
breaks up a large holding into many tiny ones — and land
itself becoming scarce.
Consequently,
very few tribals are willing to utilise the large amount of
land needed for the system, often translating into almost a
quarter of the total cultivable land. For the system to work
effectively, a kilometre-long canal is needed to take water up
a distance of a few hundred metres. It looks as if this art,
like many other ancient and arcane ones, could dry up in the
years ahead.
* * *
Living in past
by Farzand
Ahmed in Lucknow
THERE’S
a certain sadness to the scene as Alimuddin Haider climbs the
steps of the Bara Imambara in old Lucknow and stops before the
bhul bhulaiyan, the famous maze that still confuses and
enthralls visitors to this city that the nawabs of Avadh, or
Oudh as it was known in colonial times, made famous.
He might have
looked regal in his sherwani and smart aviator glasses,
but one is frayed, the other anachronistic. There’s a sigh,
a wistfulness, as he surveys the maze before him. "Ah, it’s
here that our past glory is trapped", he whispers. Before
he is overwhelmed by memories of his princely antecedents,
Haider rouses himself and resumes his duties as the meagerly
paid Daroga-e-Asfaud, the keeper of the mosque at Daula
Imambara.
Haider
belongs to the royal family of Avadh that built the mosque.
But the fabled lifestyle is for him just that: a fable. He has
to make do with his monthly salary of Rs 500 from a trust that
runs the Imambara. Few care about his lineage so it is of some
comfort to Haider that a handful people still call him Jio
Nawab. And that is why Haider holds on so desperately to
that one remnant of his family’s opulent past: the wasiqua.
The wasiqua,
a fixed share in the interest earned by the loans given by the
rulers of Avadh to the East India Company, is the one reminder
that Haider was once an aristocrat. It hardly matters that the
sum he gets is a measly Rs 32.50 a month.For wasiqua-holders
the value of the endowment is much more than the money it
brings. "The glorious past is our sole possession,"
declares Nawab Mehdi Mirza, 55, who supplements his Rs 500 a
month typist’s job in the Wasiqua Office with a Rs 23.20 wasiqua.
Sustained
more by pride than by substance, the 1,200 descendants of the
Avadh rulers, of whom about 20 currently live in Lucknow—the
former capital of the sprawling kingdom as well as the present
Uttar Pradesh state—queue up every month at the Wasiqua
Office to receive their money, ranging from Rs 5 to Rs 800.
There is a proud flourish as they sign the receipts for
amounts that go about as far as inflation and an archaic sense
of pride takes it in modern India — not very far. "We
know we cannot feed even a parrot with the money," says
Nawab Ali Mirza, 56, a wasiqua-holder. "But if we
don’t claim it, our link with the past is snapped."
According to
records, Ghazi-ud-Din Haider, ruler of Avadh in the early 19th
century, was so wealthy that he gave loans to the East India
Company on several occasions. The British borrowed Rs 10
million at 6 per cent a year interest in 1814 and a similar
amount two years later and in 1825. The East India Company had
undertaken to distribute the interest on the perpetual loan to
the ruler’s descendants.
After the
British government took over Avadh in 1886, legislation
formalised the payment of interest money. A trust headed by
the divisional commissioner of Lucknow and including Shia
members of the royal families was created to manage the funds.
This responsibility was passed on to the Indian Government
after independence in 1947.
However, what
is a blessing can also be a bane — pride extracts its price.
Ali Mirza echoes the sentiments of many when he says,
"Being descendants of kings, we cannot beg, We are
silently facing starvation." Nawab Jafar Mir Abdullah,
now an antique dealer, admits that the wasiqua is a
curse. Agar yeh wasiqua na hota to shayad unke andar kuchh
karne ki justujoo hoti (if not for the wasiqua,
they might have learnt to do something)," he says in
elegant Urdu of the families who live in penury but refuse to
work.
Syed Kalbe
Hussan, or Kabban Nawab as he is more popularly known, says
that the nawabs, themselves highly educated, did not prepare
their children for the drastic change in India’s history.
This is a big
psychological burden. The wasiqua-holders are
sentimental and become upset at things they consider insults:
being ignored at public events, not being invited to
independence day and Republic Day functions and, worst of all,
being called paupers.
But there’s
little they try to do about it, except perhaps look at history’s
maze and wonder if there is a way out.
* * *
A Nair in
Calcutta
by Soutik
Biswas in Calcutta
AN
overcrowded metropolis of 10 million people with 125-year-old
drainage and water supply systems which routinely overflow,
burst and malfunction. Large parts of the city look derelict.
A city which was famously described as "dying" by a
former Prime Minister of India — leading to much
self-righteous protest from its citizens — and is better
known in India and the world as a template of poverty, sloth
and urban ruin.
Calcutta, is
a place many love to hate. For Parameswaran Thankappan Nair,
it is just the opposite. A three decade-old-affair with
Calcutta shows no signs of souring. He has translated his
infatuation into more than 10 years of painstaking research
and 27 authoritative books on the city.
For last
decade he has been doing the dirty work which no Bengali
wanted to do: compiling information and publishing books on
the city’s streets, its fourth estate, life between the 17th
and 19th century — the period of genesis and growth — its
hotels and bars, nomenclature and the municipality. Nair’s
current opus is a multi-volume work on the 200 year-old
Asiatic Society. Sifting through hundreds of pages of
dog-eared archival material through the day and typing and
editing the text through the night, he expects to complete the
first volume in just six months.
This is his
most ambitious exercise since he completed "A History of
Calcutta Streets", an exhaustive 1,000-page work on the
etymology and the history of at least a thousand of the
3,000-odd streets of the city. For nearly two decades, Nair,
now over 60, actually trudged through all these streets on
foot, talking to residents and unearthing the streets’
histories.
For this
unobtrusive chronicler of Calcutta, it all began in the early
fifties when he had to jettison plans for higher studies after
his father’s grocery store started running up losses. He
travelled without a ticket on a train to Calcutta from
Manjapra village in Kerala. Lessons in typewriting helped him
eke out a living as a stenographer in half-a-dozen firms in
Calcutta. His princely earnings jumped from Rs 125 a month to
Rs 300 in 1957 when he joined the Archaeological Survey of
India and was posted to Shillong.
He returned
to Calcutta in 1965 as a "rehash journalist, rewriting
stuff" for a little-known journal called Engineering
Times. He quit this job in 1981 because he wanted to
concentrate on his first love. "Calcutta was then
beckoning me like never before," recalls Nair. "She
had given me shelter and sustenance. I had to return the
favour."
The stodgy Calcutta
establishment has steadfastly refused to acknowledge his
efforts. Armchair intellectuals and academics have derided him
as little more than a rag-picker. While critics and academics
deliberate endlessly — often pointlessly — on whether Nair
should be described as an historian or a chronicler, the man
himself has no lofty pretensions. "I have just plugged
some gaps that existed in Calcutta’s history," he says.
The effort hasn’t gone entirely unnoticed, although it is
still grudging. Dr Nitish Ranjan Roy, director of the
Calcutta-based Institute of Historical Studies, says Nair’s
major contribution has been his "bringing together all
available archival material on Calcutta written in various
languages".
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