Part 2 in an ongoing series. Last week we talked about Chapter 2 of Ramachandra Guha’s India After Gandhi.
This week’s topic is Chapter 3, which deals with the accession of the Princely States. Next week is Chapter 4, on the turmoil surrounding Kashmir in 1947-8
When they think about 1947, most people naturally think about the tragedy of Partition, which left millions of people dead and displaced. Partition resulted in the creation of two states, but what is left out of this story is an alternative history where instead of two new nations, independence might have seen the formation of three, or five, or five hundred independent nations.
For there were more than five hundred Princely States in existence in 1947. Each of these had its own ruler and court, and many had the trappings of fully independent states (such as railroads, currency, and stamps). All the same, they had to pay significant taxes to the British crown, and none were allowed to maintain their own armies. The Princely States were also, one might add, the most backward in India when it came to the situation of ordinary people. While British India had begun to build schools and universities, and develop the foundations of democratic governance (i.e., property owners could vote), the various Maharajahs were perfectly comfortable keeping their subjects in total, feudal subjection.
Very quickly, between the fall of 1946 and the summer of 1947, the vast majority of Princely States signed “Instruments of Accession,” whereby they agreed to hand over their sovereignty to India. The chief architects of this development were Vallabhbhai Patel and his agent, V.P. Menon. While Patel and Mountbatten did much of the formal negotiation from Delhi, it was Menon who went to hundreds of different Maharajahs all over India, and worked out agreements. According to Guha, because of his indefatigability and his remarkable competence, Menon is one of the unsung heroes of this story.
After Kashmir (which we’ll talk about next week), the state that gave the most difficulty in agreeing to Accession was Hyderabad, which was governed by a Muslim Nizam, but with a Hindu majority. At 80,000 square miles, Hyderabad was a huge state, bigger geographically than Great Britain. The Nizam of Hyderabad was one of the wealthiest men in the world, and it’s not hard to see why he resisted turning over his position of power and eminence to what would surely be a diminished role in a united India. Faced with the request that he integrate Hyderabad with India, he preferred independence, but at various points he suggested he might throw in his lot with Pakistan.
There were pro-Congress/Democracy groups in the state under the Nizam, as well as a significant Communist movement. But the most important group was the Nizam’s own Ittihad-ul-Muslimeen, a kind of proto-Islamist movement, led by a radical (fanatic?) named Kasim Razvi (sometimes spelled Qasim Razvi). With the Nizam’s support Kasim Razvi organized thousands of armed “Razakars” to protect the Nizam’s interests and harrass his opponents.
This Kasim Razvi turns out to be quite an interesting character. Guha describes him as follows:
In April 1948, a correspondent of The Times of London visited Hyderabad. He interviewd Kasim Razvi and found him to be a ‘fanatical demagogue with great gifts of organization. As a ‘rabble-rouser’ he is formidable, and even in a tete-a-tete he is compelling.’ Razvi saw himself as a prospective leader of a Muslim state, a sort of Jinnah for the Hyderabadis, albeit a more militant one. He had a portrait of the Pakistani leader prominently displayed in his room. Razvi told an Indian journalist that he greatly admired Jinnah, adding that ‘whenever I am in doubt I go to him for counsel which he never grudges giving me.’
Pictures of Razvi show him with a luxuriant beard. He looked ‘rather like an oriental Mephistopheles.’ His most striking feature was his flashing eyes, ‘from which the fire of fanaticism exudes.’ He had contempt for the Congress, saying, ‘we do not want Brahmin or Bania rule here.’ Asked which side the Razakars would take if Pakistan and India clashed, Razvi answered that Pakistan could take care of itself, but added: ‘Wherever Muslim interests are affected, our interest and sympathy will go out. This applies of course to Palestine as well. Even if Muslim interests are affected in hell, our heart will go out in sympathy.’ (68-69)
I quote this passage about Kasim Razvi because I think it hints at how much worse things could have gone in Hyderabad. By 1948, Razvi’s Razakars were known to be harrassing Hindus in some of Hyderabad’s larger cities (Aurangabad, Bidar, and the city of Hyderabad); some Hindus were beginning to flee to surrounding regions, causing refugee problems in neighboring Madras. There were also rumors that arms were being smuggled into Hyderabad from Pakistan as well as eastern Europe, which was just recovering from the mother of all wars. While the Nizam resisted acceding to India out of self-interest, Kasim Razvi and his Razakars were resisting out of ideology, and they had the numbers — and would eventually have the arms — to pose a threat to a new Indian government with lots of other problems to deal with.
After Mountbatten’s departure in June 1948, the Indian union’s patience with Hyderabad ran out, and in September 1948, a military force moved in. Within a few days the Razakars were out of business, and the Nizam publicly agreed to accede to India.
Today, I think, few people could seriously imagine a different outcome. But if the Indian government had been less focused on its objective, or if it had decided that military force wasn’t necessary, or even if it had delayed further in using force, I think it’s a distinct possibility that Hyderabad might have remained free for at least a few years longer, and the story of accession could have been much bloodier. As to whether Hyderabad could have remained independent forever, it seems like a rather remote possibility — though it is interesting to contemplate.
65 – Anthroguy – Firstly, you gotta view Nehru’s action without the benefit of 20-20 vision from the current age. He tried to generate good relations with what he saw as one emerging power – China, and signed up with the camp that looked pretty solid at that point. Same with Socialism as well. What he did was equivalent of a new country now aligning itself with US, while following a capitalistic system. 40 years later, the next intellectuals might just be talking about the death of capitalism. And of course, I am not denying that Nehru was in love with the romanticism of socialism.
68 – Naya Daur – As a Kashmiri you might enjoy a detailed study on the dynamics of Kashmir accession in Sandeep Bamzai’s book – The bonfire of Kashmiriyat. I certainly did. It talks about the same things as here, but much more in detail.
:D. Well, every few months, you get an article in Outlook or India Today, where some Indian journo goes to Pakistan, and is talked to nicely by the taxiwala. Or maybe some dhabawala refuses to charge him for the food. And then there are two columns about how India and Pakistan are the same people, separated by an accidental border. Well, I think the border is there because the Pakistanis want it. And to suggest that is shouldn’t exist, whether out of too much hatred or out of too much love, is essentially the same thing.
Also, while I think there is a cultural continuity between the Punjabs on both sides of the border, I think it is a lot less with the rest of India. Also, Pakistanis are generally a lot less enthusiastic about the darker Indians. They like their Indians fair 😉 .
100 Pravin
–> If Nehru overstayed his welcome, what were the other congress leaders doing ? Last I checked, he was elected with comfortable majorities by the population at that time. If he had stepped down in 1960, he would still be blamed for 1965 food shortages, aiming for commanding heights and neglecting villages. Damned if he did, damned if he didnt….
102 sakshi
–> To me, it is interesting that Rajaji came up with a plan to avoid partition early on. After all, being a southie, he might have thought the resolution might be much simpler than it actually was, with none of this shared cultural continuity baggage. Whether it would have worked is a whole another matter. As for the colour preference, I thought Indians preferred indians fair too ? Maybe there is something of a cultural continuity there between indians and pakistanis, not enough to argue for a common ABSAF. 🙂
Tell that to Balaji. I heard he was one of the more popular Indian cricketers in Pakistan during a tour a few years ago. I mean the guy was one of the darkest Indians to play cricket.
There was a much stronger Islamic (or what might now be called Pakistani) culture on India as a whole before Partition. For one, there were a lot more affluent muslims around. Also places like Delhi and Lucknow were centres of Indo-Islamic culture. A lot of that influence still survives in the Indian movie industry(song lyrics, etc), but things have changed drastically overall.
Actually I was surprised by that, or maybe I am just biased by the conversations/experiences I have had.
Ok, just a brief response, and I know you’re (half)joking, but come on. I can agree to drawing a clear cultural divide between regions east and west of the westernmost tributary of the Indus, because the regions west are mountainous and the regions east are plains, more easily traversible for trade and cultural exchange, and therefore more like each other. Even that is not exact, because we know, for example, that Buddhism went into those regions. But thinking that the Wagah border represents some kind of cultural divide between India as a ‘whole’ and Pakistan is crazy.
Of course the Punjabs on both sides are culturally closer than either is to other parts of India. But (W.)Bengal is closer to Bangladesh, Sindh is closer to Gujarat, Andhra is closer to Tamil Nadu, and Bihar is closer to East Uttar Pradesh and Jharkhand. So this only underlines that, among the various things that were wrong with the logic of Partition, one was that such ‘natural sub-nations’ within ‘India’ did not get any recognition whatsoever.
More generally, the plains of the Indus valley have been more central to India’s civilizational, cultural and geographical identity, than Aksai Chin and even Arunachal Pradesh. As Kush mentioned in another thread, in some ways Lahore is more crucially a part of India than is Kashmir.
And lots and lots and lots of Pakistanis are dark-skinned, though many of them are also quite fair skinned. That is just BTW.
chachaji(#106): you have v valid points, and as you said, I was not totally serious with that remark.
Yes, but that is how things developed after partition. However that line was drawn, it is still v real. India and Pakistan have developed separately since 1947. I am not against revisiting partition, nor am I against the idea of a federation, but ultimately, I think it is Pakistan’s call. They are trying to define their own national identity, and I am totally against India pretending to know what is best for them. Even worse, it pisses them off.
At the same time, India has created some sort of pan-Indian cultural identity over the past 50 years, and, as Amitabh has noted a couple of times, there are lots of people that subscribes more strongly to that identity than a regional identity.
106 chachaji
–> Maybe before partition, there wasnt a cultural divide(which I dont think is the case, given the disparateness of cultural practices between neighbouring states in present day India). After partition, however, the reality of India and Pakistan pretty much encouraged two different sets of cultural practices. They are similar in some ways and dissimilar in others. Wagah was a political border when it was drawn and its presence has resulted in cultural differences. Why is that crazy ?
–> Maybe there was something to DK members celebrating indian independence as a black day in 1947, then ? Even though, as member of pandiya naadu(a ‘natural’ sub nation if ever there was one) of mahabharata fame, I will carry refusal by Dravida Naadu of DK to United Nations. And just in case my proposal gets shot down, I plan to petition on behalf of chera naadu too given the cultural ties that bind my parents to that kingdom.
–> That they are central to India’s civilizational, cultural and geographical identity doesnt mean we go ahead and erase the fact of partition that happened. Cherish it even if it is in Pakistan(like Lahore is) and maybe regulate the border traffic(and make some money on both sides while at it). But why the desire to see the entire region under an unwieldy, flawed, ungovernable federation(called ABSAF) ?
I would agree with what sakshi in #102 said.
Cool. Then we agree with each other. I will write a longer response later, but I’ve always said that my idea is not about ‘revisiting’ or undoing Partition. See #81 for example.
But – just so you know, there are people in Pakistan who are also quite dissatisfied with the status quo, and among other things, want to consider alternatives. Anyway – more later. Thanks.
nice idea.. See if you can somehow bring the acronym to ABSURD instead of ABSAF. that’d be apt.
“Also, Pakistanis are generally a lot less enthusiastic about the darker Indians. They like their Indians fair ;)”
in the decade i have been in america, the biggest difference i have noticed between american born and indian born desis is that, the latter never seem to discuss skin color and the former seem to be obsessed with it. maybe growing up in a society where white is the majority has something to do with it. and, amongst abds, those from the south had made a science out of it. really. in one of the previous posts, one person remarked that, rahul gandhi was made the genreal secy. of the congress party only because he was light skinned.
While, the color of your skin [only females, of course] does play a role in india, pakistan and bangladesh, it is restricted to the romantic sphere, television, modeling and movies. color is utterly is irrelevant in other aspects of life like, employment, education, politics, sports etc.
I am a very light skinned, red head Kashmiri pandit man, and lived the first 25 years of my life in india, where mine or my family’s skin color was never a topic of discussion like it is here, in the united states, when i am around abds, and non-indians who remark, “you don’t look indian”.
ps – pakistan, proportionately has a similar number of light skinned and dark skinned people. it is just that, the lighter skins tend to hail from punjab, who tend to be the elite, thus more visible….on tv and london and new york.
Are you kidding me? From my experience, discussion of color is more common among DBDs.
I do not exactly understand if you mean TV in India or TV in the west. If it’s TV in the West, you are dead wrong as darker Indians tend to make it as a proportion of all Indian celebs in Western media compared to Bollywood.
Pravin – “Are you kidding me? From my experience, discussion of color is more common among DBDs.”
not from what i have observed. take a look at this blog, where any skin color issue is 200 – 300 comment post, in stark contrast to indian blogs, where color issues are rarely discussed.
yes, i do mean television and movies in india.
I am a very light skinned, red head Kashmiri pandit man, and lived the first 25 years of my life in india,
I bow before your whiteness.
Chutiya – You may stand up..
chachaji:
🙂 .
naya daur:
I regret bringing up skin color. All I meant to say was that Punjabis from Pakistan are far more comfortable with Indians who look like them.
That is true.
i eagerly await my opportunity to serve you when you establish the fourth reich.
This is true for any group of people from anywhere. People are always more comfortable with other people who look like them.
But that said, Punjabis from Pakistan (80 million +) span a great range of skin colors, face shapes, physiques, physiognomies, heights, and weights. Of course the average Pakistani Punjabi would resemble someone from Indian Punjab the most. And more generally, people from either side of the border look most like people directly on the other side.
But they also look a lot like people from elsewhere in the subcontinent, including the South. It does depend on your sample, so don’t go only by who you see on TV or the movies to draw conclusions from.
chachaji(#118), I made that remark based on repeated interactions with a Pakistani guy, who said all kinds of things about South Indians, which I will not write here. For some reason he thought I didn’t mind. Don’t ask me why I kept up my interaction with him: perhaps my morbid curiosity.
But I shouldn’t have generalized from one example. But every now and then you hear Scythian bs on this site.
I guess I have already over-commented on this thread, but one last comment. I did not mean to single out Punjabis. All people are more comfortable with people who look like them, and every community has its supremacists. I’d be v naive if I said all communities in India get along famously with each other. Regional identities are of course v important: that is perhaps the greatest lesson India has learnt in the past 60 years.
My point was, even if Pakistan wants to federate, or have a closer interaction, with India sometime in the future, they would need to get used to the messiness of the Indian polity, where one has to constantly deal with communities or people that appear to have nothing in common with you on the surface.
OK, another brief comment.
First of all, I thought you said that Indians shouldn’t be telling Pakistanis how, or even whether to federate. I agree. So in my idea, there are certainly no pre-conditions for how Pakistans should (or should not) come in, and how they should or should not have to deal with others ‘whom they would have superficially very little in common’.
I’ve always talked about a loose ‘de facto’ federation, even as a long term goal – so just free movement across the border and a joint sovereignty over Kashmir achieves that in the first stage. Nothing is touched with respect to systems of local and national governance, initially.
One of the first things to realize is that ‘federation’ is about recognizing regional identities and ‘sub-nationalities’. As opposed to a ‘unitary’ system where those have to be swallowed and subsumed. So it is the last thing from requiring that Pakistan ‘join’ India. No indeed. And the second thing is not imposing the same Westminster-style parliament and first past the post electoral system at all levels. For example, France, Germany and the UK have different systems, both of government and of elections, but they’re all in the EU. There’s no reason why we can’t also have a diversity of national and subnational governance and electoral systems in South Asia. Just as Germans may not ‘like’ dealing with the Portuguese (just an example, I don’t know if that’s true) but Germany and Portugal are both in the EU. So Punjabis and Keralites (for example) each locally sovereign sub-nationalities, could both be part of the South Asian Federation.
That’s the brief response. As always, thanks Amardeep!
chachaji, I am sorry I did not realize you wanted to break India into thousands of tinpot little countries. I am willing to go with a federation between India and Pakistan, but this does not interest me at all. I think India provides adequate space for people to express their regional identities. I am sure you would have noticed in your visits to India that most Indians are quite okay with the current structure, and I don’t see why we should try to fix something that doesn’t seem v broken in the first place.
If India wants to move towards a more federal structure, it can do so within the Indian constitution. It is already happening: regional parties have been gaining prominence over the past decade or so. I can’t believe that after seeing the effects of one partition, you are advocating fifty more.
Damn, the gloves come off. Add sakshi vs. chachaji to the legion of legendary rivalries that number among them:
bourne vs. watabe hmf vs. manju hmf vs. world brown vs. board ali vs. frazier holmes vs. moriarty superman vs. lex luthor jets vs. sharks
who will prevail? who will be decimated? and will we all be reduced to dust in this cosmic conflagration?
Let me make this more concrete. My only friends from college I am still in touch with include two Tamilians, two from AP, two Bongs, one Kashmiri(Sikh), one Punjabi, and one Ismaili dude from Mumbai. My girlfriend is again from AP. What does that make in all, five nations in my immediate friend circle? I think you need to get a better sense of how much India has moved on.
sakshi, I’ll ignore your comment #122, but your comment #123 is right on, though again I’ll let the rhetorical excess pass.
I may need to get a better sense of ‘how India has moved on’, but I emphasize again that my idea deals with the future, and is based on an extrapolation of current and anticipated national and global trends, including the one you wisely bring up in #123, not the past. (Though a critical understanding of what happened before, during and after Partition does help…)
Please do consider reading my #81 and #121 again, when you have a calm moment.
dravidian lurker, thanks for the comic relief 🙂
I think I really should bow out of this thread now. Thanks for your forebearance, Amardeep!
:D. Ya, I got overexcited. I still don’t see your point, but I’ll reread #81 and #121. Peace then.
This could be illuminating.. experience of an outlook journalist watching the India-Pak final in a lounge bar in Delhi.
Re 84:
Er, source? I’m not saying Bangladesh is an ideal of communal harmony, but we haven’t seen anything like the Gujarat riots. And given that I don’t subscribe to any particular faith, and eventually plan on retiring back there again, that is something I tend to keep an eye on.
As for the census, they are taken every ten years in Bangladesh — given that the last three were in 1981, 1991, and 2001, we don’t really expect another until 2011. As for your comment about not being able to take the census asking for the religion, might I direct your attention to item 39 on page 5 of the census summary?
Look, I’ve got nothing against jingoism-inspired xenophobia, surprising though it is in a forum geared towards the South Asian diaspora, but you might at least make the effort to base your propaganda on some actual facts.
After the match, during the presentation ceremony, there were loud shouts of choicest Punjabi and Hindi gaalis as each of the despondent Pakistan players came to receive their medallions. As Shahid Afridi came on the screen, someone shouted, “Bend over man”.
I’m not surprised by this at all – and I’m sure its just the same in Pakistan. Obviously there should be cordial relations between people; and obviously there should eventually be trade, but it completely blows my mind that Indians (well, I think Indians,) would be so eager to unite once again with Pakistan. Why not focus some of this passion uplifting some of your own, like the 150 million Dalits who still face marginalization–rather than worrying about “reuiniting”!
shaad, i ask this not to create a flame war but because i don’t know: the hindu right talks about the mass genocide and displacement of hindus in east pakistan/bangladesh (i have heard numbers of like 100,000 hindus killed or displaced) in 1971, but i have been unable to come across descriptions of these events from sources that seem unbiased, i was wondering whether you (or other people on this board) are aware of more information or details. thanks.
Shaad:
I’m really surprised that you din’t see the first two lines and just focussed on the last sentence. Let me quote that in full
I’ve also bolded the words just in case you missed. I was talking about Nigeria where the colonists left without any kind of a partition like what happened in India. They closely resemble the situation India was in prior to 1947. It was not about Bangladesh.
http://news.speeple.com/jihadwatch.org/2007/10/05/nigeria-nine-christians-murdered-over-cartoon-drawn-by-a-muslim-in-bangladesh.htm
Look, I’ve got nothing against naivete-inspired bombastic statements, but you might at least make the effort to base your statement on “actual reading of the comments”. I was really amused.. 🙂
Re 131 & 132:
Mea culpa. Apologies, Ponniyin Selvan.
Re 121:
chachaji, I’d say SAARC is a small step towards a loose South Asian federation along the lines of the EU. That said, I would suggest that such a federation is still a long way off. Besides the religious/nationalist vehemence exhibited by some of us (even on this thread, for example), part of the problem is often the different stances taken by our different political parties. A BJP-governed India, for instance, does not inspire as much confidence as a partner in such an enterprise among her neighbours as say, a Congress-led India does. In the case of Bangladesh, an Awami League-led government would be more friendly towards India (too friendly, according to some) than say, the more China-inclined BNP.
Now, if you could convince the populace of our respective nations that such a federation would result in an improvement in the living standards/quality of life (one of the selling points of the EU), we might actually see some movement in this direction. But our populace, and not without reason, are a cynical lot.
By the way, do you really envision subnational units of India individually being part of such a federation? I must say I find that hard to imagine.
No problem Shaad, I’ve committed similar mistakes in the past.. it’s part of the learning process..
i like the hope in chachaji’s south asia federations, so i never comment on that much.
but my 2c here, since i think it has gone on too long. the gap b/w india and pakistan is not comparable with the two germany’s, it is more like turkey and armenia. the gap is the product of what hasn’t been bridged for a millenium now, between the muslim/foreign ruling class, its sympathizers and the others. note that i emphasize “ruling class”—the fallout being pakistan by and large is a middle-east wannabe.
one must realize that while there is a lot of cooperation and mutual respect between hindus and muslims, but whatever there is of it is specific to india alone. no matter what anyone says, it doesn’t exist either in pakistan or bangladesh today. pakistan, in particular, is a deliberate statement that rejects that cooperation.
unless “south asians” recognize that, you will not be living in reality. now please don’t quote me one or two in pakistan who are with you. they are the exceptions rather than the rule—you know that as well as i do. don’t quote me akbar and say “there were those in the muslim ruling class who were so and so”. the idea of pakistan identifies with babur and ghauri, not with akbar. if you must hope, hope for commonality with bangladesh some day, but it isn’t going to happen with pakistan.
The treatment of Hindus in Bangladesh is documented by the press there by newspapers like the daily star. A Gujarat like event has not happened there in the recent past, but from the likes of the Daily Star articles there is institutional discrimination of Hindus there where crimes such as rape, theft of personal property and land are not registered by the police. I wouldnt really expect these people to be helped by anyone. There isn’t a international voice for Hindus and the Awami leage will always be able to take the Hindu vote(as long as it exists) for granted. The fact that the Hindu population is shrinking is shocking enough. The Hindu American Foundation does a good job of documenting what is happening to Hindus in Bangladesh.
Re 130:
dravidian lurker, mass genocide did occur during the 1971 war (according to Western sources such as the NYT, Newsweek, or National Geographic, between 0.2 to 3 million Bengalis were killed). I am afraid this was a case of Bengali civilians, regardless of whether they were Muslim or Hindu, being slaughtered indiscriminately by the Pakistani army (the troops were told that Bengali Muslims weren’t “good” Muslims anyway). I know very few people of my age or older (i.e. alive during the war) who didn’t lose some family members or relatives to the Pakistani troops.
Academics, in particular, came in for the harshest treatment. The Pakistani troops would raid university campuses, line up the faculty members and their families against a wall, and simply machine-gun them to death. They would also try to find faculty members who were in hiding outside the university; my parents (faculty at Chittagong University) barely escaped by the skin of their teeth a couple of times.
And, not surprisingly, rape was used as instrument of intimidation and terror, particularly in the countryside. The notion was that that way they (the Bengalis) would have good Muslim (read Pakistani-fathered) children.
The only specific Hindu-targeting by the Pakistani army that I know of was the incident at a Hindu-majority dormitory (I believe it was Surjatarun Hall, but I may be mistaken about the name); the troops set fire to the dorm, and shot anyone trying to come out through the entrance. Of course, they also went into the nearby Muslim-majority women’s dorm Rokeya Hall and raped all the residents there, so I dare say they were equal-opportunity monsters.
But was there a mass exodus of Hindus during 1971? I believe so. About 11 million refugees, both Hindu and Muslim, crossed the border into West Bengal during the war. 9.27 million returned by 1972, but 1.5 million remained (numbers are from an unofficial source cited in The Hindu). Many of those who remained were Hindus who joined the post-Partition refugees from 1947.
shaad, thank you for the detailed and excellent response. i found it very educational, and now feel i can at least respond with a modicum of knowledge to all the people who always throw the hindu genocide in east pakistan card in response to godhra (because somehow that makes it ok?).
I never had a high opinion of Kissinger. He always struck me as a self serving slimy bastard. At least Nixon was just a paranoid bitter man who grew very hateful later in life. But you could tell Nixon at least cared about something. But Kissinger’s behavior during the Bangladesh conflict exposed this guy for the true cretin he is.
Kissinger showed open disregard for the genocide or mass slaughters going on in Bangladesh. Even the State Department was outraged by Kissinger’s conduct. It was not mere realpoliticking by Kissinger. In private, he is never shown to be sad about the murders going on in Bangladesh. And it was not just a case of him going along with the rest of the establishment. The Congress, State Department(including the Ambassadors in the region) were horrified by the brutalities going on. Kissinger not only ignored it, but he was mad at these people for voicing their opinion, even in private correspondence.
kissinger and nixon were both amoral sociopaths who should both have been hauled before the international court if there was truly any justice in this world. i guess nixon at least had paranoia, delusion, and alcoholism as an excuse.
Yep, Nixon had the China thing blinding him to the atrocities in the area. I am not letting Nixon off the hook either. One might say kissinger was just as invested in the China thing, but reading excerpts of all the stuff kept under wraps for 3 decades, Kissinger never seems to express any human rights concerns. The guy was truly detached. He only cared about himself. It took Nixon many decades of bitterness to reach that stage. Kissinger was a natural at it.
Re 140-142:
But why blame Kissinger or Nixon in particular? We might not like or approve of the decisions taken, but aren’t those decisions forced on anyone whose foreign policy is based on realpolitik? Take, for instance, Madeleine Albright’s response when Lesley Stahl asked her the following question on 60 Minutes about U.S. sanctions against Iraq: “We have heard that a half million children have died. I mean, that’s more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it?”
Albright’s answer: “I think this is a very hard choice, but the price–we think the price is worth it.”
101 · Paranoid Androidou
Given that you know of Rajaji’s actions and views, you probably are cutting Nehru so much slack. (for those who may not get the context, Rajaji had opposed Nehru’s Tibet Policy, the closed market finance policy, the way the congress was run, and and host of other issues where Nehru turned out to be disasterously wrong)
Rajaji was always blunt and was usually right — this made most of the people who had opposing views look stupid. This made him unpopular. As long as he was alive, this unpopularity more than evened out by a high regard for his itellect and for his strong moral values — the party he established quickly became the 2nd largest party in India. After he died though, there was noone to defend his legacy, while those who hated him had no more retraints. As a kid I personally found out how much an ideologue could hate him, when an innocuous statement on Rajaji’s Mahabharata, brought forth a tirade from my usually jovial Madrasi teacher. As I learnt more about him, I found that Bengalis could not forgive him for his “leaky boat” comment, communists were angry at his views against the Hindu-China Bhai, Congressmen were angry because he tried to first reform and then opposed the congress becuse he felt that it was becoming corrupt, Telugus disliked him due to his opposition to the liguistic states policy, the DK and its heirs disliked the fact he was a brahmin.
99 Krishnan
Rajmohan Gandhi wrote a biography on him: “Rajaji:A life”. Surprisingly he does not gloss over Rajaji’s failings (Rajmohan Gandhi is the grandson of both Rajaji and M.K. Gandhi and a highly regarded social activist in his own right). The book was available at Wheelers for the short time.
Krishnan — Could you suggest some books on lesser known figures — especially those who built up industries such as V.O.Chidambaram. (I love the movie and Shivaji’s portrayal of him, but cannot find a book in English)
Well.. “Indians” are more than a billion people and you have all shades of opinions. But I think this absurd idea of a union / federation is limited to a few “extreme right” and the “extreme loony left”. I’d also had lashkar-e-toiba to the list. 🙂 Though all the above have different ideas on how that union is going to be.
I think the ‘Indians’ (as defined by the current boundaries) are generally fine with the arrangment now. For example, Karunanidhi who would have observed 15, Aug 1947 as a day of mourning, is perfectly fine hoisting the Indian flag on Aug 15, 2007 and taking oath under the Indian constitution.
I actually addressed that point in the comments you refer to. The difference with Albright is she really regretted what was going on in Somalia. The Clintons did not do a good job of achieving what their sentiment should have led them to.
In the case of Kissinger, private conversations reveal that he really felt no sadness on the fate of all the Bangladeshis getting killed. There is absolutely not a single conversation where he goes “damn, I wish we could do something, I agree with the State department, but we got this China thing to take care of, first. So we can’t piss off Pakistan too much.” He actually did not have to move warships in the area. He could have just given Pakistan verbal support and do nothing concrete. If Kissinger did not face a lot of opposition from most American officials not connected with the White House, I wonder if he would have gone too far in helping the Pakistan army. The guy really did not give a shit. It is one thing to say something publicly, but for him to dismiss all the suffering even privately is the sign of a very self centered man. I actually did not find anything redeeming about Nixon with respect to this issue. But Nixon has gone through many phases in his life, I would have to study the man more before I put out a definitive statement on what he privately felt about the suffering in Bangladesh.
138 Shaad
–> The national security archives at george washington university gives some details on it. I am sure most of you would have read it earlier. Reporting by US consulate in Dhaka More reports on selective targeting
140 Pravin
–> Was this the one you were talking about ?
144 DizzyDesi
–> Sadly, no. I have come across good books on national leaders but not on local leaders. I would love to read up on VOC and how he went about building that ship. Looking at sivaji’s portrayal, I would have to disagree. I appreciate him for keeping the story of VOC/Kattabomman alive but I would love to see a story that shows a normal VOC/Subramaniya Siva/Kattabomman/Bharathi.(I am reading History of Tinnevelly by Bishop Caldwell currently and just found out most of the script for Veerapandiya Kattabomman movie is from that book with Kattabomman airbrushed as saviour of tamils. Caldwell treats him like a simple highway robber. Also found out that British burned Panjalankurichi down and covered it with oil to prevent any further use of the land after Kattabomman’s defeat. I dont know if the movie covers that. Even Gnanarajasekaran’s Bharathi fell short of treating Bharathi better. Sayaji Shinde was way better than even sivaji but I wish they could show them for the normal human beings(performing decent and praiseworthy feats) they were).
I apologize for the diversion.
Krishnan, it seems like one of the documents I have looked at.
Thanks Krishnan. (I’ll be checking to see if NYPL is worth the funding it gets over the weekend :-))