Desicritics Category: Culture: Books - Non Fiction

Book Review: The Next Christendom

Shantanu Dutta — Mon, 9 Mar 2009 09:43:17 EDT

What does the future hold for Christianity? Many books have been written which make a case that secular forces will instigate Christianity to grow to be more open-minded and less literal. Such statements may be confrontational and engaging, but they don't appear very convincing in light of the concrete demographic and geographic facts

These are some of the issues that are the subject of Philip Jenkins’ book on the possible future of Christianity. If Jenkins is correct, by the year 2050, six countries (Brazil, Mexico, the Philippines, Nigeria, Congo and the United States) will each have at least 100 million Christians and Europe will have long been displaced by Sub-Saharan Africa as the most important hub of Christianity, while Brazil itself will have at least 150 million Catholics and 40 million Protestants. More than one billion Pentecostals, among the poorest in their diverse populations, will be spreading their own beliefs to the rest of the world. And as Christianity moves steadily south, it is also taking on a new character: Kinshasa, Buenos Aires, Addis Ababa, and Manila are on their way to replacing Rome, Athens, Paris, London, and New York as the new focal points of the Christian Church.

While many Western analysts have stated that Christianity is in decay and that it must refashion its thinking or hazard being deserted by its followers ¾ or, even worse, becoming largely irrelevant, Professor Jenkins argues that just the contrary is true: Christianity is on the rise again and leading to a very different religion that barely resembles the Western reading of it. It is a variant of Christianity that most Westerners are not habituated to seeing

The book also parleys about how in spreading South, Christianity is in many ways returning to its native soil. Founded in the ancient near east, its earliest contact was greater toward the south and east than northwest into Europe. Of course, Jenkins’s designation of Christianity is broad, encompassing notional believers (i.e., “Christians” spanning actual believers to those whose declaration to Christian associations is merely traditional or cultural) in the Roman Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox, Coptic, and Ethiopian traditions, and even Indian churches tracing their roots to the apostle Thomas, and branches like the Nestorians.

The books describes how Christianity is beginning to look as it journeys south: Southern Christianity tends to be visibly more traditional theologically than northern. They are far more likely to be Pentecostal. They wait for God to work in signs, wonders, and visions–and they see it happening. Latin America is becoming more Pentecostal than Catholic. They are sending missionaries north and west. The largest church in London today is led by a Nigerian pastor. They are competing hand to hand for numbers and members with Muslims, and often, as in Darfur and previously in Rwanda, experiencing unbelievable maltreatment. They are the face of Christianity

Most books on Christianity today have had a tendency to concentrate on the experiences of the Christians in the United States and Europe - hardly a surprise, since predisposition that is where most of the readership for books tends to be situated. However, this preconceived notion offers a patchy and erroneous portrait of the factual nature of global Christianity. Deciding by the books now presented, it is nearly as if Christianity doesn't exist in the South. Jenkins’ scholarly book shows that the truth is entirely unlike from what we might tend to assume.

Book Review: Down Memory Lane by Ravi Govender

Amitabh Mitra — Sat, 7 Feb 2009 00:49:37 EST

My friend Ravi Naicker is a poet and a teacher in Umzinto, Kwa Zulu Natal. I told him about my desire to publish a book of South African poets that would focus on the politics of New South Africa.He immediately asked me to contact his friend Ravi Govender in Durban.

I called him up and requested him to introduce me to South African poets from Natal who were affected during the apartheid regime. He was enthusiastic and promised me to do the same. The same afternoon I chanced upon Ravi’s book, Down Memory Lane at a used book shop in East London. Definitely, this is the same Ravi Govender I had been talking that morning.

Quoting from Radio Lotus FM website –
Govender.....Ravi Govender was born in Victoria Street, Durban just two blocks from the Indian Market on October 17th not too long ago.

He writes two popular columns for POST newspaper - of which he is also on the editing team. He is a public speaker, entrepreneur, serves on the board of a Durban Hospital and also a successful author. His hobbies are rugby, reading and watching movies and he is a Hollywood film buff as well as a James Bond nut. Ravi’s favourite actors are Anthony Hopkins and Al Pacino and his favourite movies are The Wild Geese and any 007 movie. His take on Bollywood is that "Priyanka Chopra is the cutest thing on two legs" and he rates Veer Zara as his best Eastern movie.

Ravi has a regular programme ‘Off the Shelf’ on Lotus FM which has gained immense popularity over the years.

Down Memory Lane is a book of historic value as it documents events through the eyes of a small boy growing in an apartheid era. This book had me engrossed as pages unfolded the Indian culture that blossomed even in severely restricted conditions of that time.

Aziz Hassim, Award winning Author of the Lotus People writes in his Forward, ‘There is a saying that if you forget your past you will be condemned to repeat it. When I read Ravi Govender’s essays and his reminiscences about our somewhat chequered history, I marvel at his ability to recall Durban’s bitter sweet past with touching finesse and a depth of perception’

Regarding the ‘bhais’ (gangsters) that prowled the Durban streets during that time, Ravi has aptly named this chapter as ‘Bada Bing, Bada Boom’. He writes, ‘Some of the cadres that ruled the streets were as follows: Victoria Street where I was sired boasted The Victorians, The Queens Brigade reigned in Queen Street. The Salots which consisted primarily of brothers operated taxis near Kapitan’s Balcony Hotel in the Grey Street area. The Dutchins laagered in Old Dutch Road and The Young Americans were united in Bond Street.

They were mostly ‘toothless tigers’ trying to live off their former reputations. You know the type: one guy initiates an argument and then edges backward into his mate, declaring “hold me back, hold me back, before I kill him”

Ram Gopal Verma can actually make a film based on such a story in Durban involving such characters.

In his column ‘ Proudly Indian – Our contribution to a better world’ Ravi recounts, ‘November 16 1860,the first vessel, the SS Truro, left Madras, sailed to South Africa and was borne along more through sheer human spirit than spook and diesel.
Another factor attests to our success. Foremost in the life of our forebears was the need for a place of worship and a place for education. Parents still sacrifice their own comfort and luxuries to ensure they give their children a good education and go on to further studies, to enable them to have good careers and be productive citizens. It also serves to preserve the hard earned reputation that Indians have as valuable contributors to this country'.

Not bad for people who arrived here to be cane cutters and who have gone on to produce doctors, educators and captains of industry.

Cato Manor is synonymous with the apartheid in South Africa. During1949 and 1950 when the Group Areas Act was passed on by the government, people were forced to move from the place to townships like KwaMashu and the Indians moved to places like Chatsworth and Phoenix. Cato Manor became an international symbol of resistance to apartheid by Indians.

Ravi has written about forced removals of Indians from a place called Magazine Barracks. He writes ’the murder weapon was the diabolic Group Areas Act and the misery and turmoil caused by its death blow is unpardonable. The action of its perpetrator was unconscionable.’

Ravi Govender’s book, Down Memory Lane is an unforgettable narration of the Indian community’s resistance to alien laws, their sacrifices and finally their victory over all odds. The present generation of youth in India and overseas have a lot to learn from reading this book, his words continue to inspire us all.

Book Review: Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning

Vinod Joseph — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 02:45:11 EST

Jonah Goldberg is a conservative columnist and an editor at National Review. In his book Liberal Facism, Goldberg makes a very interesting case for the proposition that liberals are a lot more fascist than conservatives, though they constantly use the F word to besmirch conservatives and right-wingers.

The Italian word ‘fascismo’ is derived from the Italian word ‘fascio’ and the Latin word ‘fasces’. Fascio means ‘bundle’ or ‘union.’ In ancient Rome, ‘fasces’ was a bundle of rods tied together and was a symbolic of a magistrate’s authority. It denoted strength through unity since a bundle of rods can’t be broken up as easily as a single rod. Giovanni Gentile, the Italian philosopher who described as the Philosopher of Fascism wrote an essay called ‘The Doctrine of Fascism’ which was signed by Benito Mussolini and attributed to Mussolini. Fascism, as propounded by Gentile and Mussolini, propagated a nationalist ideology, that gave the ruler total authority to solve the nation’s economic, political and social problems. The main difference between fascism in its initial stages in Italy and communism is that communism preaches global brotherhood of workers and is not nationalist. Both idelogoies relegate the individual to the background and give importance to collective rights. It is worth noting that in its initial stages, Italian fascism was not inherently racist. It was only in the late 1930s that Mussolini adopted Hitler’s antipathy to the Jews and expelled many Italian Jews from his party. After World War II started, fascism began to be associated with Nazism, totalitarianism and racism.

Goldberg examines the ‘fascist’ streaks in US presidents ranging from Wilson to Roosevelt, Lyndon B. Johnson to Kennedy and says that liberal fascism in the United States predates Italian fascism. Hillary Clinton is also labelled ‘fascist.’ In simple terms, Goldberg labels any form of authoritarianism and suppression of a dissenting view as fascism and he says that liberals are much more guilty of such ‘fascism’ than so called conservatives and right wingers. Goldberg gives various examples of how so called left-wing liberals have used ‘fascist’ methods to promote their ideologies, be it abortion rights or higher taxes or greater welfare measures. Goldberg’s grievance is that liberals have been so successful in linking fascism with right-wing ideology and conservatism that most Americans tend to make that association.

I do agree with Goldberg that liberals may be as much guilty of using authoritarian measures to promote their goals as anybody else. To give a recent example, animal rights activists in the UK carried out a protracted campaign of intimidating employees and suppliers of Huntingdon Life Sciences, a company which carries out testing of medicines and other pharmaceutical products. Some of those activists were sentenced to long prison terms very recently.

Goldberg’s arguments are not necessarily water-tight. For example, he says that the Klu-Klux-Klan disliked Mussolini and hence are not fascist. Further, Goldberg does not even mention or try to explain the existence of right-wing fanatics such as Aryan Nations or the British National Party. The Oklahoma City bombing was carried out by a right-wing fanatic. None of these find a mention in Goldberg’s book.
Further, I don’t agree with Goldberg when he traces the ‘common’ roots of fascism and liberalism and tries to show them to be the same. It is true that Mussolini and Hitler were socialists. Liberals in the USA and elsewhere did like Mussolini and supported him till he became a German ally. It is also true that Communism as practised in the Soviet Union and the China of the 1950s and 1960s had a few things in common with fascism. However, trying to say that welfare socialism promoted by the some US Democrats and the Labour Party in the UK is fascism is downright silly.

At the end of the day, you may not agree with Goldberg. Nevertheless I would recommend that you read this book, if only to understand how a conservative American’s mind works.

A Landmark Love Story

IdeaSmith — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 09:14:26 EST

The Landmark bookstore opens its doors on 23rd January 2009. Landmark has been shut these past three months after a fire broke out in Infinity Mall where it is housed, causing much damage to merchandise and fittings. Mercifully no human casualties except of course for avid Landmarkers who've missed the store sorely all this while that it has been undergoing renovation.

I'm irrationally excited over this. Come Friday and I'm making no plans, except to trek back to my favorite bookspot and just savour the feeling of being able to walk around in its interiors again. Is this an indication of the shallow, consumerist lifestyle I lead, that I miss a shop so much? Let me tell you just what Landmark means to me.

I've been an avid reader from my early childhood, dating right back to when I missed having siblings to play with, fight with and keep me occupied and hence turned to books for company, for entertainment, for solace, for answers and finally for identification. I've also been a loner all my life, never mind the huge groups of people I always seem to have around me.

For the longest time ever, in Mumbai, a booklover's only source of soul nourishment was to scour the neighborhood raddiwallas and make an occasional trip to Churchgate to browse the street stalls at Flora Fountain. Then came Crossword with its ubiquitous yellow-and-black stores, retailing books. So books were available in a shop close to home. Though, if your tastes extended beyond potboiler bestsellers and management/self-help books, you were still obliged to fall back on your bohemian book-haunts or still brave the journey to town to visit Oxford.

Landmark opened its first store in Mumbai in 2006.

I remember stopping and staring at the poster announcing its soon-arrival at the mall and smiling with sheer joy. My Chennai soujourns had made me quite familiar with this bookstore chain famous in the south. On my first visit to the store, I wandered in curiously, wondering whether the insofar bookstore had only decided to set up its music and movie business in Mumbai. All I could see were aisles and aisles of DVDs and CDs! And then at the very end, almost like a tunnel suddenly opening up, I stumbled into a huge...paradise. Books, books, books as far as I could see.

I'd only ever seen so many books in one place at the annual Strand book sale, which would still be unorganized piles of books, stacked onto cloth-covered tables. But here I was standing among rows and rows of gleaming shelves neatly categorized as Humour, Literary Fiction, Classics, Romance, Spirituality, Teen Fiction, Children's books, Feminism, Travel, Science, Architecture, Movies, Art and so on. I walked passed authors I'd never known existed, genres I'd never conceived and books I'd never heard of.

Landmark became an integral part of my weekend schedule. I'd plan to catch a movie or lunch or dinner with a friend and find an excuse to be at Landmark. I'd either ask to meet them at the mall that also has a theatre and a food-court. Sometimes I'd drop by after an outing or arrange to meet someone between Magazines and Featured Books. Some days I'd go there by myself and spend hours browsing, walking out for a snack, poring over a book I'd bought or just feeling - something - just walking around.

My relationship with Landmark has grown in parallel with my relationship with my own writing. For a very long time, writing and creative endeavours were distant dreams, fantasies that I never really thought about seriously. I started my blog on a whim, to 'get it out of my system' so to speak. Surprisingly I found, my inspiration and my inclination...and my obsession to write only grew with time. After much teenage angst, anxiety-ridden desicions of education and work, job-switches and on/off relationships, I've discovered my passion. Words are my one and only real passion.

Writing is an indescribable feeling, one that rejuvenates me and one that takes me over in a fury and leaves me feeling quite spent - and fulfiled. I've never felt the same sense of completion with anyone or anything or anywhere else. The best thing about my job is how much it allows me to write. And where is a poet more at home than in a garden? Landmark is a garden of ideas, of people and stories and poems and articles and books all the many different ways we find to share our impressions with each other. The world outside disappoints me, hurts me, wears me down. But I walk back into a world of books and I find authors I deeply admire, words that bring me comfort, ideas that rekindle my zest for life, so much inspiration to just be me.

You might argue that I could have this in any other bookshop in the world. Yes, perhaps, if only there were others that offered the mind-boggling variety of books, a friendly but not intrusive staff and the convenience of location. If you've seen the movie 'You've got mail', you might say that Landmark has the staggering variety of Fox books set in the cosy ambience of the corner bookshop.

Now, three years later, I have a sentimental attachment to the Landmark store as well. The staff not only knows me by face and name, one of their employees has become a close, personal friend. I remember meeting Lord Jeffrey Archer, idol of my teenage years and buying a book for a special lady in my life. I walked through the aisles playing a 'now-you-see-me-now-you-don't' with a date who enjoyed books as much and picked out Knots by R.D.Laing for him. Weeks later, when he broke my heart, I healed myself in the comfort of Milan Kundera and Alexander McCall-Smith. I found a new friend, a new circle of people, a new interest and a new path to the future in Graphic Novels. I nurtured the early stages of a long-distance relationship through my SMS-chats and whispered conversations about the books I was browsing (while he'd be doing the same in the store in another city).

In these past three months, I've visited two countries, been in love and out of it, borne two deaths, has my sense of stability shaken by the terror attacks, discarded a friendship, renewed a few, acquired some more. I haven't had that haven that Zen calls 'the place of stillness' through all this. My friends have made babies, celebrated wedding anniversaries, had birthdays, returned to India after years. And I haven't been able to greet them with my choice of gift - a book specially chosen for the person and the occasion. Yes, I've missed Landmark so much. Friday, reunion!

And of course if any of you reading this post, have decided you love me enough to send me a gift, Landmark has a gift voucher program! ;-)

Book Review Comdex : Computer Course Kit - Windows Vista with Office 2007

Kim — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 17:30:32 EST

The Comdex - Computer Course Kit - Windows Vista with Office 2007 written by Vikas Gupta costs 229INR with the CD. Vikas Gupta has earlier co-authored books for Wiley, McGraw Hill and IDG.

This book, comes with a CD Training kit and the book aims to help you master Windows Vista, Internet, MS Word, MS Excel, MS Access and MS Powerpoint.

The book is developed with the premise that the qualification of the person using the book is "ability to read" hence it is extremely simple, straight forward and easy to follow, with step by step instructions accompanied by appropriate illustrations.

The book provides explanations, with screen print outs to demonstrate the described functions. The CD provides an audio video demo and a self practice mode.

The book starts out with the first 24 pages outlining the types of computers, the hardware units, and the basics of software and networks which is an excellent preface for someone not well versed with computers. This took me back to our ITC (Introduction to Computers) course, but this book was much simpler.

At times the language in the book dips a bit into the formal, flowery, government office kind of English, but it soon recovers and gets back to the simplicity, that is its selling point.

It even covers new features like Windows Aero, Windows Meeting Space, Internet Explorer 7.0, Windows Mail.

My only feeling of discontent with the book is that the paper quality is not the best and it gave me the feel of a pirated cheap reprint.

The book and the CD may be used completely independently of each other.

The text instructions on the CD are in English only, but the audio has the option of Hindi too. The audio can be turned off, if you feel that it is slowing you down during the audio-video demo mode. The voice on the audio is pleasant and not robotic or irritating except for a few mis-pronunciations(/heavily accented pronunciation) like "appears" and "adjust". This is an ideal method for auditory learners.

The Hindi version, still uses a lot of English words in the voice over and some Hindi words that aren't common vocabulary.

In some modules, The control panel at the base of the screen, takes an inordinately long time to follow instructions. You can increase or decrease the speed of the verbal instructions and the demonstration time during the demo module.

This is a wonderful book for someone who is just starting to learn about computers. Quite a good book to gift your parents and preserve your own blood pressure from escalating. Or if you are looking to brush up your knowledge or upgrade your software and need a quick primer on the subject.

Book Review : The Jewel of Medina

Kim — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 05:21:05 EST

I had heard of the controversy surrounding "The Jewel of Medina" a couple of months ago, but it hadn't really inspired me to go out and buy the book immediately. Of course there was the other matter of it not being available in a Middle Eastern country. But when a friend of mine told me she had the book in case I was interested, I decided to see what the fuss was all about.

The book was initially quite ho-hum (compared to some of the other books I have read on the subject) while it covered the childhood politics around a little girl growing up in a polygamous family where her own mother was the second wife. The girl just happens to be Aisha Bint Abi Bakr, herself an extremely controversial character in Islam. After the Prophets death, she led an army against his son-in-law Ali, which was the cause for the Sunni-Shia split.

Sunnis claim Aisha was the favorite wife of the Prophet, while Shiites believe that he disliked her for her disobedience. Sunni accounts put the Prophet in Aisha's embrace at the time of his death and Shiites believe that he died in Ali's arms.

Why is The Jewel so inflammatory?

Conservative Catholics across the globe were vociferously against "The DaVinci Code" as it was based on the anti-thesis of a non-negotiable fact - that Jesus was married and sired a bloodline. This questioned the foundations of the Catholic faith and the vows of celibacy taken by priests and nuns.

"The Jewel of Medina" portrays each edict passed by Mohamed as being one for personal gain. It also caricatures him as an old man in constant sexual overdrive, whose only interest was in finding the next beautiful young bride. Drawing conclusions and elaborating on the fact that, when his male followers were allowed only 4 wives, the limitations did not apply to him. And other such incendiary conclusions.

For someone who is not familiar with the basics behind the Islamic teachings, it is a disastrous book to read, because it will completely distort the idea of Islam and its foundations. Ms Jones in her interviews has claimed that she wrote this book to make Islam more accessible and understandable to the general public in USA.

If this is her target audience, it will only serve to further aggravate the differences between Muslims and non-Muslims in America where a majority of non-Muslims already look upon Muslims with suspicion and in extreme cases, even hatred. Among the non-Muslims in America, there is a wide spread belief that women are completely dominated by men in this religion, they are forced to cover up from head to toe by overbearing fathers and husbands. This book will only serve to deepen and worsen those beliefs. I do not see any "understanding" coming out of this book.

The problem with writing fiction with characters from real life is that very few readers actually have the ability or knowledge to distinguish the line between the blurred lines of fact and fiction in a novel. And how much of this book is fiction? As a non-Muslim with basic information about Islam from my Muslim friends, I was quite riled up about certain injustices being described in certain sections of this book. This is a normal process when reading a book, the skill of the author is in making you feel for the characters. But the way it is portrayed as fact, brings these feelings out back into the world beyond the reading of a book.

What Ms Jones has written is a piece of fiction and not even a well researched one at that. Friends of mine who are scholars in Islamic studies, say that the inaccuracies are innumerable.

Geraldine Brooks (who has extensively researched the history of this era), author of the 1995 nonfiction book, "Nine Parts of Desire" whom Jones has cited as one her initial inspiration, says this in her review of The Jewel of Medina, "if you wish to claim that your novel is "extensively researched", why lurch around in time and space, grabbing at concepts such as hatun, or leading wife, which Jones knows full well belongs to the Ottoman empire of centuries later, or purdah, which exists in Persian, Urdu and Hindi but not Arabic? Why refer to an Islamic veil by the modern Western term "wrapper"? Why have Muslims bowing to Aisha, when bowing is an alien custom to desert Arabia and to Islam's egalitarian ethos?"

Is "The Jewel of Medina" a good story? - Well, it manages to keep your interest going after the initial chapters, wondering what is going to come next? and How will Aisha manage this latest calamity?. But in most parts it reads like Mills & Boone/ Silhouette kind of Soft Porn.

I ask a larger question : "Is it ethical to write a book like this, which caricatures a person who is the cornerstone of a particular religion?

Disclaimer : I do not want to get into a debate about death threats, riots and fatwas that inevitably follow a book of this kind.

Book Review: Vishnu's Crowded Temple: India Since the Great Rebellion by Maria Misra

Vinod Joseph — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 12:18:15 EST

Having liked Maria Misra’s first book on managing agencies so much, I got hold of her second and much more recent one, a couple of weeks ago. In Vishnu’s Crowded Temple, Misra undertakes the challenging task of analysing India’s history from the time immediately after the mutiny (1857) till the present. Misra proves herself equal to the challenge. Her 450 odd page tome is not only a very thorough examination of India’s history during this period, it is also crammed with Misra’s analysis of the prominent events and personalities. Irrespective of whether you agree or disagree with Misra’s various assessments, you can’t help appreciating that Misra knows her history very well and has all relevant facts at her finger tips.

Misra’s stand out achievement in this book is in examining every issue from multiple points of view. For example, when discussing partition, she explains how each of the actors, the Congress, the Muslim League and the British, performed their roles and did what they did in a manner that is entirely comprehensible, though with the benefit of hindsight, many serious mistakes were made. Equally brilliant are Misra’s description of the Emergency and the raise of Hindu nationalism in the 1990s. The personalities of Gandhi, Nehru, Indira Gandhi, Laloo Prasad Yadav, V.P. Singh and Mayawati are dispassionately analysed and laid bare. Their contributions to India are examined ruthlessly without any drama. Also of great interest (to me at least) was Misra’s examination of the (failed) attempts to have a Uniform Civil Code for India and to make Hindi India’s national language.

Misra’s language is simple, to the point, non-melodramatic, slightly sarcastic at times and in short, it’s just right for a book of this sort. For example, while describing the Congress’s (unsuccessful) attempt to remain uncorrupted and keep India unified as it neared the goal of Independence, she says, ‘By the end of the 1930s, it was clear that much of Congress politics was fast degenerating in an unedifying scramble for the spoils of office. Gandhi had not woven the tough, rough-textured and inclusive fabric he had originally designed. Rather, the Congress nation was silk not khadi. Threads from the prosperous peasantry, urban petty bourgeoisie, the progressive intelligentsia and big business had somehow been woven into a single cloth. But it was distinctly frayed at the edges. Skeins of regional, Muslim and low caste politics hung loose and it would prove difficult, if not impossible, to weave these back into a united and independent Indian nation.

Cricket does not find a mention in the post-independence part of this book and neither does Bollywood, though Sholay is discussed as are film actors turned politicians MGR and NT Rama Rao. The implied assessment here, I assume, is that neither Bollywood nor cricket has influenced post-independence India. In a sense, I would agree with Misra that Bollywood is not as much of a nation unifier as it is hyped out to be. For example, people in Pakistan, Nepal and Bangladesh enjoy Bollywood movies though anti-India feeling runs high in these countries. Cricket does bring Indians together and alleged Muslim support for the Pakistani team is the cause of much tension and quarrel. I do wish Misra had commented on the impact of cricket on Indian society.

Misra makes a few minor mistakes which do not have any impact on the overall quality of this book. She says that A.O. Hume, the founder of the Indian National Congress was an Englishman (when he was actually Scottish). The Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) is translated as “Dravidian Forward Federation”, something which will bring a smile to any Tamil speaker. In my opinion, it ought to be the “Dravidian Upliftment Party”.

Misra’s book has a very detailed bibliography. Since I am not a qualified historian, I am not going to comment on it.

Misra ends her book with the story of how Laloo Yadav, long considered a maverick and joker, reformed the Indian railways and made it profitable. However, Laloo has no qualms about having his in-laws travel ticketless in a first class railway compartment. Misra tells us in the epilogue that her objective was to explain India’s peculiar form of modernity, one which is a mix of so many contradictions. I would say that Misra has admirably succeeded in her endeavour.

I am setting out here a few of Misra’s theories and assessments which I found to be interesting and a few facts I ‘discovered’ from this book, which the average desi doesn’t easily get to read elsewhere.

Impact of British Rule: The role of the British on the subcontinent should not be exaggerated. According to Misra, the subcontinent is too vast and too ancient and the British presence too brief and microscopic to be seen as a leading player. Initially I shook my head in disbelief, but then as I thought about this, I started to feel that Misra might have a point. However, this is a very moot point on which it will be possible to canvass a variety of views.

Caste: Till the British arrived, Indian society was very fluid. Castes were not frozen. However, the British found it easy to understand the Varna system as hard and fast. Also, the educated Brahmins were the ones the British turned to for tutorials on India. It made sense for the Brahmins to explain the caste system in such a way that they were on top, though in reality, the intermediate castes were the property owners and the generally, especially in southern India, the most powerful. Misra says that there’s a great deal to be said for the view that untouchability was an institution initially confined to some locations. As India industrialised, the poorest and lowest castes migrated to the cities where they did the dirtiest jobs and the stigma of untouchability grew.

Aryan Invasion Theory and Pre-Aryan Dravidian Utopia: The Aryan invasion theory came into vogue between 1901 and 1911. The proponents of this theory found it very convenient to explain the caste system and the hierarchy within. Soon census takers were carrying ‘nose callipers’ to measure the length of Indian noses and categorise people. The Theosophists propagated the Aryan invasion theory and the upper castes gratefully seized upon it to show that they were superior to other Indians and were linked to Europeans. Please note that Misra does not at any point express her own view on the Aryan invasion theory. I wish she had.

In the south, a British preacher Robert Caldwell pioneered the study of southern languages. Caldwell wanted to destroy the influence of corrupt priests and Brahmins in order to make conversions easy. For this, he propagated the view that the Aryan invasion had destroyed a pre-Aryan Dravidian utopia and that southern languages are totally autonomous from Sanskrit and Hindi. Tamil intellectuals accepted Caldwell’s theories, though they did not convert. They also took them further by saying that pre-Aryan Tamil possibly existed prior to the movement of the tectonic plates when Asia, Africa and Australasia was a unified landmass called ‘kumarikantam.’

Changing British attitudes to India and Indians: Prior to the mutiny, the British wanted to modernise and reform India. After the mutiny, the British only wanted to preserve the existing order, and use it to strengthen their own presence in India. The British set up a College of Arms which would produce for various Indian princes various assorted ensigns, emblems and other signs of power. The Statutory Civil Service was an attempt to make bureaucrats out of the scions of Indian aristocracy. Sons of Princes were enrolled in this service as a birth right and trained to be bureaucrats in order to avoid having middleclass Indians rule India through the Indian Civil Service. Colleges such as the Mayo College at Ajmer, modelled on Eton, were established. This attempt ended in a dismal failure since Indian princes were too much fun loving and lacked the necessary discipline to become mandarins.

British attitudes to different Indian ethnic groups is one of the topics covered in Misra’s first book. Misra takes up the same topic in this book as well. The Afridis, Dogras and Sikhs were believed to make good soldiers, since they physically resembled Europeans more than other Indians. Sikhs especially were the apples of the British eye. The British were so keen to keep the Sikhs pure that Sikh recruits to the army had to be baptised, have uncut hair, bangles, a dagger and have ‘Singh’ as the last name. The British maintained Sikhism in the army at a standard higher than it was elsewhere. Bengalis were considered effeminate and non-martial, though they had formed the bulk of the British Indian army prior to the mutiny. It was only during the Second World War that stereotypes such as these were abandoned.

The British also condemned many communities as criminal classes. In the south, the British started to prop up the Dravidian parties to fight the Brahmin dominated Congress. Reservations were made for non-Brahmin communities. British - Hindu – Muslim relations: Misra devotes a lot of time and space to explain how Hindu and Muslims came to be poles apart. Initially, the British were very tolerant of Hinduism. This morphed into contempt. With regard to Islam, the British were closer to the Muslims till the mutiny, after which there was a period of bitterness. Later, the British grew to develop cordial relations with a few select Muslims, like Syed Ahmed Khan, who benefitted a lot from their closeness to the British. Such select Muslims got British largesse and protection from Hindu domination, as the British played one community against the other. The bulk of the funding for the Aligarh University came from the British

Occasional Hindu-Muslim violence did take place in the 19th century, but such violence was local. In 1809, there were riots in Banares. British reports classified these as religious violence that erupted when a Muharram procession insulted Hindus, though in reality it was the result of a land dispute.

Till the early 19th century, Hindus and Sunnis celebrated Muharram along with the Shias. Similarly, Muslims participated in Ramlila celebrations. Towards the end of the 19th century, Tilak started to promote the Ganapati festival and made it a lavish and public affair. With that, Muharram processions and Ramlila festivities ceased to attract people from other faiths.

Regionalism among Indian leaders: At the Indian National Congress’s Lahore session in 1893, the great leader Bal Gangadhar Tilak boarded and lodged with his fellow Maharashtrians Gokhale and Ranade who were moderates and his ideological adversaries since he didn’t want to mix with Bengali leaders who subscribed to his own extremist views. South Indian leaders, almost entirely Brahmins, were fussy eaters and would not eat with others.

Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, a leader of Hindu renaissance in the 1870s, attracted the cream of Bengal’s intelligentsia and preached the rejection of western values and advocated a return to a rustic lifestyle. He was a gender bender who liked to dress as a woman and flirt with his largely male followers, at times sitting on their laps. Keshub Chandra Sen was a westernised Brahmo Samaj leader who reverted to Hinduism under Ramakrishna Paramahamsa’s influence. Ramakrishna Paramahamsa advocated child marriage and Keshub Chandra Sen gave his 9 year old daughter in marriage to the ruler of Cooch Behar

Fitness First

Since the British were busy portraying upper caste Hindus as non-martial and effeminate, the Hindu renaissance brought in its wake a great deal of interest in exercise and fitness. Various akharas were started. Wrestling became a favourite pastime for many Indians. The great Indian wrestler Gama was said to live entirely on milk, ghee and almonds which he consumed in vast quantities. These were supposed to be all that was needed to make a man strong.

Max Muller was a German orientalist who promoted the theory of the noble Aryan race which migrated to India and from whom the upper castes were said to have descended. The Aryans were said to have founded in India the greatest civilisation the world has ever known, though they weakened themselves by marriages with the lower castes. Muller opposed woman’s liberation which he said would weaken the fabric of Indian society.

Bankim Chandra used to be a proponent of women’s rights, till he took a sharp U turn. After his change of mind, he went about advocating that women should not behave like babus. He advised such women to rid the earth of their useless weight by applying ropes to their necks.

The Age of Consent Bill: In 1891, the Age of Consent Bill was proposed after many child brides died after sex with their husbands. This bill made intercourse with a child below the age of 12 years statutory rape even if the girl was married to the accused. Bankim Chandra opposed this bill tooth and nail. He said that if this bill was passed “Bengal would be plagued with females in groups hanging from door to door, begging men to gratify their lust”. Many Indian dailies opposed the Bill. Anand Baraz Patrika changed from a weekly to a daily to meet increased subscriber demand. The Bangabani saw its subscription soar to 20,000, whilst Sanjivani which supported the bill had only 4,000 readers. Bal Gangadhar Tilak too opposed the Age of Consent Bill.

Aurobindo Ghose was a Hindu revivalist and Swaraj advocate who studied at St. Paul’s and Cambridge. He advocated revolutionary violence though his goals were quite vague. He talked about the golden age of the Vedas and declared that his ultimate objective was the ‘Aryanisation’ of the world

Annie Besant was a Theosophist who believed that high caste Hindus were Aryans who ought to be given the power to unify India as they had done earlier. She had a controversial attitude to non-Brahmins. She wanted to “humanise them because, as in Britain, the lower classes are a menace to civilisation and undermine the fabric of society.”

The Gurgaon experiment: Frank Bryne was a civil servant who carried out an experiment in Gurgaon to change the ‘bad’ habits of the Indian peasantry who were given to idleness and filth. To fight idleness, he made them give up canal irrigation and switch to inefficient Persian wheels. To make them conserve fuel, he promoted a magic ‘Bhoosa’ box. For disciplined defecation and fighting filth, he got them to dig latrines, though the latrines became traps for mosquitoes. Though none of his experiments really worked, a few successful monsoons meant that Gurgaon showed progress. Bryne’s books became standard texts for Indian bureaucrats.

Bombay Pentangular: So named for the five religious communities who took part, namely the Parsis, Hindus, Muslims, Europeans and the rest. In the initial days of this tournament, the Parsis refused to play the Hindus since they thought only the British were their equals. In 1939 the Hindus won the tournament and their supporters sang the Bande Mataram, which the Muslims found offensive.

Congress’s Hindu tilt and rift with the Muslim League: On many occasions Misra says that, at its lower echelons, the Congress was very much Hindu nationalist. Membership of the RSS and Congress overlapped to a considerable degree. Hedgewar, the founder of the RSS was a disciple of the Congress leader Tilak. From the 1920s , there was practically no Muslim participation in Congress led agitations. The 1930 civil disobedience movement which led to a sharp fall in the demand for imported fabrics, disproportionately affected Muslims, since most importers of foreign cloth were Muslims. Misra blames the Congress for breaching its relations with the Muslim League. Jinnah was willing to renounce his demand for separate Muslim electorates if the Congress would agree to more Muslim majority provinces in Sindh and the North West Frontier Province. The Congress refused. In the 1937 provincial elections, the Muslim League cooperated with the Congress, but the Congress reneged on a deal to share ministerial posts.

Frontier Gandhi: Khan Abdul Gaffar Khan and his Khudai Khidmatgars followed Gandhian principles when fighting the British. However, their fight was mainly for the reunification of the North West Frontier Province with Afghanistan and had little to do with the national movement.

Subhash Chandra Bose and the INA: Subhash Chandra Bose established contact with Nazi Germany through the Kabul office of Siemens Company. He did not really get along with Hitler who refused to delete a few bits from his Mein Kampf which Bose considered insulting to Indians. Bose then went to Japan and Singapore and took over leadership of the INA. “Relations between the INA and the Japanese were appalling. The Japanese regarded the INA troops as turncoats, inherently untrustworthy and cowardly. At best they were a propaganda unit for spreading pro-Japanese stories among Indians and at worst as coolie corps.” The INA was not particularly effective and Subhash Chandra Bose himself was regarded by the Japanese as “incompetent and stubborn”. Misra says that this view was not totally unjustified since Bose kept insisting that a march on Delhi was possible in the midst of a catastrophic retreat.

Allied Army atrocities: During the Second World War, the enormous allied army in Eastern India misbehaved. There were many cases of rape, arson and looting.

Gandhi’s approval for Indira Gandhi’s marriage: Indira Gandhi’s marriage to the Parsi Feroze Gandhi was controversial. Mahatma Gandhi gave his approval, but said that the marriage should be celibate.

Book Review: Imagining India - Nandan Nilekani

Ganadeva Bandyopadhyay — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 00:49:10 EST

Among the leaders and pioneers of the much feted and praised IT company, Infosys, Nandan Nilekani has given a window into his thought processes in this book.

A reader will have to acknowledge the clarity of thoughts that have gone into covering an extraordinarily wide swath of topics. This includes, among the many others, a very intense perspective on the English language and its undeniable love-and-hate relationship with Indians since the beginning of colonial rule, the analysis of democracy and its evolution in India and a scathing critique of our universities as they degenerated into getting into the center of politics rather than being the cradle of new ideas, opportunities, and movements to rejuvenate the national life.

While reading the book, among the many impressions that the reader may get is the immense sense of hope for India, sometimes in comparison with China and other countries . This happens while describing the potential demographic advantages available currently to India, and also the challenges in converting such potential into realistic scenarios.

Mr. Nilekani could have considered giving more space to the huge challenges that were faced by leaders other than Nehru in the decades immediately after independence, a more perspective view on the growth and success of non-IT companies in the same phase as Infosys and maybe viewpoints on the various strains of violence, terrorism and insurgency affecting the Indian state.

Readers would come to understand the big challenges that come with big numbers, which are more the norm than the rarity in our national space. As a people, we are frequently accustomed to hearing about a large population, large contradictions in terms of empowerment by education, and empowerment by political means or even the wide variations in wealth distribution. One of the realizations that this book will definitely give to its readers is the enormity of challenges that have been faced by leaders and politicians and the immense hard work and faith in a national concept that has kept converting such challenges into windows of opportunity.

The narrative gives much hope to readers by the end of the book and especially for the Indian readers that corporate leaders of the calibre of Nandan Nilekani have their head and heart in the right place and salso provide the inspiration for similar successes to be actually replicated across all fields of national life.

Obituary: Sabina Sehgal Saikia

Kim — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 14:27:34 EST

Sabina Sehgal Saikia was a food writer who had been with the Times of India group for over 17 years who at the time of her untimely demise had risen to Consulting Editor at the publication. She died in the Terror attacks in Mumbai where she was staying on the 6th floor. She was in Mumbai for the wedding of Bachi Karkaria's son next week.

Sabina could make or break a Delhi restaurant based on her reviews. She initially wrote an extremely popular column called "Main Course" for the Saturday Times, which later moved to the Delhi Times.

I was first introduced to her, when I picked up the Times of India Restaurant Guide for Delhi, 8 years ago. My next 2 years in Delhi were made tolerable by this handy book. I tried out restaurants based on her recommendations and agreed with her judgment over 80% of the time. She was honest and direct.

The Times of India Restaurant Guides to Hyderabad and Bombay could never match up to the standard that Sabina had set. She had spoiled me against other guides with her perfection and accuracy.

I subscribed to the Times of India in Delhi, just to read her column, although the Hindustan Times gave much better news coverage in Delhi.

An excellent cook herself, she soon visited me in my living room on NDTV cooks demonstrating an especially fiery looking Green Chilli Pickle.

I never met her face-to-face, but I felt like I knew a part of her. The part of her that loved good food and in Saif Ali Khan's words "acha khaana khane ke liye, hum kahin pe bhi chalenge" (to eat good food, we will travel anywhere) and in a wierd way, I identified with this part of her.

Sabina will be sorely missed in the food writers world. Our sympathies go out to her husband Shantanu and her two young children who will feel her absence much more than her millions of devoted readers.

Sabina you brought joy into the lives of food lovers: May your Soul, Rest in Peace.

Book Review Dal - Chawal

Amitabh Mitra — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 01:15:33 EST

A close friend of mine gifted me this book before leaving for greener pastures in Canada. Dal – Chawal is a unique book on Indian cookery written by Satarupa Banerjee, published by Vasan Publications in Bangalore on 2002. It prompted me to write about it the same way this staple food of millions of Indians must have prompted Satarupa Banerjee to write a book.

I belong to Madhya Pradesh where I grew up in a Dal Chawal and Roti Chawal environment. Not long ago when I had visited my home town of Gwalior, I found that a Roti–Chawal plate is still being served at Atthanni or fifty paisa. Acchar, Mirch and Pyaaj are a free accompaniment of this rustic delicacy. The Dhaba at the Agra Bombay Road is a midnight rendezvous for most of my childhood friends where memories are revived over bowls of a variety of dals, desi ghee parathas and ample beer.

Satarupa writes in her preface that Dal and Chawal (Pulses and Rice) are associated with the very fundamental eating habits of the Indians. And we have myriad ways of cooking these two staples.

What we don’t always realise that there are so many other ways of enjoying them and that Dal and Chawal have various other versions like puffed rice, pressed rice, gram flour, vadis, papads etc.

Each region of our country embellishes dal and chawal by adding other ingredients like egg, chicken, fish, meat, paneer, vegetables and spices.

The book is divided under two main themes of Dal and Chawal and innumerable possibilities of delicious recipes that one can prepare with either of them. Muri Ghanto (Fish Head Curry) which is more like a Pulao prepared with basmati rice, the best that I ever had at a Dhaba in Guwahati in Assam is provided as an easy to prepare recipe. Even the fish that needs to be a Katla is mentioned. Jamaibhog also known as Son in Law’s Special is a culinary marvel from Bengal. She prepares this speciality with a mixture of rice, pineapple juice, prawns, ginger, garlic and coriander baked in green coconut.

I wish to share the Dal-Baffla recipe, one of my favourite which has been given in detail by Satarupa. I love this dish primarily because of my weakness for any Desi Ghee preparation. I remember having Dal- Baffla picnics at rural farms and villages outside Gwalior. Needless to say I do stand at the border of raised cholesterol.

Dal – Baffla is a delicious and nutritious winter delicacy comes from the heart of Madhya Pradesh. It is prepared by the rich and the poor alike on special occasions like marriages, birth and festivals.

Dal
200 gm mung dal
Salt to taste
½ teaspoon turmeric
500 ml water
1 ½ tablespoon ghee or refined oil
½ teaspoon ginger paste
½ teaspoon garlic paste
2 green chillies chopped
½ teaspoon garam masala powder
A handful of chopped coriander leaves

Baffla
250 gm atta
500 gm gram flour
100 gm ghee

Dal
Wash the dal and pressure cook with salt, turmeric and water for five minutes.
Heat the ghee in a frying pan. Season with cumin seeds and asafoetida. Once they stop spluttering add the ginger garlic paste green chilli and fry till light brown. Add the garam masala and pour in the boiled dal. Cook for five minutes. Garnish with coriander leaves.

Baffla
Rub the atta with the ghee and prepare a dough with water. It should be neither hard nor a soft dough.

Boil sufficient water and immerse the balls and simmer for fifteen to twenty minutes. When the boils crack slightly on top and float to the surface, take out with a perforated spoon. Drain water completely.

Bake the balls in preheated oven to one hundred and fifty degrees centigrade till light brown. Pour a little extra ghee on each baffla and serve with dal

Quoting Satarupa, ‘The subject is vast. I have attempted only a few. All the courses of a full menu can be created using only Dal and Chawal. Happy Cooking.’

Dal-Chawal
Author – Satarupa Banerjee
Publisher – Vasan Publications, Bangalore – 53
www.mastermindbooks.com
First Edition 2002