In 1917 two provincial boys joined Ripon College in Calcutta. Both would write autobiographical works which attained global fame. The more talented of the two, Bibhuti Bhushan, wrote the Apu trilogy cinematized by Satyajit Ray. The first of the films, which is faithful to the text, remains one of the highest grossing Bengali films of all time. Two other such films are based on Bibhuti's Rider Haggard type adventure stories set in Africa.
The other young student at Ripon to write a famous autobiography was Niradh Chaudhri. He came from a more prosperous family and his book succeeded because English men of letters like J.C Squire & E.M Forster considered it to be superbly written. It seemed the Bengali Babu, even one raised in a small village, could handle the language of Gibbon & Macaulay just as well as the Oxbridge Classicist. Sadly, this particular Babu was bad at History. A separate BA in History had only been established in around 1912 while the MA was introduced in 1919. Though there were some very good historians by then, the History Department wasn't yet well enough established to create a proper tutorial system and thus ensure that students learnt how to write in a critical or logical fashion. Thus Nirad though sharing the ambitions of the new History Department, demonstrated its relative weakness. Perhaps, he benefited from instruction from Kalidas Nag during his undergraduate degree but this was not available during his MA as Nag was in Ceylon. On the other hand, Niradh might simply have been stupid. That's why he studied History rather than Medicine or Engineering.
It may be that Niradh's failure to acquire the ability to reason and his ignorance of science contributed to his peculiar world view. Still, being as stupid as shit is a work-skill if you get paid to produce a demented type of polemic. I suppose if Niradh had remained a Nationalist- he penned, in 1935, a Congress party pamphlet demanding the Indianization of the Army- he would have have received some modest sort of sinecure. But his journalistic talent was good enough to get him published by the Statesman which in turn meant he could be recruited by All India Radio. This change in patronage affected his political views as did his whole hearted support for the Allies during the war.
It is interesting that three Indian broadcasters, during the war, wrote sui generis books after its end. First came Aubrey Menen's 'prevalence of witches', Then came G.S Desani's 'all about H. Hatter' both of which were broadly comic. Then came 'Autobiography of an unknown Indian' which was either 'ethnographic' or a lament for the ending of the British Raj. I suppose the reason these three books were nothing like anything which came before or which has come since is because the War was a period of intense innovation and intellectual ferment in broadcasting. The fate of the world was being discussed or otherwise reflected on by disembodied voices which, for that very reason, had to establish an intimate rapport with an invisible audience. The broadcaster had to, within narrow limits, establish a persona, an individual voice, a point of view which was slightly off kilter, and this required a new type of creativity. What the British wanted to avoid was a crude sort of propaganda, a hectoring tone, such as had been used during the Great War.
My impression is that the decisive turning point for Niradh came when he began publishing articles in Douglas Jerrold's 'New English Review' from around 1946 onward. Jerrold was a devout Catholic, pro-Franco, Tory die-hard for whom Indian independence was anathema. But Jerrold was also the Director of a British publishing company. He had influence. Perhaps, that's the reason Niradh adopted such a bizarre persona and point of view. He was setting himself up as the polar opposite of Nehru- one was the best known Indian alive while the other was a nobody from a small village. Yet, he was more European in culture than the Public School man!
I should clarify that Jerrold was by no means untypical of his class. The Governor of Burma during the War was an equally mad neo-feudalist. His brother was an even bigger lunatic. He had been a Major General in the British Army before deciding to join the IRA. My point is that Niradh, perhaps by mere luck, had found a literary outlet in what can only be called the lunatic fringe of Grub Street. His entrepreneurial elan was such that, as more and more Indian doors were closed to him, he focused on serving a demented, but still influential, market in Britain.
I may mention that Niradh knew Ahmed Ali, the BBC's India Director during the War, who had published 'Twilight in Delhi' in London in 1940 with the assistance of E.M Forster and his Bloomsbury pals. After the War, TS Eliot promoted, the broadcaster, GV Desani's H. Hatter. Clearly, the Radio could be a path to success as a published author.
It must be said, there wasn't a big market for Indian novels in English but there was clearly a section of the English literary establishment which believed in aesthetic affirmative action. The belief was that if the Europeans took notice of you, this would improve your own career prospects. Otherwise a man of letters was condemned to a merely 'genteel form of clerkship'.
Still, the fact remained, more and more Indians were getting published by respectable English publishers. Speaking generally, the books were not good. If you had talent you wrote in your mother tongue. If you didn't, you dashed off some illiterate shite complaining about how being a darkie sucked ass big time. In the Seventies, some US Colleges decided to teach this shite to imbeciles who yearned for a sheepskin. This was because it was important that young people understand that darkies are as stupid as shit.
Ahmed Ali and Mulk Raj Anand would have been considered Left-wing in the Thirties. Niradh clearly wasn't. Where did he get his views from? Calcutta did have a small ultra-Right wing intelligentsia but Niradh would had been classed as a mainstream Nationalist. Indeed, in 1935, he penned the official INC position paper on the need to Indianize the Army.
It is possible that the younger generation of Bengali critics and editors, rejecting Tagore for T.S Eliot, sensed that 'Tradition' might have some virtue overlooked by the Reformists. Equally, there was the popularity of 'scientific racism' or eugenics championed by Statisticians like Pearson and Mahalanobis. Another factor was the old Jugantar dream of an alliance with Germany. Asit Krishna Mukherjee, who had a Doctorate in History from London University, was the head of the Indian Nazi Party and published a magazines in Calcutta with the financial aid of first Germany and then Japan. His wife was Savitri Devi- the Franco-Greek nutcase who believed that Hitler was the last incarnation of Vishnu. Miguel Serrano, Chile's Ambassador to India from 1957 to 1963, shared this crazy belief. Allende got rid of him but under Pinochet he returned to Chile. Chaudhuri, to his credit, did not subscribe to this type of esoteric Right Wing ideology. Still, his views would have seemed congenial to them and they still retained pockets of influence in the Republic of Letters.
One final point. Chaudhuri had studied under R.C Majumdar- a Hindu Nationalist sternly critical of Gandhi- and Kalidas Nag- a Francophile whose Doctorate was from Paris. Given this background, his literary tastes and political views become unexceptional.
Edward Shils, who studied the Sociology of the post-war intellectual, may not have been aware of how and why Niradh wrote in so farcical a manner. Nevertheless, he was helpful to Niradh and wrote an appreciation of him titled 'Citizen of the world' for the American Scholar.
Mr. Chaudhuri's achievements are not those he sought at first.
Shils assumes that Niradh wanted to be what his son became- a professional economic historian and an acclaimed expert in his field. I imagine Niradh, like other young men of his age who had grown up during the Great War, wanted to be a military historian. Perhaps, a career as a foreign correspondent in Europe would have given him the opportunity to visit battlefields and consult the archives in combatant countries. I imagine, if his Sanskrit was good, he could supplement his income as a lecturer in that subject.
On the other hand, Calcutta in the Twenties might have seemed quite an exciting place to be for political reasons. Bose- a fellow Kayasth- had become the Chief Executive of the corporation in 1924 and would become the Mayor six years later. Chaudhuri may have felt he was wasting his time as a clerk in Military Accounts. Moreover, Tagore was world famous for his poetry and plays. Might not literature present a more rewarding career?
Sadly, Niradh's Bengali lacked soul. It had no lyrical undertones, no pathos and no spiritual depth. He might have been a Maupassant but was too much of a prude. Still, the writing of History does not require great literary artistry. Could Clio have been his muse? No. Like all Bengalis he was addicted to an ipse dixit style of argument supported by irrelevant or bogus erudition. Consider his ringing cry of 'civis Britannicus sum'. It is an allusion to a Roman Governor who looted Sicily and crucified a Roman citizen who was foolish enough to think the Law would protect him. Cicero, who tells this story, would be slaughtered soon enough. Empire would replace the Republic and Divine Caesars would rape and kill anybody they pleased- even their own mothers or sisters.
Niradh displays both great stupidity and ignorance by alluding to this. Palmerston had made it clear, in the Don Pacifico affair, that 'Civis Brittannicus applied to all British subjects regardless of race, gender, or creed. Gandhi & Andrews and others had invoked this doctrine in connection with Indians in South Africa, Fiji, etc. In any case, no British Governor or other official in India had been accused of enslaving, torturing, and extorting money from Indians though political enemies in Westminster did try to impeach Clive & Hastings.
Prior to the 1948 Nationality Act, Churchill was just as much a British subject- not a citizen- as Mahatma Gandhi or Niradh Chaudhri. During the Nineteen Fifties, Chaudhuri himself would have been welcome to settle in England and become a naturalized citizen. Indeed, he could have stood for elections. Three Indians had been Members of Parliament. One Indian was made a Lord.
Would it have been better had he been able to follow the path which he originally laid out for himself ?
Only if he answered the questions on the examination paper properly. That would require quoting only relevant facts and formulating an argument which could withstand logical scrutiny. The fact that his father didn't think he could be a lawyer is suggestive in itself. Niradh was a Bengali blathershite.
Was it really such a misfortune for him have failed the examination for the degree of Master of Arts at the University of Calcutta, to have resolved that he would not attempt t examination a second time, and then to abandon his halfhearted efforts try again some years later - although that second try was what his father wished and what he himself decided to do and then decided not to do?
There is little point pursuing a profession in which you are required to support your arguments with factual evidence when what you are wholly addicted to is ipse dixit assertions of a deeply bigoted or wholly dotty type. In any case, historians in India were expected to study Indian history. They would have to learn Persian and read shite written by shitty Indian peeps.
It is nonetheless interesting to speculate on what might have happened had he been as successful in the first or second examination for the Master of Arts degree as he had been in his examination for the baccalaureate.
If he topped the list, he'd have got a Government of India scholarship for three years.
Even if he didn't stand first, it is likely that his family would have scraped together enough money for him to get a PhD abroad. Germany and Austria were cheap places to study at that time. Indeed, the Rupee was actually rather strong at that time. Perhaps Niradh would have moved to the Left and ended up in Moscow along with M.N. Roy and Chatto and so forth. Given that was the case, the safest thing was to get the lad away from Academia and find him a comfortable berth in Military Accounts.
Let us suppose that he would have been successful in gaining an appointment to the University of Calcutta
Dacca was newer and afforded opportunities for more rapid advancement.
or to a leading college in Calcutta - at best, at the Presidency College or at one of the superior missionary colleges, at worst at one of the many others, missionary or private, then not so numerous as they later became, and on probably a higher standard then than they observed during the years of the great expansion of higher education just after India became independent.
The Commies would have thought it worth their while to recruit him. They would have patiently explained that to understand History, you need to understand Economics. The Brits found it worthwhile to make Calcutta the capital of their Indian Empire for economic reasons. But, as A.O Hume had pointed out, the Permanent Settlement had to go for Bengal to regain a measure of economic dynamism.
Mr. Chaudhuri probably would have been a very successful teacher of the most intelligent students, gaining their devotion by his great learning and his own devotion to the life of the mind.
No. He would have been beaten if he said anything which annoyed them. Even Brits- like Edmund Candler- were running the fuck away from the bellicose Bengali student.
He would probably have attracted a small number of faithful, intelligent, and hardworking disciples.
No. Focusing on economic history would have been useful and that would have attracted 'disciples'. Writing tendentious bollocks wasn't useful, more particularly because the fellow was obviously making up the various authors he quoted. Chateaubriand is the name of a particular cut of beef. Niradh was pretending there was some French author of that name. Why not just say Professor Gulab Jamun wrote the Ain-i-Aurangazebi? I tell you, all these so called Kayastha scoundrels only pretend to speak phoren langwidge. Even they are not knowing Inglis gud.
Other students probably would not have liked him so much because he did not teach primarily with an eye to the preparation for the examination.
They would have beaten the fuck out of him if they suspected him of harming their chances to get their diploma.
The relations with his colleagues would have been strained by the superiority of his knowledge and his contentious disclosure of their mistakes.
He made too many mistakes himself. It would be a trivial matter to blow up his reputation. But that would involve actually reading his shite. Just ignore the cunt.
He probably would have drawn to himself much animosity from his colleagues, because he would not have hidden the light of his learning under a bushel.
Learning was and is ignored by the Indian Academy though it blaze like the noonday Sun.
Indian academics are even more given to intrigue and cabal than their European and American colleagues.
Niradh was a Kayasth. They look after their own.
His liberal nationalism
was meaningless. Muslims would dominate East Bengal. He needed to ingratiate himself with the West Bengalis or else head for Delhi.
and his critical attitude towards Gandhism, socialism and communism, fascism and nazism would have stirred the resentment of his colleagues against him.
He could have got a post in a Princely State or a Chieftain's College. The truth is, an eccentric auto-didact can make an excellent Prep School master.
He would also have by this time been thrust into the position of a reactionary by the Marxists who were more numerous among intellectuals in Calcutta.
They were more interested in infiltrating the Trade Union movement. Indeed, everybody was. There was money in that racket.
Would he have become the great scholar which he had wanted to be, a scholar who held before himself the ideal embodied in the achievements of Adolf von Harnack,
Niradh wasn't a philologist. Hemanta Kumar Sarkar, who was the same age, was a very promising comparative philologist who gave up a three year Government of India scholarship in order to go to jail as part of the freedom movement. He moved to the Left. Niradh simply wasn't in the same intellectual class as Sarkar or, his best friend from school, Subhas Chandra Bose.
Eduard Meyer,
had shat the bed with his stupid book on English politics which was published during the War
Theodor Mommsen, Charles Seignobos, Albert Sorel, Ernest Lavisse,
Charles Darwin, William Shakespeare, Elvis Presley
and other great scholars of that order? The probability is not high that he would have done so.
The fucker couldn't pass the M.A exam that too in a low IQ subject like History! Still, the fact is, he liked reading books rather than fucking whores which is why he lived to a great age. The lesson here is that, if you marry a sensible woman, she can ensure you succeed in life one way or another.
Indian colleges and universities have never been congenial places for research, outside of Indological studies.
Actually, they were doing well in STEM subjects back in the Twenties.
Mr. Chaudhuri's views on India, as they developed in the direction which was necessary for him, given his values, his own research, and his fearlessness, would have closed the ranks of the European and Indian Indologists against him.
No. His ignorance disqualified him from contributing to Indology or Philology of Philosophy of any type. He might have been able to do good enough archival work- e.g. Regimental histories or Dynastic chronicles for the Princes or bigger Zamindars. Nothing wrong with a belles lettrist engaging in hack work of that type.
To do research on European or ancient classical civilization would have been
easier for Niradh than it was for Morris Ginsberg who was 8 years older than Niradh. He spoke only Yiddish when he arrived in England at the age of 15. He worked in a factory and went to Night School so as to learn Latin, Greek, French, English etc. Hobhouse, Professor of Sociology at the LSE- to which institution the Tatas had just given 10,000 pounds- took him under his wing. Ginsberg's 'evolutionary sociology' proved popular. That's the sort of thing Niradh could have done if he had the ability. True, his path would have been much smoother because he already had a degree. True, his life in London would have been rather austere to begin with but he would soon have supplemented his income through journalism.
extremely difficult, even if his teaching burden did not take up all of his time and energy;
If he had been smart enough to get hired as a College lecturer , he'd have been smart enough to get a travelling fellowship of some type. If Niradh's Sanskrit was good, he could 'add value' by comparing Greek or Hebrew with similar Indic texts.
he could not afford the time or the more to travel to Europe to work there in archives and libraries,
there were grants available for such things. Like Ginsberg, Niradh could have started off as a research assistant. Sociology was Shils own field. He knew there were grants available from American and other Foundations which helped people like Ginsberg.
so the scholarly productions would have had to be based on published sources and on those available in the Imperial Library and in the library University of Calcutta; hence he would not have met the standards of scholars in Western countries.
Yet, if he'd done well in his MA and, like Sarkar, got a GoI scholarship, no such obstacles would have barred his way. I suppose the truth is, the romance of doing research in the archives does not correspond to the reality of that species of drudgery.
(There was also a reluctance of the in those years before the independence of India to take any Indian scholar, especially if he did not write on Indian subjects, at all seriously.
Nobody took 'scholars' seriously unless they were making useful discoveries in STEM subjects or, like Radhakrishnan, had jumped on to the right political bandwagon.
He would have been further handicapped by his disregard for departmental and disciplinary boundaries.
Not at new Institutions like the LSE or SOAS. The plain fact is, Niradh was like Ranajit Guha. Both liked writing high falutin' bollocks but were too stupid to get proper academic qualifications from Calcutta Uni. In Niradh's case, it was an M.A. In Ranajit's, it was a PhD. What both should have done if they really cared about history was to master the intricacies of the Permanent Settlement and its subsequent trajectory. This would require knowledge of Persian to examine the land records, sanads, etc. People who did this would also be able to make a lot of money as lawyers or, if that was beneath them, lawyers would have bought their books or called them as expert witnesses. Understanding the fiscal basis of the Raj would be useful in itself. But, it would also be the sort of knowledge which was valuable to the Government. A Professor who had worked in this field- whatever else he might waste his time on- would be given a seat on Commissions of Inquiry. He might be nominated to the Legislative Council. He would have a seat and a voice amongst the great and good.
Ranajit and Niradh were stupid and wrote nonsense. Both emigrated to England. Indeed, Ranajit ran away from India first- in 1959. Niradh followed at the end of the Sixties. But he had family in England and his English was always very readable. Perhaps, writing talks for Radio broadcasts had improved his prose style.
Ranajit was posing as some sort of Communist sleeper agent. Because Ranajit knew no history whatsoever, he gained acclaim as the head of the 'Subaltern School' of Historiography. This was very funny.
Decadence
means 'moral or cultural decline as characterized by excessive indulgence in pleasure or luxury.' This was a fitting description of the life-style of some of the Indian princes and big landlords. It had no application to British officialdom or the Indian political class.
for Mr. Chaudhuri is cravenness, lack of individual and collective self-respect, lack of dignity, a deficient sense of honor, no appreciation of national greatness.
This is not decadence. It may arise from a superior moral intuition. It may simply be a recognition that one's power has declined irretrievably. After the Great War, none could be under any illusion that War was the sport of King. It was more a matter of artillery than chivalry. The side with the bigger and better munition factories would prevail.
An individual or a collectivity with the courage, the willingness to exercise power and to take the responsibities incumbent on its exercise is not corrupt.
It is if it can be bought or sold.
He adapts Acton's maxim into "loss of power corrupts, and loss of absolute power corrupts absolutely" to describe or account for British decadence.
There was some decadence. The Governor of Madras stole money from the Red Cross to settle his gambling debts during the Second World War. But, by and large, the Brits had been steadily improving in morality since the time of the Nabobs. What changed was their military doctrine. They decided to give priority to their air force. This was sensible enough. It doomed the Empire, but the Brits had, in any case, wanted the colonies to become self-administering and self-garrisoning. Otherwise, there would be a 'Thucydides trap' such that every emerging power would feel the British Empire stood in their way. What was preferable was that outposts made their own deals with the rising neighbour- e.g. Australian appeasement of Japan in the late Thirties. The worst possible outcome would be England having to squander blood and treasure to keep some barely profitable territory safe.
It was in this unwillingness to live up to the responsibilities imposed by national greatness that the decadence of Great Britain can be best seen.
Churchill did expend English blood and treasure defeating the Japanese. Atlee ensured that India, Pakistan, and Ceylon entered the Commonwealth as free and equal members. Admiral Mountbatten remained a close friend and advisor of Nehru to his dying day.
It is lack of self-respect in the powerful that Mr. Chaudhuri despises. He no unqualified condemner of empires; he admires the builders and rulers of empires and great generals. Churchill he admires above a political figures of the twentieth century for his courage and his sense historical greatness. It is not power as such that Mr. Chaudhuri admires.
It is bombast. Churchill doomed the Empire when, as Chancellor, he took a shilling off Income tax instead of spending it on the Navy.
He admires the virtues which are often necessary for the acquisition an exercise of power. He esteems the courage which leads to great achievements
like those of Stalin and Mao?
and the pride in such achievements - individual and collect intellectual, political, and military.
Britain has far greater achievements to its credit than the fact that it once got some bunch of darkies to start prattling in English to each other.
Mr. Chaudhuri sees the decadence of Great Britain in the present state of British manners and speech;
Everybody should wear a top-hat and say 'Tally ho!'
the frivolity of public amusements,
Queenji should not be drinking Gin and playing Bingo. It is most unseemly.
the triviality of interests and indecorous conduct are part of this decadence.
As is sodomy. Ted Heath may kindly desist from taking it up the arse from the TUC. During the Seventies, both India and the UK had a state of Emergency. The British one failed. The head of the Civil Service took off all his clothes and rolled around screaming hysterically on the carpet of Number 10. Meanwhile, Indira Gandhi crushed her opponents with insulting ease.
Niradh lived long enough to believe Nehru's dynasty had ended with the assassination of Rajiv. Sadly, he did not live to see his dream of European rule restored in India in the person of a nice Italian lady.
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