The Last Mughal and the Last Sahib

THis is my review of THE LAST MUGHAL by William Dalrymple for a portal.
Short background about the author
William Dalrymple understands India, Indian history and his readers inascending order. That is what makes him a very good writer and a reasonably sound historian writing on South Asia. The fact that his writing is not determined by academic exigencies such as the pressures of a thesis, the load of a prejudice or the hassles of artificial deadlines allows him the supreme freedom of choosing a topic and going all out to collect sources. And the fact that he deliberately writes for a larger audience than the incestuous circle of South Asian historians, allows him to present history in a form that is at once not intimidating to the layman and very challenging to the more professional practitioner of the craft.
"The Last Mughal"
It is a biography of the last Mughal Emperor (that is the romantic side of Dalrymple) but it is firmly rooted in the social, political and cultural changes of the times (that is the historian and the story teller in Dalrymple). It is a voluminous book, but its essence both as a literary and a history treatise can be captured a few short paragraphs:1. It fills up a major lacuna in the historiography of India in the sense that it supplements the works of Erick Stokes (for NorthwesternProvinces, modern UP) and Rudrangshu Mukherjee (Awadh) among others, who have undertaken in depth regional studies to bring to light the complexitiesof the Uprising of 1857. Before "The Last Mughal" Delhi was, rather, strangely, left out of such in depth treatment.2. For less strange reasons, Bahadur Shah Zafar never enjoyed theattention that his more illustrious forefathers received from Indian historians. Although, in many senses, he presided and lived through over a complex socio-political transformation that few of his predecessors except perhaps Babur did. Dalrymple successfully puts the focus back on this "black sheep" of the family.3. Finally, and this is very important, Dalrymple clearly shows how complicated simple social divisions like class, caste, race, gender and loyalties were before, during and immediately after the mutiny.4. In terms of substance, the book is rich is use of sources, nuanced in its arguments and very textured in the way that arguments and substantiation are knitted together.
From a historian's perspective:
Another new regional study on the events of 1857 - filling up a major void; unearthing of new sources - another big contribution to the historiography. But nothing new in terms of argument. Believe you me, we already knew the broader arguments around race and religion. In fact, Dalrymple's extra leap to connect the Jehadis of 1857 totheir current cousins seems like what it really is - a giant and unnecessary leap.
From a reader's perspective:
That is the way to write history, each character stands out on its own. And although it will not be apparent to an ordinary reader, a trained eye will not miss the hard work that must have gone to flesh out each character with such meticulous detail. And Oh boy! What a style of writing - captivating to say the least. It does read like a best selling thriller.
Lessons for the historian: "
Isn't that the way we should write our history so that more and more people read and understand what really happened and how?"

In the Line of Duty

It is often said in not very loud tones that civil servants in India are neither civil nor servants but uncivil masters. But I had seen a remarkably civil but very effective civil servant albeit a very minor one in the form of a Train Ticket Examiner while commuting in a suburban train in Kolkata. Naihati is a quaint little junction forty kilometres from Sealdah [one of the railway terminals in Kolkata] and the suburban trains usually stop there for a couple of minutes more than the usual start and stop formula in other stations. I was travelling back to my place from Kolkata in a local train and as soon as the train stopped at Naihati a very serious and scholarly looking man in think blackframmed specs and the mandatory black coat boarded the train. There was no doubt that he was upto checking tickets. Little did I know that he was not the usual bribe taking, conniving ticket checker. Nor did I know then that he was not foolish enough to arrest and fine ticketless travellers [ticketless passengers in Kolkata are often violent]. Nonetheless, he carried on his duty in the most unobtrusive but effective way. He placed himself in the middle of the compartment and announced loudly in Bangla "Those who do not have tickets please stand up and allow those with tickets to sit on the seats". Believe you me, there were people who stood up and people who took those vacant seats. By the time I realised what happened, he had moved on to the next compartment. Later I gathered from the murmur around that the man and his style were well known to the regular passengers.
I also gathered that the passengers in this instnace were lucky. For there was another ticket examiner at Naihati who chased ticketless travellers like a mad dog. He was reputed to have jumped the overbridge stairs in order to catch ticketless travellers and broken his limbs a couple of times.
If you think these civil servants were weirdos.... please note that that in the four years that I was in Kolkata and occassionally took local trains to the suburbs, three ticket checkers were pushed out of speeding local trains and two of them had died.
PS: Naihati's claim to fame of course if that it is the birthplace of Bankim Chandra Chatterjee

Murder: A Middle Class Vocation Now

Once upon a time, crimes including murder were committed by criminals whose business it was to commit crimes. These crimes were reported in newspapers as a matter of routine much as terrorist attacks in Jammu and Kashmir are reported now. Then came a time when crimes like murders started to be committed by those connected with the film industry, crime especially murder dope and women related graduated to the third page of newspapers. Then crime came to the front page and prime time when politicians' sons and relatives were allegedly involved in it..... Crimes especially murders especially of young women became headlines. Headline stuff built it's own ecology of experts, retired cops whose own career recods were pretty shoddy commented on those who had not retired, security company chiefs whose primary jobs was to recruit poor biharis, clad them in stinking and dirty uniforms and make them secutiry guards started analysing crimes on TV, media persons used to copying and pasting press releases became crime investigators, even the ordinary citizens not only consumed crime reported in the media but were active as commentators and so called eye witnesses.

Finally, like everything else in this country crime became very middle class.... it was your neighbour or your friends neighbour..... These were neither famous criminals who were adding feathers to their caps, nor famous politicians nor were they famous people connected with movies. These were ordinary middle class people who became famous only because of the crime they committed and lives and families they destroyed including sometimes their own.

The police long used to the justification that if criminals are killing criminals [gangsters killing gangsters; corrupt politicians killing corrupt women; shady film producers being killed by shady music directors!] they have nothing to do but sit and watch, soon forgot about crime detection and investigation. But now that crime has become middle class they are finding it difficult to get back to good old investigtion...... a generation of police has no clue about investigation. It is like my doctor friend who when asked about the functions of the left ventricle in a medical interview told the interviewer "Sir questions related to heart were asked last year so this year I have studied only kidney and can answer questions only about kidney".... If you don't get my drift....... try jumping signal in NOIDA, you will not be able to do it without paying bribe, the policemen are so efficient..... But kill someone, it is likely that you will get scott free.....

Over Rated

Just thought of some of the people and things that are overated in India tody:
People:
Manmohan Singh's honesty
L K Advni's flexibility
Lalu Prasad's Intelligence
Sachin Tendulkar's batting capabilities
Shah Rukh Khan's Chrisma
Amitabh Bachchan's crimes
Salman Rushdie and V S Naipaul's writings
Vijay Mallay's business sense
Objects:
Handicrafts
Nike and RBK shoes
Value of advertisements
Contirnbution of technology
Capability of government
Global warming
Knowledge economy
Please feel free to add your own and enrich my list.