Land of Lime

The blurb on the Outlook cover proclaims:

1857: The Untold story. William Dalrymple shares new facts and perspsectives on the 1857 Mutiny, revealed in his forthcoming book The Last Mughal.

Perhaps, the Outlook editors are responsible for the exaggerated headline along with the unattributed sidebar story, which lists Dalrymple’s historiographic revisions. Perhaps Dalrymple himself supplied the main points. But I do want to ask the following process questions to the editors of Outlook:

How do you approach (or edit) an essay such as Dalrymple’s? Do you endorse his position on the Mutiny or would you claim this is Dalrymple’s argument for which Outlook isn’t responsible? It is perfectly legitimate to publish an essay that is provocative and controversial but with the blurb that you have on the cover, do you not run the risk of endorsing Dalrymple’s position? More importantly, what is your process for ‘argument’ verification and fact checking?

Hence I ask about this particular essay: did you ask Dalrymple any questions on his factual claims? Did you get his essay reviewed by a 19^th century historian? In other words, how do you deal with factual inaccuracies and rhetorical excesses for which the author himself is responsible? Or does a well known author get a free pass?

[Also posted in Revise and Dissent]

William Dalrymple has a long essay on the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857 in the latest issue of Outlook, India’s leading news magazine. This essay is based on the third book in Dalrymple’s proposed quartet on Delhi: The Last Mughal, which will be published later this year. Bahadur Shah Zafar, the last Mughal emperor and Sepoy Mutiny of 1857 against the East India Company’s growing British Empire in India constitute the subject of this book. Dalrympe’s earlier books on Delhi, The City of Djinns and the White Mughals were widely acclaimed.

William Dalrymple’s revisionary essay begins with a fairly long description of of William Howard Russell, the Times Correspondent, who reported from Delhi in 1858. I am puzzled since Dalrymple’s goal is to provide an Indian perspective on the Rising but I struggle to find a single direct quote of an Indian actor. Dalrymple claims that he is offering a new account of the mutiny from an Indian perspective for the first time using previously unaccessed sources. After reading the essay, I am left with three questions on sources, actors and the narrative itself:

What number is ‘Some’? Where are the Indian actors in this account? What is new in Dalrymple’s account?

Dalrymple’s central claim is that his account is based on previously unused sources, which would enable him to write the history of the Mutiny from the perspective of Indians. One can only point towards the rich historical, literary, oral and visual narratives produced from 1858 onwards in English and Indian languages by Indians themselves. I am not a historian of the 19^th century nor do I know particularly well the sources on Sepoy Mutiny in any language. So I will leave it to the experts to raise questions on what even to a generalist appear to be exaggerated claims. Yet I have the sneaking suspicion that Dalrymple needs to hit the library before making such a sweeping claim.

Consider this paragraph:

The Great Mutiny has usually been told by the Marxist historians of the 1960s and 1970s primarily as the rising against British economic policies. Over the last three years, however, my colleague Mahmoud Farooqi has been translating some of the 20,000 Urdu and Persian documents, many previously unaccessed, that we have found in the Mutiny Papers section of the National Archives of India. This has allowed the Rising in Delhi to be seen from a properly Indian perspective, and not just from the British sources which to date it has usually been viewed.

I am not sure whether this is a fair characterization of the Marxist argument. But let us leave that aside for the moment and focus on Dalrymple’s own alternative framework: to see Sepoy Mutiny as a religious conflict, which is neither new nor particularly insightful. What of his claim that one quarter of the rebels in Delhi were jehadis, fighting to defend their faith? Is this a fact and if so, what is this claim based on?

But more generally I want to raise some questions on these previously unaccessed sources that Dalrymple refers to? If they are present in the National Archives, aren’t they all either British court documents or testimony collected by the Colonial state, even if they include testimony by the ‘natives’? I do not want to be a nitpicking historian, especially because I share Dalrymple’s passion and commitment to write histories of significant historical moments and the human drama for a general audience.

What I find troubling is the disingenuous use of the nature of historical argument and the appeal to sources. Consider phrases such as ‘previously unaccessed’ and ‘properly Indian perspective’ which are deployed strategically to make historical critique. While the qualifiers such as ‘some of the’ and ‘usually been viewed’ would offer plausible escape paths, questions still persist in our mind. If Farooqi is translating some of the 20,000 Urdu and Persian documents, which offer an Indian perspective, what number is ‘some’? Is it 500 or 18,000? Does Dalrymple sahib himself read any of these Persian and Urdu documents or does he rely on Farooqi? If he does, then who is actually doing the archival work that underwrites the revisionism here? Who is determining what sources and stories are valuable? These are not trivial questions if Dalrymple claims to offer new facts and perspectives on the Mutiny.

Dalrytmple is a compelling story teller and a gifted writer. As we noted above, we share his commitment to narrate the human element in these dramatic stories, and incorporate the multiple personal and the street level stories. But does Dalrymple himself practice what he preaches? In the Outlook essay, we don’t find too many ‘Indian’ quotes from the Mutiny papers. Even as we search in vain for a new perspective on the Rising, the historian in us uneasily reverts back to this testimony of a 19 year old English soldier as an instance of Dalyrmple’s problematic approach:

“In one mohalla alone, Kucha Chelan, some 1,400 Delhiwallahs were cut down. “The order went out to shoot every soul,” recorded Edward Vibart, a newly orphaned 19 year old subaltern. … “It was literally murder …. I have seen many bloody and awful sight lately but such a one as I witnessed yesterday I pray I never see again. The women were all spared but their screams, on seeing their husbands and sons butchered, were most painful … Heaven knows I feel no pity, but when some old grey bearded man is brought and shot before your very eyes, hard must be that man’s heart I think who can look with indifference….”

Dalrymple does choose a good quote to bring out the drama of human tragedy. But let us ask some questions nevertheless. Did he consider he is quoting a 19 year old boy, who had probably just gotten to India? What life has this boy seen and further, does his youth compromise force of his testimony, especially if you can find either a 39 year old British soldier (would he be a Colonel by then) or even better, the testimony of a victim? Surely, Dalrymple could find a single quote from among the 20,000 documents to bring out this drama?

A good historian would at least ask these questions, for history writing is a humbling task. As historians, we constantly choose sources and pick actors that we find appealing, even as we make claims of producing historical knowledge. In Dalrymple’s case, we probably need to read the whole book and not rely merely on the essay or on the bullet points in the unattributed side-bar story. As much as we admire Dalrymple, there are times when his generalizations are not supported by his analysis. That proves to be an unnecessary distraction. He would do well to consider some one like Simon Schama as a role model.

1. A balmy Bangalore is such a nice contrast from Delhi. As I step out of the airport, three citibank credit card hawkers approach me, separately. They stand fifty yards away from each other and are seeking to sign up people coming out of the airport. Quite exasperated at the marketing genius who came up with this great way of reaching potential customers, I gently asked the third hawker: have you no sense of place and occasion? Do you think, even if I want to, I would accept your offer. Do you think any of the people who you approach here want to even talk to you? He had a quick, ready made answer: Sir, all we need is your boarding pass and you will get a credit card. I quietly continued my march through eager taxi drivers in search of an autorickshaw.

2. On the Outer Ring (Sarjapur) road, from inside an autorickshaw, I see this sight. After you read, you supply the appropriate adjective. An auto driver is peeing against the compound wall on the other side of the street in full view of all people. He is standing ten feet behind his parked autorickshaw. Inside two women are sitting. His only concern is not to be seen by them since they, being his customers, are his main concern and he needs to be behind them. Rest of the world be damned. I must say I admired his sense of propriety.

Prakash, I would rather not pictorially describe such phenomena but I will post some photographs from southern Karnataka over the next few weeks.

My first morning back in Delhi, I set out to Pataudi House in Daryaganj. Even after the first pre-monsoon shower the previous day and many years of living in Delhi, I still have to get used to a Delhi summer day. The hot air hits one upon disembarking a plane or train. So do many odours, especially the smell of history. Delhi perhaps has more monuments and places of historical significance per square mile than any other city. But Delhi is more than the physical remains of this past. For the discerning, even the air is suffused with stories of the past.

Take Pataudi House, for instance. Pataudi is a small kingdom in the present day north Indian state of Haryana, which was ruled by Nawabs most recently under the British rule. The last two Nawabs of Pataudi were glorious cricketers. The father, Ifthikar Ali Khan Pataudi, played Test cricket for both England and India. The son, Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi, was a dashing cricketer, daring captain and generally, a romantic figure in Indian cricket. His incredible story of losing an eye in an accident and playing much of his cricket after this event is the lore of legends. So this tiny kingdom has prestige and fame disproportional to its size or political significance.

As I walk in the bylanes of Daryaganj in search of Pataudi House, I have no knowledge of its association with the state of Pataudi or its Nawabs. In the early twentieth century, all the major princely states of British India built palatial and majestic palaces in Lutyens Delhi. The size and grandeur of these palaces, invariably named after the states themselves, only matched the ego and vision of grandeur that the then king of the state entertained. Baroda House. Bikaner House. Hyderabad House. Examples are endless and all of them suggestive of the presence of entire subcontinent in the city of Delhi.

But I am in old Delhi, steps away from Jama Masjid and the Red Fort, religious and political centers of Islamic north India. This is densely populated and highly congested area. My goal is to find Farid publishing house and buy somewhat appropriately, books for Sepoy on the earliest Muslim invader of South Asia, Muhammad Bin Qasim, who is another young dashing historical hero. It isn’t clear to me whether I am looking for a big palace or an area which has been named after the state of Patuadi. As I walk around in the narrowest of bylanes and ask people directions, my questions still remained unanswered. Eventually I find the book store, buy the books I need and

I wish I could offer you a micro-history of Patuadi House. Let me blame Jet lag and Delhi summer as my excuses, since I found myself unable to ask even the elementary questions. Speaking of summers, I have often wondered what made any sane human being, especially some of the most powerful in human history, to choose to endure Delhi summers. Let me hazard an explanation. The questions of the historian in me had become casualties of Delhi summer. Does summer sap the energies of even the most radical of dissenters? Is that why Delhi has been the center of political power for a long time.

Let us think of rebels, ranging from medieval Sufi mystics to recent radical political activists who questioned political authority in Delhi. Did their radicalism manifest itself only during winter months?

Yesterday, over 450,000 young men and women appeared for the Second Division Clerk exams. Only 700 of these candidates will have the privilege of serving us as clerks in in various Government Departments.

The number of aspirants for anything - be it for admission to  medical or engineering colleges or business schools or for various administrative positions with the government - is mindboggling. Let us remind ourselves of these numbers before waxly eloquently on the new India and its opportunities.

Norman Hubbard confirms my gut insight: Togo are the story of the World Cup. They crashed out today and let France advance, with their first victory in eight years.

Lots of good matchups in the knockout stage that begins tomorrow. Germany - Sweden. Portugal - Netherlands. Italy - Australia. Brazil - Ghana. France - Spain. Now the fun begins.