Prayer from the Atharva Veda --on freedom from fear

As Heaven and Earth are not afraid, and never suffer loss or
harm,
Even so, my spirit, do not fear.
As Day and Night are not afraid, nor ever suffer loss or harm,
Even so, my spirit, do not fear.
As Sun and Moon are not afraid, nor ever suffer loss or harm.
Even so, my spirit, do not fear.
As Brahmanhood and Princely Power fear not, nor suffer loss,
or harm,
Even so, my spirit, do not fear.
As Truth and Falsehood have no fear, nor ever suffer loss or
harm,
Even so, my spirit, do not fear.
As What Has Been and What Shall Be, fear not, nor suffer loss
or harm,
Even so, my spirit, do not fear.

Prayer from the Rig Veda

1. THERE are the Dawn and Night, the grand and beauteous Pair,
Earth, Heaven, and Varuna, Mitra, and Aryaman.
Indra I call, the Maruts, Mountains, and the Floods, Adityas, Heaven
and Earth, the Waters, and the Sky.
2 May Dyaus and Prthivi, wise, true to Holy Law, keep us in safety
from distress and injury.
Let not malignant Nirrti rule over us. We crave to-day this gracious
favour of the Gods.
3 Mother of Mitra and of opulent Varuna, may Aditi preserve us safe
from all distress.
May we obtain the light of heaven without a foe. We crave this
gracious favour of the Gods to-day.
[10.36.1-3; trans. Griffith]

Nakusha--the unwanted girl

Nakusha sounds like a pretty name, but it means 'unwanted'. Many in rural Maharashtra name their unwanted girl-child 'Nakusha'. Its better than killing them at birth, but still it is a reminder to the girl throughout her life, that she was not wanted, that a boy was what the parents were waiting for.
In Satara district of Maharashtra state, 226 Nakushas were identified, and in a joint move of the zila parishad [district council]and a welfare organization, and with the permission of the parents, were renamed Aishwarya.

Restoration of a mosque by a Hindu king

It is interesting to note that most kings and rulers of the past considered it their duty to protect the religious monuments and the people of all communities. The Dharma Shastras, the ancient law books, stated that it was the duty of the king to protect his subjects. Thus the Manu Smriti says: ‘The lord created the king for the protection of all.’ (Manu Smriti, 7.3).
One such incident is revealed in the work of the medieval (twelfth-thirteenth century) historian Muhammad Awfi. According to him , when he went to stay in Khambayat (modern Khambat) located on the sea-coast in Gujarat, he lived with a community of Muslims, among whom were a large number of foreigners, mainly traders and merchants, from different lands. Awfi records that this Muslim community lived in perfect harmony with their non-Muslim neighbours, but they told him about some trouble they had had in the past.
Khambayat was part of a kingdom with its capital at Nahrwala (also known as Anhilwara, modern Patan). Muslims, Hindus and Zoroastrians lived in Khambayat. In the time of Raja Jai Singh (probably the powerful twelfth century Chalukya ruler Jayasimha) the Muslims constructed a new mosque in the region. Awfi states that some Zoroastrians instigated the Hindus in the region to attack the mosque. Local Hindus then set fire to the mosque, and killed 80 Muslims in the vicinity. Ali, the khatib of the mosque, went to Nahrwala to complain to the Rai (Raja Jai Singh), but the Rai’s courtiers did not give him access to the ruler. The khatib then sat under a tree along the route the rai was to take for a hunting expedition. As the rai approached on his royal elephant, the khatib manged to reach him, and begged the Rai to listen to his story. The khatib had composed his story in Hindvi verse, and narrated all that had happened to the Rai.
The Rai listened carefully. He forgot about his hunting expedition. He first asked one of his courtiers to take care of the needs of the khatib, until he summoned the latter to court. Then returning to the court, he left everything in the hands of his vazir, and told him he would be away for some time. The daily darbar too, was suspended.
The rai selected a camel, and set off for Khambayat. In one night and day, he managed to cover 40 farsangs (80 miles) and reached his destination. There, disguised as a merchant, he entered the city in the evening. Moving through the markets, in the course of conversation, he enquired about the Muslims and the mosque, and came to know that the khatib’s story was true. Then the Rai filled a vessel with sea-water and returned to his capital. The next day the darbar was held, and the khatib was called to narrate his story. A group of non-Muslims began to dispute the story. Then the rai asked for the vessel of water to be brought, and asked the people there to taste it. As they did so, they realised from its brackish nature that it was sea-water, and that the Rai himself must have gor it from Khambayat. Then the Rai said: ‘ Since the dispute took place between people who belonged to different religions, I could not trust any person for investigations, and therefore I myself enquired into the case. The Muslims have been subjected to tyranny and killed mercilessly. How could people who reside in my country and have been granted full security, be oppressed.’ He then ordered that the leaders of the castes involved in the demolition and killing be punished, and that a hundred thousand balutras (type of coin) be paid for restoration of the mosque.
This is not a unique case. There are other instances of Hindu kings protecting their Muslim subjects, and of Muslim kings protecting non-Muslim subjects and their religious monuments. For instance, during the time of the Mughal emperor Shah Alam II, Sikhs were allowed to build shrines at historic sites in Delhi, and granted Rs. 300,000 for this purpose, even though construction at one of the sites involved the demolition of a mosque that had been built there. At the time of Partition, the nawab of Bahawalpur made attempts to protect his Hindu subjects, though owing to the general frenzy, he could not quite succeed.
[Awfi’s account is based on the translation of I.H. Siddiqui].
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Swami Nigamananda –a fast unto death or a murder?

Swami Nigamananda died in June after beginning a fast on 19 February 2011 against illegal quarrying in the Ganga river bed. He fasted peacefully in Hardwar until April 27, when, as his health deteriorated, he was moved to the district hospital. There he slipped into a coma. He was then shifted to the Himalayan Institute Hospital near Dehradun. Baba Ramdev was hospitalised there at the same time, in the media glare, whereas Swami Nigamananda was hardly noticed. After Nigamananda’s death, presumably from his extended fast, his followers accused a doctor in the district hospital of giving him an injection which led him to slip into a coma. This was evidently done at the behest of a quarry crusher unit, that would have faced financial losses if the illegal quarrying was stopped.
There seems to have been enough substance in their charges for the CBI to take over the investigation. Now a case has been filed against a doctor and a quarry crusher owner. Will the truth ever be known? Will the illegal quarrying ever stop? Can any version of the Lokpal Bill help in such cases?

Shrine Considered to be the Last Home of the Blessed Virgin | Trifter

Shrine Considered to be the Last Home of the Blessed Virgin | Trifter

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Full text: Government's Lokpal Bill draft - Documents News - IBNLive

Full text: Government's Lokpal Bill draft - Documents News - IBNLive

Full text: Civil society's Lokpal Bill draft - Documents News - IBNLive

Full text: Civil society's Lokpal Bill draft - Documents News - IBNLive

Life 46 - Lives of Alcyone

Life 46 - Lives of Alcyone
--------------
Lives of Alcyone, by Charles W Leadbeater, deals with what he believed were the former lives of J Krishnamurti [Alcyone]. This interesting life is on Zarathushtra. Is it all Leadbeater's imagination? One cannot really say.

A prayer for health from the Atharva Veda

May I have voice in my mouth, breath in my nostrils, sight in
mine eyes, hearing in mine ears, hair that has not turned
gray, teeth free from yellowness, and much strength in my
arms.
May I have power in my thighs, swiftness in my legs, steadfast-
ness in my feet. May all my limbs be uninjured and my
soul unimpaired.

Life and death

'It matters little to these countless beings which are continually being born only to be destroyed, whether the noble and kind-hearted grieve or delight over their fate. The widespread illusion called samsara [world or worldliness] is an arena for incessant births and incessant deaths. Neither exhilaration nor bemoaning is called for from any quarter.'
Yoga Vasishtha, 14.34-35, trans. by Swami Bhoomananda Tirtha

Were the Harappans Akkadians?

Malati J Shendge, in her book, The Language of the Harappans from Akkadian to Sanskrit, and in other works, claims that the Harappans were Akkadians, and were those described in the Rig Veda as asuras, rakshas, pishachas etc, but particularly asuras.
She finds correspondences between Sanskrit and Akkadian, and explains names of the Rig vedic rishis through the languages of Sumer and Akkad. She says the Harappans may have been multi-lingual, but their dominant language was Akkadian and they were migrants from the Tigris-Euphrates region.
This is a different twist to the whole question of the identity of the people of the Harappan civilisation, and their relationship with the Vedic people [the so-called Indo-aryans]. As far as I know, this theory has few supporters.

Brother Lawrence

[ born Nicolas Herman in 1614 in France, d.1691.]
At the age of 18 he had a sudden cosmic intuition of the grandeur and presence of God. One day in winter while looking at a tree stripped of its leaves, he realised that in a little while its leaves would reappear, followed by its flowers and fruit. This gave him a profound insight into God's providence, that was never erased from his soul, and was not surpassed throughout his life. This was the beginning of his life-long association with God. He later joined a Carmelite monastery as a lay brother, and worked mainly in the kitchen. There was an aura of peace about him, which led people to come and meet him. His conversations and letters were later compiled into a book, The Practice of the Presence of God.
Even while performing ordinary tasks, he said, ‘I began to live as if there was no one but God and me in this world.’

Tranquilty

'Tranquility of the mind does not come through discipline, through control, through subjugation, but only when the problems, which are the projections of oneself, are completely understood.'
J Krishnamurti, 1950.

India: Languages

Twenty-two languages are officially recognised in India in addition to English. Apart from this there are numerous dialects and the 1961 census (which had extra details) listed 1,652 languages used as mother tongues in India. Of these, thirty-three are spoken by over one lakh [100,000] people.
At the time of independence, Hindi in Devanagari script was recognised as the official language of India, with English being recognised as the authoritative legislative and judicial language. Regional languages were recognised as the official languages of the states. The Eighth Schedule was added to the constitution which listed recognised languages. These were: (1) Assamese; (2) Bengali; (3) Gujarati; (4) Hindi; (5) Kannada; (6) Kashmiri; (7) Malayalam; (8) Marathi; (9) Oriya; (10) Punjabi; (11) Sanskrit; (12) Tamil; (13) Telugu (14) Urdu. In 1967 the Twenty-first amendment to the constitution added the Sindhi language to the list.
In 1992, Konkani, Manipuri and Nepali were added to these, by the seventy-seventh amendment to the constitution; bringing the total up to eighteen. In 2003 the 92nd constitutional amendment added four more languages: Bodo, Maithili. Dogri and Santali.
Other languages spoken by over one million people are i, Gondi, Bhili/Bhilodi, Kurukh/Oraon, Tulu and Ho.
The languages and dialects of India, can be classified into four main language groups. These are Indo-Aryan, Dravidian, Austro-Asiatic or Austric and Sino-Tibetan/Tibeto Burman. There are also some languages of other languages families, spoken by small groups. Of the languages mentioned above, the following are Indo-Aryan: Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Kashmiri, Marathi, Oriya, Punjabi, Sanskrit, Sindhi, Urdu, Konkani, Nepali and Dogri. This is the largest language group in India and accounts for 74 per cent of the Population.
Dravidian languages include Kannada, Malayalam, Tamil, Telugu, Tulu, Kurukh/Oraon and Gondi. Manipuri is a Sino-Tibetan language, whereas Santali and Ho belong to the Austro-Asiatic group.

India: States and union territories

Population: 1.210 million in 2011.
This is the second largest population in the world.
India is a parliamentary democracy. Based on population, it is the largest democracy in the world.
India has a federal government with a unitary bias. While the central or union government has certain exclusive powers, the states can also formulate laws and policies on several subjects.
The capital of India, and the seat of the union government is New Delhi.
There are twenty-eight states and seven union territories. These are:

States
1. Andhra Pradesh
2. Arunachal Pradesh
3. Assam
4. Bihar
5. Chhatisgarh
6. Goa
7. Gujarat
8. Haryana
9. Himachal Pradesh
10. Jammu and Kashmir
11. Jharkhand
12. Karnataka
13. Kerala
14. Madhya Pradesh
15. Maharashtra
16. Manipur
17. Meghalaya
18. Mizoram
19. Nagaland
20. Orissa
21. Punjab
22. Rajasthan
23. Sikkim
24. Tamil Nadu
25. Tripura
26. Uttar Pradesh
27. Uttaranchal
28. West Bengal

Union territories:
1. Delhi (National Capital Territory)
2. Andaman and Nicobar Islands
3. Chandigarh
4. Dadra and Nagar Haveli
5. Daman and Diu
6. Lakshadweep
7. Pondicherry

Vertical Limit: A film on an expedition to K2

A review of the movie
-
A movie that clearly shows how mountaineering has changed. Made in the year 2000 by Martin Campbell, the movie tells the story of an expedition to K2, a Himalayan peak, the second highest and one of the most treacherous mountains in the world.
At the base camp, Peter Garrett, a photographer, meets his sister Annie who has joined the expedition led by Elliot Vaughn. Vaughn, a rich industrialist, wants to reach the peak, at a particular time and date. He is launching an airline and plans to be on the summit when the first flight of his new airline passes overhead. As he waves from the peak at the aircraft, a photoshoot will ensure great publicity.
In earlier times every mountaineer approached a mountain with reverence. Before an expedition, he trained hard, refrained from smoking and drinking, and tried to be totally fit. This movie depicts how commercialisation has overtaken mountaineering. Before the expedition there is a late night party at base camp. There is drinking and dancing, instead of preparation for the great day.
The expedition starts well, but then a storm threatens. Vaughn is warned through communication with base camp. Tom Mclaren, the nominal leader of the expedition, wants to turn back, but Vaughn refuses. The weather gets worse, and three of the summitteers, Annie, Vaughn and Tom are swept into a crevice. They are alive, but trapped. They others seem to have died.
With new technology now available, even those in the crevice can be in touch with base camp. Peter learns that his sister Annie is alive, and is desperate to rescue her. Peter, once a mountaineer, stopped climbing after an accident on a mountain, in which his father died. Though there was nothing he could have done to save him, he felt responsible. Now he asks for volunteers to rescue the trapped summitteers, which everyone knows is almost a suicide mission. They obtain nitroglycerin from the Pakistan army camp, in case they need to blast the rocks. Peter and five others set off in pairs. An interesting character, Montgomery Wick, is part the rescue mission. Wick has lived on the mountain ever since his wife died in a previous expedition with Vaughn. He believes Vaughn is responsible for her death.
As the rescue mission proceeds, there are many climbing scenes with most of them gasping for breath. One wonders why, with all the technology available, they are not using oxygen? Was it too much to carry, as they were already carrying nitroglycerin? But even the trapped summitteers don’t seem to have any oxygen.
Wick finds his dead wife, frozen in a standing position. The find confirms his suspicion that Vaughn was responsible for her death. With her is an empty case of dexmethasone that climbers these days use in extreme situations. Vaughn had claimed they had none. Now he shows he’s a real murderer as in the crevice he kills the injured Tom, to give himself a better chance to survive.
In the end Peter brings his sister Annie back safely. Wick had planned to kill Vaughn, but finds himself unable to do so. Peter, he and Vaughn are roped together, and are being pulled out of the crevice, but with an impending disaster, he cuts the rope above him, enabling Peter to survive, while he and Vaughn plunge to their death. Annie has already been pulled up. Monique is the other survivor of the rescue team.
The film was a box office hit, yet it raises so many questions. To save Annie, four more people died, was it worth it? Weren’t their lives as precious? It also shows the deterioration of mountaineering as a great sport, the lack of repect for nature, and for the mountains.

Holi, A festival of colours

This year, 2011, Holi is on 20 March.
Every year there are interesting notices and items in the newspaper in the days before Holi. There are recipes for gujiyas, thandai and other delicious eats, offers of discounts on various goods, special Holi menus in restaurants, as well as notices from government departments. On the TV there are clips from old films, featuring Holi songs.
This year in the newspapers, we have, from the Department of Environment and Forests 'Say Happy Herbal Holi', with instructions below on making colours from plants and flowers.
From the Delhi police we have two, which give one an idea of how Holi is celebrated in the city.
One notice says:
'Respect the feelings of others while celebrating the festival of colours.
Don't play colours with unwilling persons.
Don't offend sensitivity of others.
Don't throw water or balloons on passers-by.
Don't throw dirt and chemicals on people.
Don't indulge in eve-teasing.
Don't drink and drive.'
Another notice is more ominous. It says:
'Celebrate Holi at home or behind bars: the choice is yours. Don't drink and drive. Drunken driving is punished with jail term, suspension of driving licence and fine.'
It goes on to give some statistics on numbers arrested and jailed this year, and says:
'Do Not:
Ride more than two on two-wheelers.
Ride without helmet.
Over speed.
Overcrowd in vehicles.
On Holi last year 5300 persons were challaned including 436 for drunken driving.' [a challan is a notice to pay a fine or appear in court].
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Below is an extract on legends associated with Holi, modified from my book, Religions of India.
Holi
A Hindu festival usually celebrated in March. It is a spring and harvest festival, more popular in north India, and is celebrated on two days, the first by lighting bonfires, and the second by throwing coloured water and dry powdered colour on one another. According to some astrological calculations, the Hindu new year starts two days after the Holi fire is lit.
Several legends are associated with the festival, the most popular being that of Holika. Holika was the sister of Hiranyakashipu, whose son Prahlad was devoted to the god Vishnu. She joined her brother in trying to kill Prahlad because of this devotion. She took Prahlad on her lap and entered a fire, as she believed she was beyond harm, but she was consumed by the fire, whereas Prahlad emerged unharmed because of his worship of Vishnu. Thus, the night before Holi, fires are lit, symbolising the burning of Holika and the triumph of good over evil.
Another legend links Holi with the defeat of Kama, the god of love, by Shiva, while according to another story it is a celebration of the marriage of Shiva and Parvati.
The festival has a special significance in Mathura, where Holi is celebrated for several days, and associated with the god Krishna. According to local tradition, Krishna used to throw spring flowers of different colours on the gopis, and thus the practice of throwing coloured water on one another, started. In this area, ‘Lath Mar’ Holi is also celebrated, where women attempt to hit men with sticks, thus establishing their dominance for at least one day in the year. In Barmer in Rajasthan, groups throw stones at each other, and in Meera Ghat in Varanasi, they attack each other with sticks. Wrestling and boxing matches also take place.
In rural areas Holi remains linked with the harvest, and the harvested sheaves are roasted and offered to deities. In some regions, Holi dances are performed.
Special delicacies are made on Holi. Malpua, a sweet of bread and sugar syrup, gujiya, another sweet, and papri, made of corn flour are popular in north India. In Maharashtra, puranpori, a kind of flat bread stuffed with sweet lentils is common, and in Gujarat, flat millet bread. Traditionally bhang, an intoxicant, is also used, leading at times to wild behaviour.
Holi is thus not only a spring festival, heralding spring with colour and song, but a time when conventions are broken, in a spirit of freedom.

The Buddha’s Bowl

One may compare Manimekhalai’s magic bowl, with the story of the Buddha’s bowl.
According to the Chinese pilgrim Fa Hsien, who was in India from 399-414 CE, a king of the Yeuh-shi [possibly Kanishka, the Kushana king of the first or second century CE] attempted to take the bowl away. But, no matter what he tried, the bowl would not leave the country.
‘The king knew that the time for an association between himself and the bowl had not yet arrived, and was sad and deeply ashamed with himself.’ He, therefore, built a stupa and a monastery where the bowl was kept. It was brought out at midday and in the evening. Fa-Hsien records : ‘Its thickness is about the fifth of an inch, and it has a bright and glossy lustre. When poor people throw into it a few flowers, it becomes immediately full, while some very rich people … might not stop till they had thrown in hundreds, thousands and myriads of bushels [of flowers] and yet would be unable to fill it.’

Macaulay: A fake passage, and the truth

A fake passage attributed to Macaulay has long been circulated on the internet, and despite many refutations, this continues. It is said to be his address to the British Parliament, but Macaulay was in India at the time. The date is actually of his minute on education. The full minute shows his negative thinking about India, and his belief in the superiority of Western culture and literature. Of course one disagrees with his views. But is that any reason to write a fake passage?
The fake passage is given below:
Lord Macaulay’s address to the British Parliament 2 February 1835
‘I have travelled across the length and breadth of the country of India and I have never seen one person who is a beggar, who is a thief. Such wealth I have seen in this country, such high moral values, people of such caliber, that I do not think we would ever conquer this country, unless we break the very backbone of this nation, which is her spiritual and cultural heritage, and therefore I propose that we replace her old and ancient education system, her culture, for if the Indians think that all that is foreign and English is good and greater than their own, they will lose their self esteem, their native culture, and will become what we want them, a truly dominated nation.’
-------------------------
The three most relevant passages of his minute are given here, the full text is attached below.
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Most relevant passages from Macaulay's Minute:
[10] I have no knowledge of either Sanscrit or
Arabic. But I have done what I could to form a correct
estimate of their value. I have read translations of
the most celebrated Arabic and Sanscrit works. I have
conversed, both here and at home, with men
distinguished by their proficiency in the Eastern
tongues. I am quite ready to take the oriental
learning at the valuation of the orientalists
themselves. I have never found one among them who
could deny that a single shelf of a good European
library was worth the whole native literature of India
and Arabia. The intrinsic superiority of the Western
literature is indeed fully admitted by those members
of the committee who support the oriental plan of
education.
[11] It will hardly be disputed, I suppose,
that the department of literature in which the Eastern
writers stand highest is poetry. And I certainly never
met with any orientalist who ventured to maintain that
the Arabic and Sanscrit poetry could be compared to
that of the great European nations. But when we pass
from works of imagination to works in which facts are
recorded and general principles investigated, the
superiority of the Europeans becomes absolutely
immeasurable. It is, I believe, no exaggeration to say
that all the historical information which has been
collected from all the books written in the Sanscrit
language is less valuable than what may be found in
the most paltry abridgments used at preparatory
schools in England. In every branch of physical or
moral philosophy, the relative position of the two
nations is nearly the same.
[12] How then stands the case? We have to
educate a people who cannot at present be educated by
means of their mother-tongue. We must teach them some
foreign language. The claims of our own language it is
hardly necessary to recapitulate. It stands
pre-eminent even among the languages of the West. It
abounds with works of imagination not inferior to the
noblest which Greece has bequeathed to us, --with
models of every species of eloquence, --with
historical composition, which, considered merely as
narratives, have seldom been surpassed, and which,
considered as vehicles of ethical and political
instruction, have never been equaled-- with just and
lively representations of human life and human nature,
--with the most profound speculations on metaphysics,
morals, government, jurisprudence, trade, --with full
and correct information respecting every experimental
science which tends to preserve the health, to
increase the comfort, or to expand the intellect of
man. Whoever knows that language has ready access to
all the vast intellectual wealth which all the wisest
nations of the earth have created and hoarded in the
course of ninety generations. It may safely be said
that the literature now extant in that language is of
greater value than all the literature which three
hundred years ago was extant in all the languages of
the world together. Nor is this all. In India, English
is the language spoken by the ruling class. It is
spoken by the higher class of natives at the seats of
Government. It is likely to become the language of
commerce throughout the seas of the East. It is the
language of two great European communities which are
rising, the one in the south of Africa, the other in
Australia, --communities which are every year becoming
more important and more closely connected with our
Indian empire. Whether we look at the intrinsic value
of our literature, or at the particular situation of
this country, we shall see the strongest reason to
think that, of all foreign tongues, the English tongue
is that which would be the most useful to our native
subjects.
-----------


Minute by the Hon'ble T. B. Macaulay, dated the 2nd
February 1835.

[1] As it seems to be the opinion of some of
the gentlemen who compose the Committee of Public
Instruction that the course which they have hitherto
pursued was strictly prescribed by the British
Parliament in 1813 and as, if that opinion be correct,
a legislative act will be necessary to warrant a
change, I have thought it right to refrain from taking
any part in the preparation of the adverse statements
which are.now before us, and to reserve what I had to
say on the subject till it should come before me as a
Member of the Council of India.
[2] It does not appear to me that the Act of
Parliament can by any art of contraction be made to
bear the meaning which has been assigned to it. It
contains nothing about the particular languages or
sciences which are to be studied. A sum is set apart
"for the revival and promotion of literature, and the
encouragement of the learned natives of India, and for
the introduction and promotion of a knowledge of the
sciences among the inhabitants of the British
territories." It is argued, or rather taken for
granted, that by literature the Parliament can have
meant only Arabic and Sanscrit literature; that they
never would have given the honourable appellation of
"a learned native" to a native who was familiar with
the poetry of Milton, the metaphysics of Locke, and
the physics of Newton; but that they meant to
designate by that name only such persons as might have
studied in the sacred books of the Hindoos all the
uses of cusa-grass, and all the mysteries of
absorption into the Deity. This does not appear to be
a very satisfactory interpretation. To take a parallel
case: Suppose that the Pacha of Egypt, a country once
superior in knowledge to the nations of Europe, but
now sunk far below them, were to appropriate a sum for
the purpose "of reviving and promoting literature, and
encouraging learned natives of Egypt," would any body
infer that he meant the youth of his Pachalik to give
years to the study of hieroglyphics, to search into
all the doctrines disguised under the fable of Osiris,
and to ascertain with all possible accuracy the ritual
with which cats and onions were anciently adored?
Would he be justly charged with inconsistency if,
instead of employing his young subjects in deciphering
obelisks, he were to order them to be instructed in
the English and French languages, and in all the
sciences to which those languages are the chief keys?
[3] The words on which the supporters of the
old system rely do not bear them out, and other words
follow which seem to be quite decisive on the other
side. This lakh of rupees is set apart not only for
"reviving literature in India," the phrase on which
their whole interpretation is founded, but also "for
the introduction and promotion of a knowledge of the
sciences among the inhabitants of the British
territories"-- words which are alone sufficient to
authorize all the changes for which I contend.
[4] If the Council agree in my construction no
legislative act will be necessary. If they differ from
me, I will propose a short act rescinding that I
clause of the Charter of 1813 from which the
difficulty arises.
[5] The argument which I have been considering
affects only the form of proceeding. But the admirers
of the oriental system of education have used another
argument, which, if we admit it to be valid, is
decisive against all change. They conceive that the
public faith is pledged to the present system, and
that to alter the appropriation of any of the funds
which have hitherto been spent in encouraging the
study of Arabic and Sanscrit would be downright
spoliation. It is not easy to understand by what
process of reasoning they can have arrived at this
conclusion. The grants which are made from the public
purse for the encouragement of literature differ in no
respect from the grants which are made from the same
purse for other objects of real or supposed utility.
We found a sanitarium on a spot which we suppose to be
healthy. Do we thereby pledge ourselves to keep a
sanitarium there if the result should not answer our
expectations? We commence the erection of a pier. Is
it a violation of the public faith to stop the works,
if we afterwards see reason to believe that the
building will be useless? The rights of property are
undoubtedly sacred. But nothing endangers those rights
so much as the practice, now unhappily too common, of
attributing them to things to which they do not
belong. Those who would impart to abuses the sanctity
of property are in truth imparting to the institution
of property the unpopularity and the fragility of
abuses. If the Government has given to any person a
formal assurance-- nay, if the Government has excited
in any person's mind a reasonable expectation-- that
he shall receive a certain income as a teacher or a
learner of Sanscrit or Arabic, I would respect that
person's pecuniary interests. I would rather err on
the side of liberality to individuals than suffer the
public faith to be called in question. But to talk of
a Government pledging itself to teach certain
languages and certain sciences, though those languages
may become useless, though those sciences may be
exploded, seems to me quite unmeaning. There is not a
single word in any public instrument from which it can
be inferred that the Indian Government ever intended
to give any pledge on this subject, or ever considered
the destination of these funds as unalterably fixed.
But, had it been otherwise, I should have denied the
competence of our predecessors to bind us by any
pledge on such a subject. Suppose that a Government
had in the last century enacted in the most solemn
manner that all its subjects should, to the end of
time, be inoculated for the small-pox, would that
Government be bound to persist in the practice after
Jenner's discovery? These promises of which nobody
claims the performance, and from which nobody can
grant a release, these vested rights which vest in
nobody, this property without proprietors, this
robbery which makes nobody poorer, may be comprehended
by persons of higher faculties than mine. I consider
this plea merely as a set form of words, regularly
used both in England and in India, in defence of every
abuse for which no other plea can be set up.
[6] I hold this lakh of rupees to be quite at
the disposal of the Governor-General in Council for
the purpose of promoting learning in India in any way
which may be thought most advisable. I hold his
Lordship to be quite as free to direct that it shall
no longer be employed in encouraging Arabic and
Sanscrit, as he is to direct that the reward for
killing tigers in Mysore shall be diminished, or that
no more public money shall be expended on the
chaunting at the cathedral.
[7] We now come to the gist of the matter. We
have a fund to be employed as Government shall direct
for the intellectual improvement of the people of this
country. The simple question is, what is the most
useful way of employing it?
[8] All parties seem to be agreed on one
point, that the dialects commonly spoken among the
natives of this part of India contain neither literary
nor scientific information, and are moreover so poor
and rude that, until they are enriched from some other
quarter, it will not be easy to translate any valuable
work into them. It seems to be admitted on all sides,
that the intellectual improvement of those classes of
the people who have the means of pursuing higher
studies can at present be affected only by means of
some language not vernacular amongst them.
[9] What then shall that language be? One-half
of the committee maintain that it should be the
English. The other half strongly recommend the Arabic
and Sanscrit. The whole question seems to me to be--
which language is the best worth knowing?
[10] I have no knowledge of either Sanscrit or
Arabic. But I have done what I could to form a correct
estimate of their value. I have read translations of
the most celebrated Arabic and Sanscrit works. I have
conversed, both here and at home, with men
distinguished by their proficiency in the Eastern
tongues. I am quite ready to take the oriental
learning at the valuation of the orientalists
themselves. I have never found one among them who
could deny that a single shelf of a good European
library was worth the whole native literature of India
and Arabia. The intrinsic superiority of the Western
literature is indeed fully admitted by those members
of the committee who support the oriental plan of
education.
[11] It will hardly be disputed, I suppose,
that the department of literature in which the Eastern
writers stand highest is poetry. And I certainly never
met with any orientalist who ventured to maintain that
the Arabic and Sanscrit poetry could be compared to
that of the great European nations. But when we pass
from works of imagination to works in which facts are
recorded and general principles investigated, the
superiority of the Europeans becomes absolutely
immeasurable. It is, I believe, no exaggeration to say
that all the historical information which has been
collected from all the books written in the Sanscrit
language is less valuable than what may be found in
the most paltry abridgments used at preparatory
schools in England. In every branch of physical or
moral philosophy, the relative position of the two
nations is nearly the same.
[12] How then stands the case? We have to
educate a people who cannot at present be educated by
means of their mother-tongue. We must teach them some
foreign language. The claims of our own language it is
hardly necessary to recapitulate. It stands
pre-eminent even among the languages of the West. It
abounds with works of imagination not inferior to the
noblest which Greece has bequeathed to us, --with
models of every species of eloquence, --with
historical composition, which, considered merely as
narratives, have seldom been surpassed, and which,
considered as vehicles of ethical and political
instruction, have never been equaled-- with just and
lively representations of human life and human nature,
--with the most profound speculations on metaphysics,
morals, government, jurisprudence, trade, --with full
and correct information respecting every experimental
science which tends to preserve the health, to
increase the comfort, or to expand the intellect of
man. Whoever knows that language has ready access to
all the vast intellectual wealth which all the wisest
nations of the earth have created and hoarded in the
course of ninety generations. It may safely be said
that the literature now extant in that language is of
greater value than all the literature which three
hundred years ago was extant in all the languages of
the world together. Nor is this all. In India, English
is the language spoken by the ruling class. It is
spoken by the higher class of natives at the seats of
Government. It is likely to become the language of
commerce throughout the seas of the East. It is the
language of two great European communities which are
rising, the one in the south of Africa, the other in
Australia, --communities which are every year becoming
more important and more closely connected with our
Indian empire. Whether we look at the intrinsic value
of our literature, or at the particular situation of
this country, we shall see the strongest reason to
think that, of all foreign tongues, the English tongue
is that which would be the most useful to our native
subjects.
[13] The question now before us is simply
whether, when it is in our power to teach this
language, we shall teach languages in which, by
universal confession, there are no books on any
subject which deserve to be compared to our own,
whether, when we can teach European science, we shall
teach systems which, by universal confession, wherever
they differ from those of Europe differ for the worse,
and whether, when we can patronize sound philosophy
and true history, we shall countenance, at the public
expense, medical doctrines which would disgrace an
English farrier, astronomy which would move laughter
in girls at an English boarding school, history
abounding with kings thirty feet high and reigns
thirty thousand years long, and geography made of seas
of treacle and seas of butter.
[14] We are not without experience to guide
us. History furnishes several analogous cases, and
they all teach the same lesson. There are, in modern
times, to go no further, two memorable instances of a
great impulse given to the mind of a whole society, of
prejudices overthrown, of knowledge diffused, of taste
purified, of arts and sciences planted in countries
which had recently been ignorant and barbarous.
[15] The first instance to which I refer is
the great revival of letters among the Western nations
at the close of the fifteenth and the beginning of the
sixteenth century. At that time almost everything that
was worth reading was contained in the writings of the
ancient Greeks and Romans. Had our ancestors acted as
the Committee of Public Instruction has hitherto
noted, had they neglected the language of Thucydides
and Plato, and the language of Cicero and Tacitus, had
they confined their attention to the old dialects of
our own island, had they printed nothing and taught
nothing at the universities but chronicles in
Anglo-Saxon and romances in Norman French, --would
England ever have been what she now is? What the Greek
and Latin were to the contemporaries of More and
Ascham, our tongue is to the people of India. The
literature of England is now more valuable than that
of classical antiquity. I doubt whether the Sanscrit
literature be as valuable as that of our Saxon and
Norman progenitors. In some departments-- in history
for example-- I am certain that it is much less so.
[16] Another instance may be said to be still
before our eyes. Within the last hundred and twenty
years, a nation which had previously been in a state
as barbarous as that in which our ancestors were
before the Crusades has gradually emerged from the
ignorance in which it was sunk, and has taken its
place among civilized communities. I speak of Russia.
There is now in that country a large educated class
abounding with persons fit to serve the State in the
highest functions, and in nowise inferior to the most
accomplished men who adorn the best circles of Paris
and London. There is reason to hope that this vast
empire which, in the time of our grandfathers, was
probably behind the Punjab, may in the time of our
grandchildren, be pressing close on France and Britain
in the career of improvement. And how was this change
effected? Not by flattering national prejudices; not
by feeding the mind of the young Muscovite with the
old women's stories which his rude fathers had
believed; not by filling his head with lying legends
about St. Nicholas; not by encouraging him to study
the great question, whether the world was or not
created on the 13th of September; not by calling him
"a learned native" when he had mastered all these
points of knowledge; but by teaching him those foreign
languages in which the greatest mass of information
had been laid up, and thus putting all that
information within his reach. The languages of western
Europe civilised Russia. I cannot doubt that they will
do for the Hindoo what they have done for the Tartar.
[17] And what are the arguments against that
course which seems to be alike recommended by theory
and by experience? It is said that we ought to secure
the co-operation of the native public, and that we can
do this only by teaching Sanscrit and Arabic.
[18] I can by no means admit that, when a
nation of high intellectual attainments undertakes to
superintend the education of a nation comparatively
ignorant, the learners are absolutely to prescribe the
course which is to be taken by the teachers. It is not
necessary however to say anything on this subject. For
it is proved by unanswerable evidence, that we are not
at present securing the co-operation of the natives.
It would be bad enough to consult their intellectual
taste at the expense of their intellectual health. But
we are consulting neither. We are withholding from
them the learning which is palatable to them. We are
forcing on them the mock learning which they nauseate.

[19] This is proved by the fact that we are
forced to pay our Arabic and Sanscrit students while
those who learn English are willing to pay us. All the
declamations in the world about the love and reverence
of the natives for their sacred dialects will never,
in the mind of any impartial person, outweigh this
undisputed fact, that we cannot find in all our vast
empire a single student who will let us teach him
those dialects, unless we will pay him.
[20] I have now before me the accounts of the
Mudrassa for one month, the month of December, 1833.
The Arabic students appear to have been seventy-seven
in number. All receive stipends from the public. The
whole amount paid to them is above 500 rupees a month.
On the other side of the account stands the following
item:
Deduct amount realized from the out-students
of English for the months of May, June, and July
last-- 103 rupees.
[21] I have been told that it is merely from
want of local experience that I am surprised at these
phenomena, and that it is not the fashion for students
in India to study at their own charges. This only
confirms me in my opinions. Nothing is more certain
than that it never can in any part of the world be
necessary to pay men for doing what they think
pleasant or profitable. India is no exception to this
rule. The people of India do not require to be paid
for eating rice when they are hungry, or for wearing
woollen cloth in the cold season. To come nearer to
the case before us: --The children who learn their
letters and a little elementary arithmetic from the
village schoolmaster are not paid by him. He is paid
for teaching them. Why then is it necessary to pay
people to learn Sanscrit and Arabic? Evidently because
it is universally felt that the Sanscrit and Arabic
are languages the knowledge of which does not
compensate for the trouble of acquiring them. On all
such subjects the state of the market is the detective
test.
[22] Other evidence is not wanting, if other
evidence were required. A petition was presented last
year to the committee by several ex-students of the
Sanscrit College. The petitioners stated that they had
studied in the college ten or twelve years, that they
had made themselves acquainted with Hindoo literature
and science, that they had received certificates of
proficiency. And what is the fruit of all this?
"Notwithstanding such testimonials," they say, "we
have but little prospect of bettering our condition
without the kind assistance of your honourable
committee, the indifference with which we are
generally looked upon by our countrymen leaving no
hope of encouragement and assistance from them." They
therefore beg that they may be recommended to the
Governor-General for places under the Government-- not
places of high dignity or emolument, but such as may
just enable them to exist. "We want means," they say,
"for a decent living, and for our progressive
improvement, which, however, we cannot obtain without
the assistance of Government, by whom we have been
educated and maintained from childhood." They conclude
by representing very pathetically that they are sure
that it was never the intention of Government, after
behaving so liberally to them during their education,
to abandon them to destitution and neglect.
[23] I have been used to see petitions to
Government for compensation. All those petitions, even
the most unreasonable of them, proceeded on the
supposition that some loss had been sustained, that
some wrong had been inflicted. These are surely the
first petitioners who ever demanded compensation for
having been educated gratis, for having been supported
by the public during twelve years, and then sent forth
into the world well furnished with literature and
science. They represent their education as an injury
which gives them a claim on the Government for
redress, as an injury for which the stipends paid to
them during the infliction were a very inadequate
compensation. And I doubt not that they are in the
right. They have wasted the best years of life in
learning what procures for them neither bread nor
respect. Surely we might with advantage have saved the
cost of making these persons useless and miserable.
Surely, men may be brought up to be burdens to the
public and objects of contempt to their neighbours at
a somewhat smaller charge to the State. But such is
our policy. We do not even stand neuter in the contest
between truth and falsehood. We are not content to
leave the natives to the influence of their own
hereditary prejudices. To the natural difficulties
which obstruct the progress of sound science in the
East, we add great difficulties of our own making.
Bounties and premiums, such as ought not to be given
even for the propagation of truth, we lavish on false
texts and false philosophy.
[24] By acting thus we create the very evil
which we fear. We are making that opposition which we
do not find. What we spend on the Arabic and Sanscrit
Colleges is not merely a dead loss to the cause of
truth. It is bounty-money paid to raise up champions
of error. It goes to form a nest not merely of
helpless placehunters but of bigots prompted alike by
passion and by interest to raise a cry against every
useful scheme of education. If there should be any
opposition among the natives to the change which I
recommend, that opposition will be the effect of our
own system. It will be headed by persons supported by
our stipends and trained in our colleges. The longer
we persevere in our present course, the more
formidable will that opposition be. It will be every
year reinforced by recruits whom we are paying. From
the native society, left to itself, we have no
difficulties to apprehend. All the murmuring will come
from that oriental interest which we have, by
artificial means, called into being and nursed into
strength.
[25] There is yet another fact which is alone
sufficient to prove that the feeling of the native
public, when left to itself, is not such as the
supporters of the old system represent it to be. The
committee have thought fit to lay out above a lakh of
rupees in printing Arabic and Sanscrit books. Those
books find no purchasers. It is very rarely that a
single copy is disposed of. Twenty-three thousand
volumes, most of them folios and quartos, fill the
libraries or rather the lumber-rooms of this body. The
committee contrive to get rid of some portion of their
vast stock of oriental literature by giving books
away. But they cannot give so fast as they print.
About twenty thousand rupees a year are spent in
adding fresh masses of waste paper to a hoard which,
one should think, is already sufficiently ample.
During the last three years about sixty thousand
rupees have been expended in this manner. The sale of
Arabic and Sanscrit books during those three years has
not yielded quite one thousand rupees. In the
meantime, the School Book Society is selling seven or
eight thousand English volumes every year, and not
only pays the expenses of printing but realizes a
profit of twenty per cent. on its outlay.
[30] The fact that the Hindoo law is to be
learned chiefly from Sanscrit books, and the Mahometan
law from Arabic books, has been much insisted on, but
seems not to bear at all on the question. We are
commanded by Parliament to ascertain and digest the
laws of India. The assistance of a Law Commission has
been given to us for that purpose. As soon as the Code
is promulgated the Shasters and the Hedaya will be
useless to a moonsiff or a Sudder Ameen. I hope and
trust that, before the boys who are now entering at
the Mudrassa and the Sanscrit College have completed
their studies, this great work will be finished. It
would be manifestly absurd to educate the rising
generation with a view to a state of things which we
mean to alter before they reach manhood.
[31] But there is yet another argument which
seems even more untenable. It is said that the
Sanscrit and the Arabic are the languages in which the
sacred books of a hundred millions of people are
written, and that they are on that account entitled to
peculiar encouragement. Assuredly it is the duty of
the British Government in India to be not only
tolerant but neutral on all religious questions. But
to encourage the study of a literature, admitted to be
of small intrinsic value, only because that literature
inculcated the most serious errors on the most
important subjects, is a course hardly reconcilable
with reason, with morality, or even with that very
neutrality which ought, as we all agree, to be
sacredly preserved. It is confined that a language is
barren of useful knowledge. We are to teach it because
it is fruitful of monstrous superstitions. We are to
teach false history, false astronomy, false medicine,
because we find them in company with a false religion.
We abstain, and I trust shall always abstain, from
giving any public encouragement to those who are
engaged in the work of converting the natives to
Christianity. And while we act thus, can we reasonably
or decently bribe men, out of the revenues of the
State, to waste their youth in learning how they are
to purify themselves after touching an ass or what
texts of the Vedas they are to repeat to expiate the
crime of killing a goat?
[32] It is taken for granted by the advocates
of oriental learning that no native of this country
can possibly attain more than a mere smattering of
English. They do not attempt to prove this. But they
perpetually insinuate it. They designate the education
which their opponents recommend as a mere
spelling-book education. They assume it as undeniable
that the question is between a profound knowledge of
Hindoo and Arabian literature and science on the one
side, and superficial knowledge of the rudiments of
English on the other. This is not merely an
assumption, but an assumption contrary to all reason
and experience. We know that foreigners of all nations
do learn our language sufficiently to have access to
all the most abstruse knowledge which it contains
sufficiently to relish even the more delicate graces
of our most idiomatic writers. There are in this very
town natives who are quite competent to discuss
political or scientific questions with fluency and
precision in the English language. I have heard the
very question on which I am now writing discussed by
native gentlemen with a liberality and an intelligence
which would do credit to any member of the Committee
of Public Instruction. Indeed it is unusual to find,
even in the literary circles of the Continent, any
foreigner who can express himself in English with so
much facility and correctness as we find in many
Hindoos. Nobody, I suppose, will contend that English
is so difficult to a Hindoo as Greek to an Englishman.
Yet an intelligent English youth, in a much smaller
number of years than our unfortunate pupils pass at
the Sanscrit College, becomes able to read, to enjoy,
and even to imitate not unhappily the compositions of
the best Greek authors. Less than half the time which
enables an English youth to read Herodotus and
Sophocles ought to enable a Hindoo to read Hume and
Milton.
[33] To sum up what I have said. I think it
clear that we are not fettered by the Act of
Parliament of 1813, that we are not fettered by any
pledge expressed or implied, that we are free to
employ our funds as we choose, that we ought to employ
them in teaching what is best worth knowing, that
English is better worth knowing than Sanscrit or
Arabic, that the natives are desirous to be taught
English, and are not desirous to be taught Sanscrit or
Arabic, that neither as the languages of law nor as
the languages of religion have the Sanscrit and Arabic
any peculiar claim to our encouragement, that it is
possible to make natives of this country thoroughly
good English scholars, and that to this end our
efforts ought to be directed.
[34] In one point I fully agree with the
gentlemen to whose general views I am opposed. I feel
with them that it is impossible for us, with our
limited means, to attempt to educate the body of the
people. We must at present do our best to form a class
who may be interpreters between us and the millions
whom we govern, --a class of persons Indian in blood
and colour, but English in tastes, in opinions, in
morals and in intellect. To that class we may leave it
to refine the vernacular dialects of the country, to
enrich those dialects with terms of science borrowed
from the Western nomenclature, and to render them by
degrees fit vehicles for conveying knowledge to the
great mass of the population.
[35] I would strictly respect all existing
interests. I would deal even generously with all
individuals who have had fair reason to expect a
pecuniary provision. But I would strike at the root of
the bad system which has hitherto been fostered by us.
I would at once stop the printing of Arabic and
Sanscrit books. I would abolish the Mudrassa and the
Sanscrit College at Calcutta. Benares is the great
seat of Brahminical learning; Delhi of Arabic
learning. If we retain the Sanscrit College at Bonares
and the Mahometan College at Delhi we do enough and
much more than enough in my opinion, for the Eastern
languages. If the Benares and Delhi Colleges should be
retained, I would at least recommend that no stipends
shall be given to any students who may hereafter
repair thither, but that the people shall be left to
make their own choice between the rival systems of
education without being bribed by us to learn what
they have no desire to know. The funds which would
thus be placed at our disposal would enable us to give
larger encouragement to the Hindoo College at
Calcutta, and establish in the principal cities
throughout the Presidencies of Fort William and Agra
schools in which the English language might be well
and thoroughly taught.
[36] If the decision of His Lordship in
Council should be such as I anticipate, I shall enter
on the performance of my duties with the greatest zeal
and alacrity. If, on the other hand, it be the opinion
of the Government that the present system ought to
remain unchanged, I beg that I may be permitted to
retire from the chair of the Committee. I feel that I
could not be of the smallest use there. I feel also
that I should be lending my countenance to what I
firmly believe to be a mere delusion. I believe that
the present system tends not to accelerate the
progress of truth but to delay the natural death of
expiring errors. I conceive that we have at present no
right to the respectable name of a Board of Public
Instruction. We are a Board for wasting the public
money, for printing books which are of less value than
the paper on which they are printed was while it was
blank-- for giving artificial encouragement to absurd
history, absurd metaphysics, absurd physics, absurd
theology-- for raising up a breed of scholars who find
their scholarship an incumbrance and blemish, who live
on the public while they are receiving their
education, and whose education is so utterly useless
to them that, when they have received it, they must
either starve or live on the public all the rest of
their lives. Entertaining these opinions, I am
naturally desirous to decline all share in the
responsibility of a body which, unless it alters its
whole mode of proceedings, I must consider, not merely
as useless, but as positively noxious.
T[homas] B[abington] MACAULAY
2nd February 1835.
I give my entire concurrence to the sentiments
expressed in this Minute.
W[illiam] C[avendish] BENTINCK.

Chekhov and class 9

On Sundays I help a class 9 girl from a Hindi medium government school to study English. The level of her English texts are such that no Hindi medium student can ever understand it.Even those from the English stream would find it difficult, and would not be able to relate to it. When the girl came to me first, a few months ago, she did not even know the difference between she, he, and it, between now and then, between this and that –in fact she didn’t know the meanings of these words. Yet they have to study poems like the Isle of Inisfree, and complex short stories. Below are the first few paragraphs of what we studied today, from Chekhov’s , The Beggar.
Couldn’t there be a better choice? Wouldn’t something from Ruskin Bond or any local writer be better?
From Chekhov’s story in the class 9 text:
‘Kind Sir, have pity; turn your attention to a poor, hungry man! For three days I have had nothing to eat; I haven't five kopecks' for a lodging, I swear it before God.
For eight years I was a village schoolteacher and then I lost my place through intrigues. I fell a victim to calumny. It is a year now since I have had anything to do-"
The advocate looked at the ragged, fawn-colored overcoat of the suppliant, at his dull, drunken eyes, at the red spot on either cheek, and it seemed to him as if he had seen this man somewhere before.
"I have now had an offer of a position in the province of Kaluga," the mendicant went on, "but I haven't the money to get there. Help me kindly; I am ashamed to ask, but I am obliged to by circumstances."

The neglected north-east

Recently, 35,000 people have been displaced due to clashes between Rabhas and Garos in Assam and Meghalaya, and are now in relief camps. An incident like this should be front-page news, instead, it is relegated to the inner pages of national newspapers, if it is reported at all.

Unofficial History by Field Marshal Sir William Slim

Review by Roshen Dalal
Field Marshal William Joseph Slim (1891-1970) fought in the British army in both the First and Second World Wars, and later became the thirteenth governor general of Australia. In this book he recounts some of his experiences, in a series of essays. These describe skirmishes that were too minor to figure in official histories, or which were dismissed in gazettes with just a couple of lines.
In his essays Slim brings out the human side of war. Always with a touch of warmth and humour, he describes the men under his command, fellow officers, and the people he met in the course of his long and varied war career. He depicts his entry into Baghdad during the First World War, encounters with Turks and Arabs, and his incorrigible subordinate, Private Chuck, whom he seems to have deeply admired. Later, he is posted in a small town in India, where he tries to keep the peace between groups of Hindus and Muslims. Leading Gurkha troops in the North West Frontier, he provides an endearing and amusing portrait of the upright, loyal, and single-minded Gurkhas. Only they, he says, can sit to attention in a truck, and to keep sitting, ramrod stiff, as the Gurkha driver, driving at high speed, goes over the edge of the road with a great bump, and returns without losing his place in the convoy. In the Second World War he finds himself in Iran, liasing with Russian troops. Here we get accounts of the Russian general Novikov, the lavish Russian parties, and Russian women troops, and even a Russian woman ADC to the general. His account of his exhibition dance with her, is one example of how he could even laugh at himself!
For Slim, the wars were not of his making. He went wherever he was sent, and did his best, without losing his humanity, and his empathy, even for his war enemies. Thus he writes, ‘Looking back over a varied experience, I find I have liked all the soldiers of different races who have fought with me, and most of those who have fought against me. This is not strange for there is a freemasonry among fighting soldiers that helps them to understand one another even if they are enemies, and when peace comes, prevents them from hating too long.’
This collection of essays was first published in 1959.