This was one of the easiest and most difficult books to read and as resultant corollary, review. I started Shattered Lands in awe of its scope and the imagination to look at the subcontinent through such a lens. To take the whole British India, from Aden to Burma, and see it as one entity which was subsequently dismantled and then consider what would have happened had it remained as one today, is not a leap of imagination which many historians have jumped towards.
Having started with awe I was then thrown off track by Sam Dalrymple’s style and juxtaposition of information. The stage was grand, the discussions serious and then suddenly we were deep into someone’s love life. Mostly Jawaharlal Nehru’s alleged affair with Edwina Mountbatten, not to mention the marital problems of the Mountbatten themselves and their sexual peccadilloes. All this while we were getting to know the main players in Burma’s political scenario in the 1940s.
It seemed almost insultingly frivolous, and a dismissive way to diminish the subcontinent’s fight for self-determination. However, all it took was some getting used to. Once the hurdles were conquered, you found yourself on a wholly different journey of a history which you thought you knew well enough. As any reasonably well-informed Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Naga, Myanmarese and indeed Yemeni and of course, Indian might.
Instead, Dalrymple has put together his history from a variety of sources, not just academic history but all also oral, anecdotal and yes, gossipy. Many stories which you thought were gospel — that the Nawab of Junagadh left one wife behind in India on his plane out, because he had to make space for one of his dogs — turn out to be lies. The relationships between historical leaders do not always conform to the set norms. You can believe or disbelieve his perspective, but it adds a different flavour to a well-known story.
Dalrymple, son of well-known writer and popular historian William Dalrymple, brings the area and the times to life in his own manner. There are more humans than dates, more behavioural stories than military and diplomatic strategies, more personal weaknesses than strengths, and through this somewhat unconventional method, you read a more shaded, differently arranged history. It also makes for both a fun and a serious read. And while some journeys are well traversed especially the Partition of India into East and West Pakistan, some like the demands of Phizo for Nagaland, or the loss of Aden, are not so well-known. Even in the Partition of India, Dalrymple remembers to reiterate that the suffering and losses on the eastern side of India, particularly Bengal, have been ignored and forgotten for too long, especially compared to the partition of Punjab.
Shattered Lands is a mammoth effort and a mammoth task. And yet, it is not a difficult or tedious read. Possibly because of the very writing style that I found offensive at the start. It took some getting used to, and once I got past my own prejudices, it was quite a worthwhile trip!
Shattered Lands: Five Partitions and the Making of Modern Asia
By Sam Dalrymple
HarperCollins
pp. 520; Rs 799
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