The conduct of the American women, however, I cannot even now understand unless I attribute it to the sad but inexorable law of the American impingement on Asia that the United States will never export any of its products to the East except those of which every decent American is ashamed, taken with its compliment that in retaliation, the East will set its lowest adventurers on the distributors of American money. The arrogance of the almsgiver is fitly matched by the impudence of the beggar.
The Continent of Circe won Nirad the Duff Cooper literary award. Circe, it may be recalled, was a sorceress in Greek mythology. Anyone who drank from her cup was turned into a pig. Nirad Babu’s choice of titles leaves one in no doubt of the thesis he meant to expound: India is the sorceress; people who make it their home in the course of time, become dehumanized and turn into swine.
He starts off by asserting that foreigners and Anglicized Indians have never been able to understand India or Indians.
‘A man who cannot endure dirt, dust, stench, noise, ugliness, disorder, heat and cold has no right to live in India,’ proclaims Nirad Babu. He proceeds to describe his own habitat:
I live just inside the old wall built originally by the Moghul Emperor Shah Jahan, overlooking a fine part and commanding a magnificent view of the famous Ridge, the Jamuna, and the Jama Masjid. It is probably the finest aspect to be seen anywhere in Delhi. My western friends say that it reminds them of the view of the Borghese Gardens from the Pincio. But after independence, for four years, I saw people easing themselves in this park in the morning, sitting in rows. During this time the stench was so foul that after inhaling it for a year I fell ill and came very near death. Within the city I have seen streets running with sewage water and faeces floating on it while, undisturbed by this, vendors of vegetables and other foodstuffs were selling their produce on the adjacent pavements. I have never objected to or minded all this, and I will say that if I have any living knowledge of my country it is a reward for this unflinching realism. So, when Anglicised Indians come to argue with me, I expect them to possess at least a fragment of my knowledge and toleration of these conditions.
He quotes a story, The Arabian Nights, in which Prince Diamond wanted to go to the fabulous city of Wakak despite the deadly dangers that lay en route. Ultimately, armed with a magic weapon which would protect him from harm, he approached a sleeping giant, Simurg, who was to fly him to Wakak. To test Prince Diamond’s ability to stand the ordeal, Simurg let out a stinking fart which lasted for over an hour, filling the atmosphere with a lethal stench. The Prince survived his ordeal because of his magic weapon and was able to visit Wakak. That is the kind of weapon people must arm themselves with if they want to get to terms with India and Indians.
The word Indian is a misnomer; it should be Hindu, meaning the people who live beyond the river Indus or Sindhu. Hinduism is not a religion: the concept of religion is alien to the people who subscribe to sanatana dharma, the eternal way. Nirad Babu divides the inhabitants into three ethnic groups: aboriginals, Mongols and those who came later—black, yellow and brown. What gave society its firm base was its caste system which remained mobile till the arrival of the Muslims. It was fossilized by the British.
British contempt for the Hindus as ‘degraded, perverse, untruthful, shifty and effeminate’ was far off the mark. Alberuni was closer to understanding these complex people and the contradiction in their character: renunciation and avarice, chastity with sex obsessions, morbid respect for animals with beastly cruelty, great learning with unbelievable stupidity.
‘Therefore,’ he went on to say, ‘the scientific theories of the Hindus were in a state of utter confusion, devoid of order, and in the last resort, always mixed up with the silly notions of the crowd.’ Alberuni compared their mathematics and astronomy to ‘a mixture of pearls and sour dates or dung’, and observed ‘that both kinds of things were equal in their eyes because they could not raise themselves to the methods of a strictly scientific deduction’.
As might have been predicted, The Continent of Circe did not go down well with Indians. They read it and abused Nirad in the strongest language. Nothing pleased Nirad more than being abused for the wrong reasons. He seemed to enjoy provoking people into losing their tempers. I recall one evening at the Jhabvala home when Jhab’s mother was visiting them. This Parsi dowager had seen difficult days under British rule. Her husband had been a labour leader and was one of the accused in the famous Meerut conspiracy case. She was an ardent nationalist and proud of her husband’s role in the freedom movement. Apropos nothing, Nirad tossed in a wounding remark: ‘Parsis are not Indians; no Indian looks upon them as fellow countrymen.’
Mrs Jhabvala tried to keep her cool. But when Nirad repeated the remark, she exploded, ‘How dare you insult Parsis! When you were licking the boots of the British, Parsis like my husband were in British jails.’
‘That makes no difference whatsoever,’ answered Nirad coolly. ‘I don’t care how many Parsis went to jail; Indians do not look upon them as Indians.’
Mrs Jhabvala promptly retired to her bedroom.
The trouble with Nirad was that he was always right. In my home he had a hot argument with Kingsley Martin famous editor of the New Statesman and Nation. It was on some point of English history. Kingsley was a bad loser. When he found that he had lost the argument, he hit below the belt. ‘Forgive my drawing attention to your elegant dinner jacket, Mr Chaudhuri, but your flies are open.’ The very embarrassed Nirad ran into the bathroom to button up his trousers.
At times he lost patience with my ignorance and loudly called me a fool. His wife protested that by using that kind of language he would lose the few friends he had. ‘But he is a fool,’ retorted Nirad, ‘if he doesn’t know these little things, what else can I call him!’
He could be equally unkind to his wife. She was a dark, matronly lady of ample girth. Once, when he got into the car and ordered the driver to take him home, his wife was still busy saying goodbye to her hosts. Suddenly Nirad Babu beamed: ‘I must not forget the big black boiler which keeps this little engine going.’
Nirad Chaudhuri’s most serious book is Hinduism. It is not the platitudinous repetition of what one sees in other books on the subject: Vedas, Upanishads, Puranas, etc. but an altogether novel and refreshing approach to Hinduism as it is practised and what it means to the average Hindu. He fires his first salvo in the introduction:
Salvation is never the object of the religious observances and worship of the Hindus. The main object is wordly prosperity, and this absorption in the world has made the doctrine of rebirth in it the most appealing and strongly held belief among all the nations put forward by them about existence after deaths They so loved the world that they made the possibility of leaving it for good even after many cycles of birth as remote and difficult as possible.
Just about everything Nirad has to say on Hinduism will raise the hackles of orthodox Hindus but none will be able to fault him on his facts.
Perhaps the only books that did not come up to the high mark Nirad set for himself by his earlier works are Culture in a Vanity Bag and Clive of India. The first is trivial and perhaps the product of a short phase of obsession with erotica in an otherwise sedate man. The second is a too-laboured attempt to defend a character who most Indians regard as indefensible. However, they do not reduce Nirad’s stature. This very small man who, when he strode down Nicholson Road in his solar topee, was jeered by street urchins with cries of ‘Johnny Walker, Johnny Walker’ towers above his contemporaries as one of the intellectual giants India has produced in recent years.
My Days with Krishna Menon
I had met him before I joined his staff as information officer in the Indian High Commission. During my days in London University, I had heard his name mentioned in student circles. His India League was one of the many organizations agitating for Indian freedom. But it was the only one affiliated to the Indian National Congress and had hitched its wagon to Nehru’s rising star in preference (and at times
in opposition) to many other Indian leaders who were at that time competing for political pre-eminence. Menon organized receptions for Nehru whenever he came to England. He had him address public meetings and introduced him to prominent socialists, many of whom he had persuaded to join the India League. His appointment as the first high commissioner for India in London which came as a surprise to so many was assumed by those who knew this background. The only person who took several months to believe the incredible windfall in his fortunes was Menon himself. He suspected disloyalty where there was none; he confused candour with cheek and constantly reminded his staff and himself: ‘I am the high commissioner, you know!’ He surrounded himself with a bunch of sycophants whose chief occupation was to hang round him at all hours and inform on their colleagues. The chief amongst them was a not unattractive girl on the clerical staff (she was later promoted by Menon and then selected to the Indian Foreign Service by a three-man board of which Menon and his friend, Harold Laski, were members) This girl set the pattern of address. Menon was ‘H.E.’—His Excellency. She also became the First Lady of India House and, to the puckish delight of Menon, cocked a snook at the wives of the senior officials. At India House receptions, she received the Churchills, the Edens and the Attlees; she rode in the high commissioner’s Rolls-Royce flying the Indian tricolour.
As I said before, I had met Menon during my days at the University. He and Rajni Patel, an ardent communist, were going to attend some sort of international conference in Paris. I was going for a holiday. In those days Paris was the recognized ‘fatigue station’ for those fagged out by examinations and continence. Menon and Patel had the load of the world on their shoulders: I was preoccupied with visions of Place Pigalle. All of us were equally eager to get to Paris. Few words passed between us in the railway compartment in which we found ourselves. Menon sat hunched in his overcoat shivering with cold. Both he and Patel were representing some august body or the other and kept discussing resolutions they were going to move. They did not react very favourably to my cheerful talk and obscene jokes (of which I have always had a large repertoire).
At Dover we had to get off the train and into the Channel steamer. There was a long queue. Menon became very impatient and decided to go ahead. Patel and I trailed behind him. The ticket collector reminded us somewhat sharply that we had to take our turn. Menon reacted equally sharply. ‘You treat us like this because we are coloured. We won’t stand for it very long, you know!’ The collector was taken aback—so were those waiting their turn in the queue. But it worked. The collector muttered an oath and let us pass.
The reception Menon gave me when I joined his staff still rankles in my mind. I was only an information officer. Between me and Menon was my immediate superior, Sudhir Ghosh, the PRO who, unknown to me at the time, was on very bad terms with Menon. Sudhir had worked for a time with Mahatma Gandhi and had been entrusted by the Mahatma to deliver personal messages to Attlee and Cripps. His pockets used to bulge with letters written by some leader to another. He was adept at veering conversation in a way which gave him the opportunity to quote from these epistles. His office was a veritable picture gallery of important politicians whose autographed photographs hung on the walls. Beneath the large glass slab on his working table was a letter from the Mahatma to him with words to the effect that India needed young, dedicated men like him. It wasn’t much wonder that when Sudhir was appointed PRO he looked upon himself as the principal liaison between India’s millions and the people of England. The chief instruments of his goodwill were a group of well-meaning but utterly naive Quakers. Sudhir was willing to let Menon do his job if Menon would let him get on with his. Menon was not so accommodating. He refused to allow an ‘embassy within an embassy’ as he described the PRO’s department. Sudhir pleaded with the deputy Prime Minister, Sardar Patel, who was then minister-in-charge of information and broadcasting (including public relations’ offices in foreign countries). Menon denounced Sudhir as an intriguer and a ‘Patellite’. None of this was known to me when I signed the High Commissioner’s visitors’ book and rang up his personal secretary for an appointment. I was told that the appointment would have to be asked for by the PRO who would introduce me.
In some respects Menon was a great stickler for protocol. But there was more than protocol behind the snub. Four days later an agitated Sudhir Ghosh hauled me from my room to present me to Menon, who, according to him, was ‘furious with him’. He was. My jovial greeting and broad-smiled reference to our having met before was received with a quick shake by his claw-like hand. He had a scowl on his face and turned the full fire of the assault on me. ‘Did they teach you any manners in India? I know you have been in the office for nearly a week and you haven’t had the courtesy to come and see me. If this is the way you are going to behave I will have to ask for your replacement. I can do that; I am the high commissioner, you know!’
I did not know whether he was pulling my leg or really angry. Nevertheless the grin on my face vanished and I began to stutter explanations, ‘I asked for an appointment the first day. I signed the book. I . . . I . . .’
Sudhir Ghosh tried to come to my rescue. ‘Sir, it is my fault, I . . .’
‘I was not speaking to you, Mr Ghosh,’ snapped Menon. ‘I will ask for your explanation later. Yes, what have you to say?’ he demanded turning to me.
‘I am sorry, I have never been a government servant and I don’t know the rules. I did the best I knew. Mr Lall knows I have been waiting for the interview and instructions since the day I arrived.’
Arthur Lall of the ICS had already become a great favourite of Menon’s. He noticed the scowl on Menon’s face lift and ventured to put in a word in my defence. ‘That is true, sir. Khushwant Singh did ask me about seeing you and I told him that it would be arranged by Sudhir.’
The scowl re-appeared on Menon’s face. ‘I will send for you later,’ he said, dismissing me. Before I shut the door I heard the storm break loose on Sudhir.
I was very shaken by this experience. Few people had ever spoken to me like that and the only one whom I had forgiven was my father. It took me a long time to soothe my nerves of the humiliation and anger. I thought of resigning from the service. It seemed too much of a defeat—and I did not want to return to India. I took myself for a walk along the Embankment.
I came back a couple of hours later to the office and found a note on my table. It was from Krishna Menon asking me to join him for tea. My first impulse was to tear up the invitation. Then I decided to go and convey my resentment by being aloof and cold.
I didn’t have a chance. As soon as I entered the reception room, Menon extricated himself from the ring of admirers and came to greet me. He put his arms round my shoulder and drew me aside. ‘I am sorry I spoke to you harshly this morning; I trust you had the intelligence to know it wasn’t meant for you. If you haven’t, I’ll send you back by the next boat.’ His face lit up with a smile. It was too much for my humiliated ego. I almost burst into tears. ‘I . . . I suspected as much,’ I replied.
‘Come along and have some tea.’ He plied me with cups of tea, papadams and pakoras. He ordered me to eat. ‘I am the high commissioner, you know! You have to obey my orders. Eat this! . . . and this!’
From the very first day a love-hate relationship grew up between Menon and myself. Within the week I found myself an ardent member of the sycophantic group which consisted of Arthur Lall, a Captain Srinivasan of the Indian Navy, Prithi Singh (now in the foreign service) and the girl, ‘Miss Singh’. We were the ‘inner cabinet’. The rest of the India House staff divided into two: those proven to be pro-Krishna Menon and the rest who not being pro-Menon were therefore traitors to India.
My first act as a member of Menon’s inner group was to be instrumental in his designs of getting rid of Sudhir Ghosh. In his resolve to run an autonomous PRO department, Sudhir tripped up badly and in his attempt to retrieve his position he was unworthy of his profession as a Gandhian. The incident as I recall it after many years was
somewhat as follows.
It was the autumn of 1947 when Kashmir was overrun by tribesmen coming across Pakistan’s frontiers with Pakistani connivance. The Hindu Maharaja belatedly turned for help to India; Indian troops were rushed to stem the tribal onslaught. The Mahatma made a statement exonerating the Indian government’s action. This statement, repeated by Reuters, was given prominence in many English newspapers including the Times. Sudhir, without consulting anyone, sent off a telegram to Bapu (as he was wont to address the Mahatma) asking him to deny his (Gandhi’s) departure from pacifism. This the Mahatma did. Sudhir sent a letter to the Times quoting the Mahatma’s letter and accusing Reuters of anti-Gandhian bias. Unfortunately, a day earlier I had received the official version of Gandhiji’s speech which I had released to the British press through the India House news-sheet Indiagram. This release was worded in exactly the same way as Reuters’s. Christopher Chancellor, then head of Reuters, triumphantly quoted Indiagram to refute Sudhir Ghosh’s allegations. Next morning the Times published Sudhir’s and Chancellor’s letters side by side.
I was in the habit of coming to the office very early. I found a note on my table asking me to see the high commissioner at once.
Menon was in a dark mood. But he kept his temper with me. His quarry had walked into his trap and he wasn’t going to leave any loopholes. ‘Did you know of Sudhir Ghosh’s telegram to Gandhi?’
‘No, sir.’
‘Did you see Gandhi’s reply?’
‘No, sir.’
‘Does Ghosh see what you put out in your Indiagram?’
‘He leaves the office early. We reckon to send out press releases by 5 p.m. He usually sees them next morning.’
Not a Nice Man to Know Page 9