Brilliant interpretation

On China by Henry Kissinger; Penguin Books; Price: Rs.899; 586 pp

All right thinking citizens who genuinely care about the development and survival of the world’s most populous and chaotic democracy need to read — indeed study — this insufficiently acclaimed history of the world’s most populous nation, which after a century of humiliation and subjugation when its fortunes touched rock bottom during the Opium Wars of the 19th  century, has once again assumed its position at the top of the global hierarchy of nations as the ‘Middle Kingdom’, an economic powerhouse and one of the world’s two superpowers.

The chief merit of this sweeping narrative which traces the growth and development of China under the Communist Party, is that it’s written by Dr. Henry Kissinger, the  scholar-statesman who led the dramatic American ‘opening up’ initiative of July 1971, when the Nixon administration took the historic decision to thaw Sino-American diplomatic relations deep-freezed since 1950-51, following the end of the Korean War in which the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the US fought a bloody conflict resulting in the bifurcation of the Korean peninsula.

With his intuitive grasp of diplomacy and balances of power, Kissinger engineered the Sino-American breakthrough 40 years ago, and has subsequently visited PRC over 50 times in official and unofficial capacities, meeting with the head of every Chinese administration including Mao, Zhou En Lai, Deng Xioping, Jiang Zemin, and Hu Jintao apart from numerous other highly-placed officials. This prolonged top-level connect with the rulers of modern China makes this astute political analyst, who was a powerful force in  American politics as national security advisor and secretary of state in the Nixon and Gerald Ford administrations in the mid-1970s uniquely qualified to interpret the much misunderstood PRC to the world.

Interestingly, the prologue of this seminal history of modern China begins with the Indo-China border war of 1962 in which the Indian Army suffered a humiliating defeat in the Himalayan passes of North-east India. India claimed that the McMohan Line imposed upon the then (1914) weak Chinese republic by way of an “unequal treaty” by the British, is the border between Chinese ruled Tibet and India. The PRC under chairman Mao claimed the limits of imperial 17-18th century China — well south of the MacMohan Line — as its border.

According to Kissinger, Mao informed his top military and political commanders that China had previously fought “one and a half wars” with India. The first, when the Tang dynasty (618-907) had sent troops to the rescue of an Indian kingdom under attack, and second when Timurlane from Chinese Mongolia sacked Delhi seven hundred years later. Now it was time to fight another “restrained and principled” half war to force India to “the negotiating table” to settle the border dispute once and for all, so that the two nations could enjoy a long period of peace again.

“in no other country is it conceivable that a modern leader would initiate a major national undertaking by invoking strategic principles from a millennium old event — nor that he could confidently expect his colleagues to understand the significance of his allusions. Yet China is singular. No other country can claim so long a continuous civilization, or such an intimate link to its ancient past and classical principles of strategy and statesmanship,” writes Kissinger, explaining the forces that have forged modern China.

This civilisational and national self-confidence which underpins Chinese society is in sharp contrast to the Indian republic, which despite its cultural and historical legacy, tends to look outwards for growth and development solutions. In Indian history there are numerous culturally resonant texts which detail the art of governance, statesmanship and justice dispensation, whose best principles could have been adapted and applied to the governance and management of India after independence was wrested, following a uniquely inventive and organic freedom movement deeply rooted in the subcontinent’s history and culture.

Instead, the leadership of the ready-to-go free India was ill-advisedly presented on a platter to Master Joe (as Jawaharlal Nehru was known at Harrow and Cambridge University, where he was an aristocratic dilettante), who chose to impose imported Westminster style democracy, without any reference to ancient India’s village panchayat raj traditions. Western democracy was combined with Soviet-style state-dominated central planning, the polar opposite of India’s rich private enterprise-driven mercantile traditions. Instead of reviving pre-independence India’s legendary trading traditions and encouraging businessmen who established flourishing textile, steel and other industries despite every discouragement by the British Raj, Master Joe — who had never held a job in his life except the very top one — decreed the promotion of massive, capital-intensive public sector enterprises managed by neo-literate clerks and low-calibre technicians with a mandate to capture the commanding heights of the Indian economy. Unsurprisingly, the country’s 12 million-strong bureaucracy has morphed into a giant kleptocracy while state owned enterprises despite gobbling huge resources, have been a resounding flop.

But perhaps the unkindest cut which Master Joe — whose rule (1947-64) was not entirely without merit — inflicted upon independent India was the imposition of dynasty upon the hapless republic. Since then the country has experienced the rule of four scions of the Nehru-Gandhi clan, all of whom have leapfrogged into the top job without any worthwhile work or vocational experience, transforming this high-potential nation which could have been an inspiration to the newly-emergent third world countries into a sanctimonious laughing-stock.

True, under the often whimsical and arbitrary rule of chairman Mao (1949-76), PRC also made many wrong turns. The ravages of the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution left the country in tatters, and an estimated 40 million people died in one of the worst famines in global history. But as detailed in this intelligent and lucid history of China and its emergence onto the global stage as a superpower, the Communist Party always managed to produce leaders who learned from the mistakes of the past, repaired the damage and put the nation back on the development fast-track.

This book of great erudition and insight is strongly recommended to academics, foreign policy pundits, and media mavens who need to grow out of reckless demonisation of our neighbour nation which — and this is a bitter pill to swallow — has recaptured its historic position as the Middle Kingdom, while equally high-potential India flounders in shallows and misery.

Dilip Thakore  
       
Poet before his time 

The Fakir by Sunil Gangopadhyay; Translated from Bengali by Monabi Mitra; Harper Perennial; Price: Rs.199; 186 pp

Indian history is replete with stories of iconoclastic rebels who, refusing to be bound by strictures and prejudices of religious orthodoxy, bravely denounced entrenched social conventions in their quest for spiritual transcendence and social equality. One such individual was the late 19th century Bengali poet-rebel Lalan Fakir.

Little is known about Lalan outside Bengal, for all the poems he penned were in his native Bengali. This thoroughly inspiring book — a translation of the Bengali original — is a gripping account of Lalan Fakir’s life, presenting him not as a world-renouncing mystic or champion of religious syncretism, but as a deeply-committed social critic and crusader against injustice. Although written in the form of a novel, with sections that are clearly fictionalised — historical details of Lalan’s life being scarce and still heavily contested — it evocatively highlights significant aspects of Lalan’s eventful life.

Born into a poor Hindu family, Lalan, named Lal Mohan Kar at birth, experienced a sudden transformation in his life when he accompanied a landlord on a pilgrimage to the Ganga. Falling ill, he was given up for dead by his fellow travellers. A symbolic cremation was arranged and his body was readied for the river. But unknown to the landlord and Lalan’s own family, he somehow survived and was rescued by a poor Muslim woman, who nursed him back to health.

In her home he meets a wandering dervish, whose enigmatic presence has a powerful impact on him. Although born a Muslim, the dervish preaches an ethical spiritualism that transcends religious boundaries. Lalan’s chance meeting with this man prompts him to follow his example in seeking to bring Hindus and Muslims to accept their common humanity, and the futility of communal strife legitimised by their differing understanding of divinity.

A major turning path in Lalan’s life occurs when he returns to his home after his recovery. He is treated like an outcaste by his family for breaking bread with a Muslim woman even though she had rescued him from a near-death experience. That constitutes the final break for Lalan with society and organised religion, which he gives up for good. Disillusioned, he wanders off into the forest, with the intent of abandoning the world in search of truth.

Lalan, who is now a fakir — neither Hindu nor Muslim, but an individual who has transcended religious labels — gathers around him a sizeable cast of disciples. These are men and women of low and high caste, of Hindu as well as Muslim backgrounds, who have fled into the forest seeking refuge from domestic abuse and the oppression of priests and landlords. Together, they form a commune, leading simple, spiritually enriched lives, with Lalan as their source of inspiration. Central to Lalan’s charisma is his mellifluous poetry, which he and his comrades eloquently sing and emote. (Lalan’s poems are still hugely popular in West Bengal and Bangladesh, treasured masterpieces of the immensely rich Bengali literary tradition. Sadly the book contains only a few snatches of his verses).

Unfortunately the evil banalities of the world catch up with Lalan and his associates. They are rudely confronted by agents of a local landlord who demand that they vacate their huts. The forest, they are told, now belongs to the landlord. The society that Lalan and his friends rebelled against and fled from, seems bent on exacting revenge. Lalan is whisked off to meet the landlord. However, on hearing his poetry, he is so moved by its truth and beauty that he is driven to contrition. The power of Lalan’s love conquers the man, and the commune is saved.

The fakir, and related baul tradition now struggles to survive in Bengal, mainly among low-caste Muslims and Hindus, and has to contend with charges of ‘superstition’ and ‘heresy’, while being targeted by modernists and orthodox religious revivalists. But Lalan’s message of universal love, his humanist interpretation of religion, and his forthright criticism of communal hatred and supremacism in the name of God, which the narrative sensitively recounts, remain as relevant today as they were in his time — which makes this book a rewarding read.

Yoginder Sikand