Colonial kedgeree (uncooked)

Doolally Sahib and the Black Zamindar: Racism and Revenge in the British Raj

Author: M J Akbar

Publisher: Bloomsbury

Pages: xxvi + 350

Price: Rs 899

Even a veteran reviewer sometimes meets more than his match. How does one review a book that has Emperor Akbar’s navaratnas, the famed poets of the Delhi in the court of the last Mughal Emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar, wisdom of the famed Vijayanagar wit, Tenali Raman, Sufi philosophy and all the major and many not-so-major figures from the days of the East India Company to the end of the British Raj, obscure recipes of the memsahibs and their khansamas, anecdotes galore including some apocryphal ones, nautch girls, black sahibs and white babus, all thrown in a densely written volume? 

One would have expected the preface to set the tone for the author’s enquiry.  But M J Akbar has chosen to devote all of it to the sojourn of the Right Reverend Charles Heber to his Bishopric of Calcutta in the early nineteenth century. Mr Akbar has read or had access to hundreds of books and documents of numerous memoirists and commentators spanning four centuries.  He quotes extensively and liberally, not worrying much about the relevance of the excerpt to the preceding or succeeding pages, leave alone whatever theme of the book he had in mind.  This is like finding salted cashews in halwa in a rogan josh meal.  By my eye judgment, these quotes account for about half, if not more, of the text.

The last chapter in a book usually tries to weave the diverse strands into a pattern that can be called the theme. But Mr Akbar eschews that practice as well.  One throw-away paragraph (after an overdose of 325 pages crammed with incidents and quotations) does tell us what the author possibly had in mind:

“Indians knew this distance [between them and the British rulers] was a measure of racism.  They found ways to deal with or circumvent rulers who never became one of them.  A handful joined the masters and were rewarded.  Others made virtue of necessity. Those who tried violence failed.  But India understood that the man and the moment had come when a semi-naked fakir called Gandhi began his long and non-violent march in 1920.”

Here, too, the reference to violence is superficial; there isn’t much about it earlier. Gandhi appears only at the fag end of the period the book covers.

Mr Akbar steers us through the incident-crowded book as to how the British came and lived in India. From Robert Clive on down, their goal was to make a quick fortune before returning to Blighty.  And while they were here, have as much sensual pleasure as possible in this rich but inhospitable land.  Plenty of food and drink, masses of servants paid a pittance, prostitutes and concubines and make-believe British ambience in their homes and clubs filled their days.  Indians were there for one and only one purpose, to serve their every whim and fancy.  Those that survived the weather and myriad diseases of this country rushed home as soon as they could.  Only a few hardy souls such as “Begum” Frances Johnson, whose grandson Robert Jenkinson was prime minister from 1812 to 1827, kept returning to India and eventually die there.

Mr Akbar’s implicit question is why the British did not settle in India.  But that would never have been their intention in the first place.  India, with its teeming millions, was not exactly what the little islanders had in mind as a place to live permanently.  Vast open territories in relatively sparsely populated North America, Southern Africa and Australia were far more attractive than the hot tropical India.  When loot and scoot is your goal, you don’t much care about the natives.  They are a nuisance mostly and must be dealt with in a manner befitting a strict ruler.

I do not know what prompted Mr Akbar to write this book.  Perhaps forced inactivity made him turn to a theme that is already well established, as he would have surely known from the sources he has cited.  If a clear road map exists, what additional benefit is gained by adding scores more landmarks?

The book could still have been a worthwhile and engaging read, had the publishers provided a competent editor for the author to work with.  Such an editor would have put some order in what appears to be a haphazard narrative, going back and forth between time and personalities.  Some egregious errors could have been avoided as well.  Within two lines Mahadji Scindia becomes Madhoji.  And in a rush to name summer capitals of British India’s provinces, Rajasthan is said to have had one at Mount Abu.  Rajasthan was never a province, just a collection of princely states in what was then called Rajputana; Mount Abu was part of the Bombay presidency until 1956.  Being economical with the name of the author quoted does not help either.

Would you enjoy a kedgeree, the anglicised avatar of everyman’s khichdi in the Raj, with all sorts of ingredients, some savoury and some not so savoury, if it were uncooked?