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JANUARY 28, 2000 VOL. 26 NO. 3
New Respect for Old Rebels
India's controversial heroes re-examined
By KAVITHA RAO
also:
SUBHAS CHANDRA BOSE: he lead the "unheralded fulcrum" of India's independence movement in Southeast Asia
VERRIER ELWIN
When this maverick British anthropologist requested suggestions for the title of his autobiography in 1961, he was offered 25 alternatives. How, asked his publisher, could a man with such a varied life be summed up in a few words? Ramachandra Guha does as good a job as any with his fascinating biography, Savaging the Civilized: Verrier Elwin, His Tribals, and India (University of Chicago Press, 398 pages, $32). Elwin was by turns a missionary, social worker, anthropologist and civil servant. But his passion was to preserve the culture of the tribal peoples of India, and he is best remembered for his crusade against what he called the "corrosive influences" of Hindu and Christian do-gooders.
The son of a bishop, Elwin went to India as a missionary in 1927. Yet, Guha says, he was "always out of place, always where tradition and history least expected him to be." He eventually broke away from the Anglican church, disillusioned by its puritanism. In his younger days, he was a celibate disciple of Mahatma Gandhi, but he later became a "celebrator and chronicler of sex," writing extensively on hedonistic tribal life. He was a fervent supporter of the Indian nationalist movement, but eventually tried to defend the tribals from a "homogenizing nationalism." He was Jawaharlal Nehru's friend and adviser, yet his radical ideas on preserving tribal culture made him many enemies among Congress leaders. His personal life was no less controversial. Despite opposition from friends and family, he twice married tribal women and fathered two children out of wedlock.
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Elwin's legacy survives in northeast India (now the state of Arunachal Pradesh), where he was tribal adviser to the Northeast Frontier Agency. At Nehru's request, he drafted a blueprint for the development of the hilltribes. It called for a compromise between assimilation and isolationism, urging slower development with a "tribal touch." Some credit Elwin with Arunachal Pradesh's relative stability today: It is the only one of seven northeastern states not riven by secessionist movements.
Elwin had his share of detractors. His views that tribals have the right to practice their own customs in reserved areas enraged politicians and scholars alike. His fiercest critic was the anthropologist G.S. Ghurye, who saw the tribals as "imperfectly integrated Hindus." Other critics accused Elwin of wanting to preserve the tribes as "specimens in an anthropological museum." In the chaotic post-partition period, he was blamed for undermining a shaky national unity, an accusation that survives today.
But as tribal peoples are being steadily displaced by large dams and mines, Elwin's arguments deserve a fresh hearing. "In all his work there is visible a passionate desire to make adversaries see the truth in each other," writes Guha of Elwin's ability to find the middle ground between integration and isolation. Policy-makers might do worse than remember Elwin's words: "We should recognize and honor the tribal way of doing things, not because it is old and picturesque, but because it is theirs."
SUBHAS CHANDRA BOSE
It's often forgotten that a number of Indian freedom fighters chose armed rebellion rather than Mahatma Gandhi's peaceful protest. Roger Beaumont focuses on Bose, the most controversial of these rebels, in The Hidden Truth (Minerva Press, London, 305 pages, $25). Bose and his Indian National Army (INA) were reviled as traitors by the West for allying with the Japanese during World War II. In India, Gandhi's disapproval meant that Bose was generally dismissed as a misguided hothead. Lately, his reputation has been revived.
Beaumont's goal is modest: to reveal the role of supporters of the INA in Thailand, which he calls the "unheralded fulcrum" of India's independence movement in Southeast Asia. For this, he relies on the reminiscences of Darshan Singh Bajaj. A wartime INA supplymaster in Bangkok (at a salary of 1 baht), Bajaj is still a prominent member of the Indian community. Unfortunately, the book says little that is new.
There are some interesting anecdotes about Japan's attempts to manipulate the Indian nationalists in Thailand, for example, by nominating puppet leaders. Bose was resigned to accepting Japanese military aid, Bajaj says, but determinedly sought to raise money and other supplies from the Indians living in Southeast Asia. The leader could be ruthless, even holding captive wealthy compatriots in Singapore who refused to contribute to the cause. "The word 'no' was not an option," writes Beaumont. Though there are evocative scenes of battles in northeast India between the British and the Japanese, and of Bose's bravery in the field, some of the fiercest fighting takes place across "the district commissioner's tennis court."
But such vignettes are in short supply. Too much space is devoted to accounts of Bajaj's family life and personal vendettas. An account of the Indian independence movement and the power struggle between Gandhi and Bose takes up a third of the slim book - necessary ground perhaps, but one which has been better covered by other biographers. Beaumont and Bajaj contribute little on the biggest Bose mystery: his violent end in a plane crash over Taiwan in 1945.
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