Posts Tagged Raj

My friend IK has reminded me of W.H. Auden’s poem “Partition,” published in 1966. These moving verses  highlight the absurdity of the way the border was created sixty two years ago: 

Unbiased at least he was when he arrived on his mission,
Having never set eyes on the land he was called to partition
Between two peoples fanatically at odds,
With their different diets and incompatible gods.
“Time,” they had briefed him in London, “is short. It’s too late
For mutual reconciliation or rational debate:
The only solution now lies in separation.
The Viceroy thinks, as you will see from his letter,
That the less you are seen in his company the better,
So we’ve arranged to provide you with other accommodation.
We can give you four judges, two Moslem and two Hindu,
To consult with, but the final decision must rest with you.” (more…)

My bright, young friend Imaduddin (left) has written this excellent, terse review of the engaging book White Mughals.

Yesterday when he emailed me this text, I was intrigued by his views as well as envious of his ability to say a lot in so few words. I enjoyed the book for the era it evoked with such craftsmanship and tenderness. However, Imaduddin says it all:

Quick and dirty impressions of White Mughals by William Dalrymple

Beautiful prose with a significant point brought out: that the British DID integrate in India prior to their discriminatory laws against mixed race progeny of the 1780s, the policy that East India Company servants would be older when they arrived in India, the arrival of white memsahibs and the arrival of condescending, colonial attitudes. Dalrymple finds that a third of Company servant wills bequeathed property to native wives, concubines and children until the afore mentioned advents, after which wills including native family dropped to almost none.

Vivid depictions of the court life and society of perhaps India’s most cultured city, Hyderabad, are brought out in this book, as are the enlightened, seeking attitudes of early British Company servants who integrated beautifully into Mughal society, as had the Portugese into Indian society earlier – as had every other foreigner invader into India, an India which had turned rugged Mughal warriors into artsy Rennaisance men.

The love story of Khair un Nissa, cousin to an ambitious minister in the Nizam’s court, and James Kirkpatrick, the Company’s Resident in Hyderabad, is the thread that brings all these themes together, but is unnecessarily long. If I were Dalyrymple’s editor, I’d have cut this 500 page book by a fifth – there is much repitition.

If you don’t have time to read love stories and are interested in historical commentary on India, read the first 57 pages. That will be enough.