The Sunday Tribune

Ifs of life and history
M.K. Agarwal

Everybody is familiar with the ‘if only’ syndrome signifying, inter alia, wishfulness, condition, or supposition. How it affects or might have affected human behaviour and history is a very fascinating and provocative study.

The wishful is something like this. “If only I can beat the whimsicality of the examiners, I should pass the examination with high merit...If the chairman of the selection committee were somewhat favourably disposed, my appointment as a lecturer is quite certain...If I come by an appropriate topic of research and ah! a benevolent guide, I could easily win my PhD...If luck smiles on me just one more time, I might win the hand of the Vice Chancellor’s daughter...” Such pipe dreams are best described by the famous adage: “If wishes were horses, we would verily ride them to the devil.”

Let us next hear a bachelor’s wail. “The world would be a much better place to live in if the wedded couples were not so frightfully overbearing and contemptuous in their attitude towards the unmarried people; if they were not to suspect every passerby of secretly ogling at them; if these worthies were not to flaunt their children as some prized possessions; if the tiffs and squabbles in their own life were not to become moments of anxiety for the hapless neighbours; if...” The man has our sympathy, but who can say that he will not come out with another wish list if and when he himself chooses to enter wedlock?

The use of ‘if’, to express a ‘condition’, can be even more interesting. An example would illustrate. Gender equality is much talked of, but truly speaking, in a male-dominated society, the concessions man gives to woman are hedged by many ‘ifs’. This is what Mclntyre says on the subject: “Nobody objects to a woman being a good writer or sculptor or geneticist, if, at the same time, she manages to be a good wife and good mother, besides being good-looking, good-tempered, well-groomed and non-aggressive.” Hard to find is the husband willing to compromise on these expectations. It is seldom realised that with children around it is impossible for a woman to remain supple and svelte, domestic chores don’t leave her always kissable, and a taxing job does take a rather heavy toll of feminine poise and grace. Of what use is freedom, if fettered by ‘ifs’?

‘If” acquires great import and profundity when it implies ‘supposition’, in relation to events of history. Consider this poser of John Keegan: “What if, in the summer of 1941, Hitler had chosen to make his major attack not into Soviet Union but across the Eastern Mediterranean, into Syria and Lebanon? Would he have avoided the defeat he suffered outside Moscow that winter? Might he have not won a strategic position that would have brought him eventual victory?” Or, going back to an earlier period, what if, in 1812, Napoleon had invaded England and not Russia, where the man of destiny had to accept, first defeat, and then abdication? Instead of reaping humiliation, might he have not gone on to win glory and supremacy?

Or, take this page from Indian history, which is a weird tale of infatuation, chivalry, treason, and subjugation. If the comely princess Sanyogta, daughter of Kannauj’s ruler Jai Chand, had not been smitten with Prithvi Raj Chauhan, the last Hindu ruler of Delhi; or, if the latter, at the Swayamvar ceremony held to choose a suitor for the princess, had not forcibly carried her off, thereby infuriating her father, or, if Jai Chand had not taken into his head to avenge the insult by joining hands with the Afghan predator Mohammed Gauri, and so on, would the path for the establishment of Muslim rule in India have been cleared the way it was? Who can answer these eerie ifs’? They shroud the facts of history in a veil of indeterminacy, because everything might have turned out so differently!

Again, contemplate for a moment, the oft-quoted remark of Pascal: “If Cleopatra’s nose had been a little shorter, the whole history of the world would have different.” Really, one wonders! Who, then, was this woman and what was so peculiar and mystifying about her? Cleopatra was the queen of Egypt, who strutted across the turbulent political stage of her time (69 to 30 BC) with imperious charm and dazzling brilliance. According to John Canning, she was a temptress, stunning men as much by her exotic beauty and appearance as by her grace, conversation, manners and movements. It was said of her that kings swooned on entering her presence. The great Caesar found in one woman all he had separately sought in others. After Caesar was gone, it was the turn of mighty Antony to be captivated by her charisma, and seductiveness. Both Caesar and Antony made their life work the gratification of Cleopatra’s desires. The million-dollar question is — would these prodigious generals have remained so utterly enthralled, and acted and fought as they did, if Cleopatra had not been so flawless of beauty and irresistible of charm? It is a most subtle and imponderable ‘if’.

In keeping with the spirit of this article. I would like to conclude on a wishful, speculative note. My forays into human affairs and history would have proved fruitful if they were to bring to the reader a better understanding of the aspirations, passions, follies, misfortunes, and idiosyncrasies of mankind. And prepare him in charting his future clarity and wisely.