History matters: Timeri Murari and (below) John Keay

Is India a British invention?

This morning’s scholarship question is: would there have been an India had the British not come?

No conferring, no cheating, no phoning a friend. Those who pass will be declared fit for either the LSE or SOAS. Those who fail have to make do with Presidency, alas.

A fascinating seminar last week at the British Library in London held a panel discussion on Makings of an Empire: The Mark of the Mughals on South Asia.

Panel members included the historian John Keay, author of India: A History, who confessed: “I am rather embarrassed by the fact that my history of India, written by someone from the Highlands of Scotland, is standard work in India... long may it continue.”

The British Library is currently holding a fabulous exhibition, Mughal India: Art, Culture and Empire (till April 2013).

Keay was replying to a question (from me): was it good or bad that so many of us have got our Mughal history from a) Mughal-e-Azam and b) Jodhaa Akbar?

Another panel member, writer Timeri Murari, responded to what he assumed was really the question behind my question with the outrageous but possibly truthful assertion — before the Brits came, there wasn’t really an India.

“It is only under the British that we finally became what is now India,” he argued. “Before that it was just an idea.”

“Our neglect of history is a terrible tragedy in our lives in India because when you forget the past, you repeat your mistakes,” he said. “I have often been invited to talk on history to IT students and IIM and they have no interest in it... they don’t understand who they are... and you have to know who you are before you can move forward.”

He emphasised the importance of history. “I have always said Indian children should be taught more of history written by Indians rather than by the British. But the problem is — as Orwell well knew — that the moment you start rewriting history you are in deep trouble because it depends on who is rewriting it.”

Another difficulty faced by Indian writers was that “our records are here (in the UK). It is very hard to research, as a writer, Indian history... we have to come across here to understand what happened there (in India).”

Murari, who got the biggest applause of the evening, hinted that Indian students did not want to waste their time on something as unprofitable as history when they could do another subject that enhanced their earning potential — business management.

 

Dress code

The British are masters of the art of self-deprecation — in particular, telling jokes against themselves.

Boris Johnson, whose wife, Marina, is half Indian, recalled the occasion he went to an Indian wedding but misjudged the attire.

“I went to terrific trouble to get the right kurta-pyjama and chappals and I had a turban wrapped around my head and a waistcoat and then I walked into the reception and everyone else was in suits... I had overdone it,” he admitted to Indian journalists.

The mayor has been basking in the “Boris bounce” after the Olympics. “I hope people in India were watching and saw a city that was dynamic, welcoming, diverse, friendly, great place to live and invest.”

Over the years, he has read quite a few books on India but mentioned “Romila Thapar’s book about early India (Early India: From Origins to AD 1300) — it was jolly interesting”.

 

Wheel wise: Boris Johnson (front) on a Brompton bike

Boris bikes

Apart from “chocolate cake”, Boris Johnson wants to export bikes to India. He will visit India for a week from November 25 onwards.

“London makes beautiful bicycles — the Brompton bicycle should definitely be exported to India — (it’s a) collapsible bicycle,” enthuses the mayor, who cycles everywhere.

You often do see pinstripe suited gents getting on to the London Underground, clutching these contraptions and with their trouser legs neatly folded back with cycle clips.

He reckons they would be ideal for a crowded city like Calcutta. “In an ever more constricted environment the collapsible bikes we make in London ought to have a future.”

The company, Brompton Bicycle, based in Brentford, west London, manufactures 22,000 bikes a year of which 70 per cent are exported. It folds into a small portable unit with a 16-inch wheel eminently suitable for the journey, say, from Belgachia to Chandni or even beyond.

The only drawback is they cost nearly £1,000 but at journey’s end you do save on the rickshaw fare.

 

BENGAL PLOT:London Eye

Calcutta Eye

Apropos Amit Mitra’s recent visit to the World Travel Market in London, it is worth mentioning his pledge that Calcutta’s answer to the London Eye will be up and running within a year.

I had assumed that Mamata Banerjee’s announcement that Calcutta would have its own ferris wheel, like the one by Waterloo on the Thames in London, was a throwaway remark not to be taken too seriously.

But apparently not.

“We have got the land for the ferris wheel — we will have a ferris wheel,” Amit babu told me during his London trip. “(It will be) like London Eye, even better. There are 11 expressions of interest — PPP (public private partnership).”

He further revealed: “The ferris wheel will be ready within a year — as soon as the port authority gives a letter. (The managers of the London Eye) are applicants — they are going to be technical advisers.”

 

Luxury hotel

So what is the most luxurious hotel in India?

The answer is in the detail of a police investigation into the expenses of Lord Hanningfield, who spent £2,86,000 on official trips to India, China and the Bahamas.

City of London Police announced this week that it would be taking no further action after investigating Hanningfield’s spending while he was the Tory leader of Essex County Council, saying there was insufficient evidence.

The 71-year-old was last year jailed for falsely claiming parliamentary expenses. He served nine weeks of a nine-month sentence and was ordered to repay more than £30,000.

The council yesterday published a full list of Hanningfield’s credit card transactions between 2005 and 2010.

On one trip Hanningfield spent £1,538.30 for a stay at the Hotel Imperial in Delhi, which was described as “the best luxury hotel in India”.

Clearly, the hotel should pay Hanningfield a handsome retainer for this fulsome endorsement.

 

Jolly good: Travis with Suu Kyi last June

Tittle tattle

Aung San Suu Kyi, who has been visiting India, revealed after her release from house arrest two years ago that her confinement was eased by listening to music on A Jolly Good Show, presented on the BBC World Service by her favourite disc jockey, Dave Lee Travis.

During her visit to Britain in June, when the odd couple met at Broadcasting House in London, Travis took her hand and kissed it with a great show of gallantry.

But last week, as the Jimmy Savile affair threatened to engulf many public figures from the past, 67-year-old Travis was arrested by police over allegations of sexual assault dating back to the 1960s. After questioning, Travis was released on police bail.

One paper asked tongue-in-cheek: “Will he ask Burma’s Aung San Suu Kyi to speak up for him? She said his radio programme was a comfort during her detention.”