Old country, new stories

Everyone is writing about the 60th anniversary of Indian independence. Contrarian behaviour is encouraged by my editor.

Everyone is writing about the 60th anniversary of Indian independence. Contrarian behaviour is encouraged by my editor. Hence this tribute eulogy? to that grand and controversial edifice of modern human history 8212; the Raj 8212; with expectations of brickbats from assorted illiberal liberals. In his acceptance speech while receiving an honorary doctorate from Oxford, Dr Manmohan Singh suggested that historians revisit the Indo-British encounter with 8220;balance and perspective8221;. In his usual perceptive manner, he hit the nail on the head.

Sixty years is a good time to ensure that there is a fair appraisal of an empire on which the sun never set and whose brightest jewel was our very own puzzling, complex peninsula. My father remembers a time when on Mount Road now Anna Salai in Madras now Chennai little boys would yell rude remarks to red-faced Tommies from a distance 8212; the operative phrase being 8216;from a distance8217;. Years later, when I lived in London, he just could not believe that I had an Englishman for a chauffeur who actually held open the car8217;s door for me. An Englishman to him was an awesome person who dispensed commandments and edicts. Things have changed. The English or more correctly, the British; for the Scots, the Welsh, the Irish and even natives of the Isle of Man were significant contributors to the imperial enterprise seem more accessible and their past and present achievements more amenable to a fresh set of judgments.

Without the Mughals, we would have no tandoori food, no Taj Mahal, no Mian-ki-Todi and so much else. If we can view India8217;s Mughal encounter with a sense of shared pride, why not the British one? The best minds among Indians of that era appreciated the contributions of the Raj. This was true of Naoroji and Dutt, who were critics of British fiscal policy in India. It was true of Ram Mohan Roy, who told the Frenchman Victor Jacquemont that he wanted British rule to 8220;continue for many years8221;. It was true of Vivekananda, who admired the Kshatriya spirit of the Anglo-Saxon peoples. It was true of Syed Ahmed Khan, who felt that British rule made possible an evenly balanced Indian polity. It was true of Gandhi, whose opposition to British rule never deprived him of his admiration for the country of his youth. He was most upset with the prospect of Hitler bombing the 8220;beautiful country8221; of Britain. It was true of Nehru, who acknowledged the debt he owed to the ideas developed by the British parliamentary system. It was true of Ambedkar, who saw British rule as the liberator of India8217;s depressed classes. It was true of Ramaswami Naicker, who saw British rule as the catalyst that made possible a revolt against the entrenched homo hierarchicus.

The British gave us a sense of our past. Without William Jones, Edwin Arnold, the Reverend Pope and even the much-read, much-abused Vincent Smith and Lane-Poole Indian history would not just be poorer 8212; it might not have existed. The British gave us our feel for the land in real material terms, not just with metaphorical allusions to Bharata Varsha, where seven rivers flow and black bucks roam. Between the Survey of India, the Botanical Survey of India, the Archaeological Survey of India, the Geological Survey of India, the Census of India and numerous District Gazetteers they mapped our country, studied, categorised, catalogued, analysed and described it in memorable prose even if the content does not meet current fashions of political correctness. The British gave us our future. Macaulay and the less-recognised Bentinck, thank heavens, forced English on us and created generations of Shakespeare-lovers 8212; at one time a member of the Bengali Bhadralok could quote Shakespeare better than anyone in Warwickshire 8212; not to mention lovers of Agatha Christie and P.G. Wodehouse. The English language defines our weltanschauung. It gives our writers fabulous royalties and our call-centre workers their extravagant livelihoods. It enables our judiciary to remain faithful to Magna Carta traditions even as they expand the vocabulary of jurisprudence with expressions like 8220;basic features8221; and 8220;creamy layers8221;.

The Gibbon who will write the definitive history of the Decline of the British Empire is still a few hundred years into the future. But with his inimitable brilliance, Nirad Chaudhuri may have hit upon the reason why the Raj lasted two hundred years if you count from the siege of Arcot or ninety years if you count from Queen Victoria8217;s proclamation and not four hundred years like the Roman Imperium. Based on a now-discredited ideology of racism, the empire conferred 8216;subjecthood8217; on us and denied us 8216;citizenship8217;. Gandhi was an Inner Temple barrister, who defended the laws of England. To throw him out of a train is the stupidest kind of gesture that converts a friend into a foe. Contrast this with the fact that the Roman Empire gave the full rights of a citizen to a Syrian Jew St Paul who probably spoke no word of Latin. If the Raj deserved to pass on it was because of this single fault of racial arrogance a fault exhibited particularly by many British residents in India who derived a peculiar sadistic sense of self-importance by kicking the natives around. The only excuse is that the prevailing pseudo-scientific theories of the time gave legitimacy to the doctrines of racial superiority and inferiority.

Be that as it may. Every time we enter the portals of Victoria Terminus now Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, we are aware that while we may change names in a spirit of petty petulance, the grand legacy of the Indian railways and so much else that the Raj did to make us what we are still endures. On the sixtieth anniversary of its passing we can shed a tear for a human achievement which, even while falling short of its best ideals think of Burke, think of Ripon, inspires in us a sense of awe and inadequacy as we contemplate the sheer scale and marvellous nature of its achievement. A Requiem Mass in the Viceregal Palace now Rashtrapati Bhavan would be in order.

The writer is chairman, Mphasis