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.
What the Indian summer is probably not is a secret history. Any well informed student of Indian history will know about the dalliances between Nehru and Edwina, about Jinnah's unrequited demands, about Gandhi's vacillations, and his idiosyncrasies. But what this book does effectively is to weave it all together tightly into a rich tapestry that makes for a great read. Tunzelmann is a historian no doubt, but an even better storyteller. It is perhaps telling then that a cinematic rendering of Indian Summer orignally slated to star Cate Blanchett as Lady Mountbatten has now been shelved owing to concerns from the Indian government over the plot and financial problems for the production house, which I would argue is a testament to the author's skills at story telling.
The Indian summer is not without its logical inconsistencies. Tunzelmann's take suggests a Britain that was ready to give up the India cause, the jewel in its crown. Towards the end of the rule even the viceroys started opining that it was never the empire's intention to stay forever in India. While in the beginning, Tunzelmann argues that the Britain "was not forced out by a revolution, nor defeated by a greater rival in battle," later on she suggests that the Empire's ways of divide and rule and subjugation fostered a revolution: "[t]he mechanisms of empire had primed India for revolution. The only surprise it would be was just how long it would take."
Was there a revolution or not? The idea of a revolution as one that structures a narrative, such as this book, is indeed alluring. But the author, perhaps in all the drama of the lead characters, is unable to sell it in this book, not because there wasn't a revolution, but because she undermines it with the dramatic telling of the stories of the characters. This does not make the book any less interesting, but may be only less credible as a historical tour de force.
Tunzelmann's history of the Indian independence renders it as a history of idiosyncratic personalities and deliberately so. History depends on how the past is interpreted, who interprets it and when. Coming from a British author who seems compelled to plead Mountbatten's case every time his faux pas comes to light, this reading of history could be merely labelled as a mere British rendering of events. But that only serves to undermine the sheer power that the long years of struggle still wield on the collective Indian psyche. Tunzelmann's tome reminds us that great events in history are ultimately great events in a few individuals' lives that result either intentionally or unintentionally in greater consequences for many lives.
But a story it is, and exceptionally rendered. A must read for any student of history in general and India in particular. If not for anything else, it challenges Indians like me to revisit our received wisdom about India and look for alternatives to regular history textbooks or overly academic and pedantic historiographies of the Indian independence struggle.
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.
What the Indian summer is probably not is a secret history. Any well informed student of Indian history will know about the dalliances between Nehru and Edwina, about Jinnah's unrequited demands, about Gandhi's vacillations, and his idiosyncrasies. But what this book does effectively is to weave it all together tightly into a rich tapestry that makes for a great read. Tunzelmann is a historian no doubt, but an even better storyteller. It is perhaps telling then that a cinematic rendering of Indian Summer orignally slated to star Cate Blanchett as Lady Mountbatten has now been shelved owing to concerns from the Indian government over the plot and financial problems for the production house, which I would argue is a testament to the author's skills at story telling.
The Indian summer is not without its logical inconsistencies. Tunzelmann's take suggests a Britain that was ready to give up the India cause, the jewel in its crown. Towards the end of the rule even the viceroys started opining that it was never the empire's intention to stay forever in India. While in the beginning, Tunzelmann argues that the Britain "was not forced out by a revolution, nor defeated by a greater rival in battle," later on she suggests that the Empire's ways of divide and rule and subjugation fostered a revolution: "[t]he mechanisms of empire had primed India for revolution. The only surprise it would be was just how long it would take."
Was there a revolution or not? The idea of a revolution as one that structures a narrative, such as this book, is indeed alluring. But the author, perhaps in all the drama of the lead characters, is unable to sell it in this book, not because there wasn't a revolution, but because she undermines it with the dramatic telling of the stories of the characters. This does not make the book any less interesting, but may be only less credible as a historical tour de force.
Tunzelmann's history of the Indian independence renders it as a history of idiosyncratic personalities and deliberately so. History depends on how the past is interpreted, who interprets it and when. Coming from a British author who seems compelled to plead Mountbatten's case every time his faux pas comes to light, this reading of history could be merely labelled as a mere British rendering of events. But that only serves to undermine the sheer power that the long years of struggle still wield on the collective Indian psyche. Tunzelmann's tome reminds us that great events in history are ultimately great events in a few individuals' lives that result either intentionally or unintentionally in greater consequences for many lives.
But a story it is, and exceptionally rendered. A must read for any student of history in general and India in particular. If not for anything else, it challenges Indians like me to revisit our received wisdom about India and look for alternatives to regular history textbooks or overly academic and pedantic historiographies of the Indian independence struggle.
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