Originally appeared in the Jan-Feb 2011 edition of Muse India (Issue no.35)
Source: http://www.museindia.com/viewarticle.asp?myr=2011&issid=35&id=2442
Book Review
Alex Von Tunzelmann
Indian Summer : The Secret History of the End of an Empire
UK: Simon & Schuster. 2008.
Pages: 480. Flipkart price: Rs. 404.
Alternative to overly academic historiographies
Most Indians of my generation were taught to believe that Independence was the culmination of decades of non-violent struggle and that partition a necessary evil. Gandhi went on endless bhook-hartals, people turned the proverbial other cheek to lathi charges until finally, to compress 200 years of history in a nutshell, the mighty British Empire caved in and bowed out of India. Leave all that heavy history behind for a moment. And, turn to the Indian Summer.
In "Indian Summer : The Secret History of the End of an Empire," Alex Von Tunzelmann charts the road to independence as a dramatic soap opera of sorts with five lead characters. The end product, Independence, then becomes much less a carefully arranged crescendo that led to the independence of our popular imaginations than a hastily put together mish-mash, a truncated soap, a drama whose denouement came a bit too soon. What emerges in the Indian Summer is a study of five main characters ...
Mountbatten: quirky, egotistic, generous, vain, charming. Tunzelmann's portraiture ofMountbatten borders at times on caricature. The author describes in great detail his penchant for baubles and bits, and his preoccupation with inanities when more serious matters were at hand.
Lady Mountbatten: smart, daring, philandering, and definitely more capable of being a viceroy than her husband.
Gandhi: immense inner strength, wrangling inner demons (adultery, celibacy). Tunzelmann's portrayal of an almost human Gandhi, a Gandhi with foibles, a mercurial Gandhi, a Gandhi whose pronouncements and stances were at times at odds with his philosophy is at once refreshing and endearing.
Nehru: soulful, self-doubting, visionary; and finally, Jinnah, pragmatist, urbane but also a megalomaniac.
There are enough characters to fill out a modern day pot-boiler- charming albeit vain Englishman, and his dallying wife, her gay writer friend (E.M. Forster), a "native" in loincloth, and a "native" yet urbane gentleman. Presented this way, Tunzelmann's narrative would lend itself well to a ersatz Master Card by-line: 5 characters, 2 countries, a million dead? The question that Indian readers should ask themselves is - are we now sufficiently removed both intellectually and temporally from those years that we can be more critical of the events that transpired and the individuals involved?
Our history textbooks taught us that India had enjoyed great periods of prosperity, wealth, health and happiness- the golden age of the Guptas for instance, or the times of Akbar, the Great. But the idea of a Golden Age is always in the past sense. Reading about the golden ages in the past sense only serves to aggravate, as it serves as a somber reminder of what could have been in contrast to what is. So, it was bitter sweet to read that "in the Beginning, there were two nations. One was a vast, mighty and magnificent empire, brilliantly organized and culturally unified, which dominated a massive swath of the earth. The other was an undeveloped, semifeudal realm, riven by religious factionalism and barely able to feed its illiterate, diseased and stinking masses. The first nation was India. The second was England. The year was 1577". The reader is led to wonder how a people steeped in the dark ages would come to occupy a land which was seemingly more enlightened and culturally sophisticated.
Source: http://www.museindia.com/viewarticle.asp?myr=2011&issid=35&id=2442
Book ReviewAlex Von Tunzelmann
Indian Summer : The Secret History of the End of an Empire
UK: Simon & Schuster. 2008.
Pages: 480. Flipkart price: Rs. 404.
Alternative to overly academic historiographies
Most Indians of my generation were taught to believe that Independence was the culmination of decades of non-violent struggle and that partition a necessary evil. Gandhi went on endless bhook-hartals, people turned the proverbial other cheek to lathi charges until finally, to compress 200 years of history in a nutshell, the mighty British Empire caved in and bowed out of India. Leave all that heavy history behind for a moment. And, turn to the Indian Summer.
In "Indian Summer : The Secret History of the End of an Empire," Alex Von Tunzelmann charts the road to independence as a dramatic soap opera of sorts with five lead characters. The end product, Independence, then becomes much less a carefully arranged crescendo that led to the independence of our popular imaginations than a hastily put together mish-mash, a truncated soap, a drama whose denouement came a bit too soon. What emerges in the Indian Summer is a study of five main characters ...
Mountbatten: quirky, egotistic, generous, vain, charming. Tunzelmann's portraiture ofMountbatten borders at times on caricature. The author describes in great detail his penchant for baubles and bits, and his preoccupation with inanities when more serious matters were at hand.
Lady Mountbatten: smart, daring, philandering, and definitely more capable of being a viceroy than her husband.
Gandhi: immense inner strength, wrangling inner demons (adultery, celibacy). Tunzelmann's portrayal of an almost human Gandhi, a Gandhi with foibles, a mercurial Gandhi, a Gandhi whose pronouncements and stances were at times at odds with his philosophy is at once refreshing and endearing.
Nehru: soulful, self-doubting, visionary; and finally, Jinnah, pragmatist, urbane but also a megalomaniac.
There are enough characters to fill out a modern day pot-boiler- charming albeit vain Englishman, and his dallying wife, her gay writer friend (E.M. Forster), a "native" in loincloth, and a "native" yet urbane gentleman. Presented this way, Tunzelmann's narrative would lend itself well to a ersatz Master Card by-line: 5 characters, 2 countries, a million dead? The question that Indian readers should ask themselves is - are we now sufficiently removed both intellectually and temporally from those years that we can be more critical of the events that transpired and the individuals involved?
Our history textbooks taught us that India had enjoyed great periods of prosperity, wealth, health and happiness- the golden age of the Guptas for instance, or the times of Akbar, the Great. But the idea of a Golden Age is always in the past sense. Reading about the golden ages in the past sense only serves to aggravate, as it serves as a somber reminder of what could have been in contrast to what is. So, it was bitter sweet to read that "in the Beginning, there were two nations. One was a vast, mighty and magnificent empire, brilliantly organized and culturally unified, which dominated a massive swath of the earth. The other was an undeveloped, semifeudal realm, riven by religious factionalism and barely able to feed its illiterate, diseased and stinking masses. The first nation was India. The second was England. The year was 1577". The reader is led to wonder how a people steeped in the dark ages would come to occupy a land which was seemingly more enlightened and culturally sophisticated.
