Netaji Bose Papers An Investigation into the Funds of the Indian National Army and the Indian Independence League

A look at the world of politics, statecraft, diplomacy and books

The Netaji Bose Papers recently declassified by the Government of Hon ble Narendra Modi provides a wealth of details about how the Nehruvian Regime sought to appropriate the entire legacy of this great Patriot. And in so doing left itself open to the charge of mishandling sensitive political and diplomatic issues.

The INA under Subash Chandra Bose collected contributions towards the war effort from the Indian population in Singapore and Malaya. It is safe to assume that the fiscal levies were voluntary contributions though war time measures did warrant a degree of coercion. The Azad Hind Fauj and the Provisional Government headed by Subash Chandra Bose maintained distinct and separate identities. The funds collected by the Government were deposited with banks located in Singapore and Thailand. After the defeat of Japan and its surrender, the Allied Forces moved in and claimed INA assets as "enemy property" and Nehru, a trained lawyer thought it fit to allow negotiations with the Allied Command in Singapore to be carried out under the pretence that INA assets were "enemy property". Of course, the presence of Lord Mountbatten helped Nehru get the support he needed to push his policy through. Apparently a part of the funds were held in a personal account in the name of the Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru. 

The file F.23 generated by V M M Nair is mere 24 pages but if a historian reads it against the grain so the speak it reveals a great deal. The file begins with a Note from Nair stating that one Hardyal Singh of Singapore was keen to give the INA Gold in his custody back to the Government of India. The legal issue being that the Singapore authorities considered any asset belonging to the INA or the Government he headed as enemy property and Jawaharlal Nehru blithely walked into a trap. He conceded that Pakistan has a share in the INA Assets in the proportion 2: 1. How Nehru arrived at this strange conclusion that Pakistan was entitled to a share of the INA and Provisional Government Assets is utterly bewildering. This decision ranks alongside the other infamous decision taken by Nehru to refer to the Kashmir dispute to the United Nations. INA assets were seized as enemy property and a receiver was appointed to settle the claims, if any, of India. The claim of Pakistan did not arise as these were not National Property. Nehru was quite ignorant of law and legal precedence.

The file reveals that around Rs 10 lakhs were eventually transferred to the account of the Indian Mission in Siam now Thailand. The Ministry of Education thought it fit to use the Funds as seed capital to finance visits by Indian scholars to Thailand in pursuance of the then prevailing notions of Greater India and chose Dr R C Majumdar as its first nominee for the award. Nehru was aghast that the decision was taken without his consent and made his rebuke plain in a Note sent to one Humayun Kabir, then Additional Secretary in the Ministry of Education. R C Majumdar declined the offer and T N Ramachandran the Joint Director General of the Archaeological Survey of India was eventually nominated. The papers do not reveal if Shri T N Ramachandran availed of the fellowship.

Much of the Correspondence in the file is handled by Shah Nawaz Khan who in 1952 was a Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport. This Shah Nawaz was instrumental in enabling the Indian National Congress appropriate the legacy of Subash Chandra Bose.  Curiously Shah Nawaz was Minister of Food in Shasti's Cabinet in 1965 when his son was a Captain in the Pakistani Army. This individual has had several walk on parts on the stage of Indian history at a crucial juncture. As the Chief defendant in the INA Trial at the Red Fort Shah Nawaz was defended by a galaxy of legal luminaries and though he was sentenced to death for treason, the sentence was commuted and he along with Major Dhillon and another Officer was cashiered from the Army. 

The Legal Defence mounted on behalf of Shah Nawaz was a classic instance of the Rule of Law serving political goals which were quietly given the go by once the Red Fort Trials ended. Shah Nawaz himself became a Member of Parliament and was elected four times in all and lost in 1967 and 1977. The grounds on which it was argued in the Red Fort Trials that the defendants had not committed treason was on the grounds the the Provisional Government of Azad Hind headed by Bose was a legally constituted Government with due international recognition and having all elements of sovereignty, territory, population, Army Judiciary etc. And as such they were soldiers fighting on behalf of their Government against an occupation force. This argument was politically an explosive one in that it threatened to blow the entire edifice of the Nehruvian claim that the legitimate government to which power was transferred was his, and that was essentially the basis of the political consensus of Post Transfer  of Power India. The arguments presented in the Red Fort Trials make clear the fact that the Government of Bose was indeed a legitimate one and INA was not a rebel force but the legal Army of duly recognized Government that had declared war on the Allies.

Shah Nawaz in 1956 was appointed to head a Three Man Commission of Inquiry to look into the death of Subash Chandra Bose. By this time, Shah Nawaz was domesticated within the power structure of the Nehruvian regime and he gave a Report which essentially validated the contentions of the regime. It is certainly likely that Bose had indeed perished in the Crash of 18th August 1945 and by making Shah Nawaz the anchor of the theory, Nehru succeeded in completely neutralizing the political legacy of Subash Chandra Bose. Forward Bloc and the Family was now reduced to merely disputing the factual claim of the Air Crash and the Legacy of Bose was stolen clean.

Thus this file a mere 24 pages long illuminates a sordid chapter in the history of contemporary India.

Netaji Bose Papers: Renkoji Temple , INA Treasure and other Questions

A look at the world of politics, statecraft, diplomacy and books

The historical community owes an immense debt of gratitude to Narendra Modi for having declassified the files relating to the Netaji and putting them up in public domain. This Blog is based on two files both of which are available on the website of the National Archives. 

Unfortunately there is a glitch in the web site that prevented me from registering so that I could access other documents. The files relating to Netaji, around 100 in all are freely available though they cannot be downloaded or copied. The very fact that the Government has made the documents available shows a firm commitment to Historical truth. For nearly 70 years, since the Transfer of Power in 1947 Historiography remained a political tool in the hands of regime supported Leftist historians like Gopal, Bipan Chandra and Guha. The outrage that accompanied the publication of each volume of the carefully curated material found in the Towards Freedom volume bespeaks of the political dimensions of historical research and related questions about Nation, State and Society.

In the generally accepted orthodoxy that governs modern Indian Historiography, India acquired it freedom largely due to the Indian National Congress and an enshrined Triumvirate consisting of Gandhi, Nehru and Patel are the presiding deities. This simplistic and yes, self serving interpretation, ignores and at times deliberately distorts the contribution of other major figures such as Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, Subash Chandra Bose and Chandra Sekar Azad. Since the British transferred power in 1947 to Nehru after Partitioning the country, the political legitimacy of the ruling dispensation rested on absolving itself of all responsibility for the horrendous violence that accompanied the decision. In fact we may say that every step towards freedom was also a step towards Partition and the leadership of the Congress was blissfully unaware of its own excesses. Khilafat Movement, the boycott of the Cripps' Mission, the mass resignation from Office in 1939, the Quit India Movement in 1942 at the height of the War, the decision to contest Muslim reserved seats in the Provincial Elections of 1937 after the Government of India Act of 1935 were some of the more egregious missteps of the Congress. Making  virtue out  of necessity Indian "historians" merrily created the myth that these were giant steps towards the emergence of an idea of India that was secular, modern and inclusive. The fact that the Indian movement led by the  Congress resulted in the enforced Partition of India shows that the political movement led by the Congress was riddled with irreconcilable contradictions and as Perry Anderson argues in his Indian Ideology these contradictions animate political and ideological discourse in India until this day. 

It is against the inherent contradictions of Indian nationalist politics of the 1930s and 40s that the role of Subash Bose is best studied. Like his other great contemporary Savarkar, Bose came to the conclusion that agitational politics will not move the cause of Indian Independence forward and so chose to ally with Japan with whose help he wanted to liberate India by leading a military force by way of Burma to attack the North East frontier of India. The fact that several Naga and Kuki tribesman joined the INA  shows the wide appeal Bose had. The Congress launched the Quip India Movement in 1942 and in spite of the enormous repression inflicted on the people, the Movement achieved little except harden the British Government's resolve to divide India and Quit. Even though Japan lost the war as a consequence of the Atomic Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, the war had made political independence a distinct possibility. Almost all observers were agreed that the post war political order would be a changed one in which Asian nationhood would have a place. USA too had made its political position clear and therefore the emergence of Nation states in the post World War period was a consequence of the war. The contribution of Bose was important for the simple reason he showed the British that they could not return to India to rule. And in this Bose like Ho Chi Minh, Quezon, and Sukarno showed the limits of imperial rule.

II The Controversies, the Documents and the Truth

Sugata Bose, a Harvard Historian, a Trinamool Congres Politician, and a nephew of Netaji states in his biography of his famous uncle that Netaji wanted to surrender to the British forces as they advanced rapidly towards Singapore. There was a cabinet meeting and it was decided that Bose ought not to surrender. In retrospect the decision to escape capture was the right one. Had Bose surrendered the gaggle of regime friendly "historians" would have had a field day in much the same way as they demean and degrade the greatest of patriots, Savarkar.  The mystique of Netaji is furthered enhanced when he is seen as one who continued to defy the British even as he flew to his death in a blaze of martyrdom. Bose knew that his struggle was over with the defeat of Japan and on USSR entering the war Bose ran out of  options. He decided to enter Machuria and on August 18th 1945 he was headed toward Manchuria.

Did Netaji die in the crash at Teihoku Airfield. In dealing with this question we have to understand that both the British and their chosen collaborators to whom they transferred power in 1947, particularly the suave articulate and clever Jawahralal Nehru, who was the chosen heir of Gandhi, had virtually identical views as far as Bose was concerned. Nehru as the documents reveal continued to spy on the Bose family for decades. Within the Congress circles any mention of Bose was proscribed and Historians were directed to write a narrative of Freedom which airbrushes the role of Netaji. And they obliged. For long years the "Tryst with Destiny" excluded Netaji Bose and the triumphalism of Nehru's speech set the tone: Indian Independence was the achievement of those who "redeemed the pledge" and it does not take too much intelligence to understand who was meant by that telling phrase.

Nehru's regime treated Bose with scant respect. His place in the Freedom Movement has not been acknowledged.  Snide comments about his Military Uniform and his Alliance with Japan was labeled "fascist", the favorite abuse of these regime friendly "historians". Bose made his Alliance with Japan on the principle of Indian Statecraft that stated that an Enemy's enemy is a friend". And the Alliance was a Military not a  political one. However there is one aspect of Netaji's History as a leader of the Indian Struggle that we must not ignore. The atrocities of the Japanese in the Island of Andamans is remembered till this day and Netaji is tainted due to his association with the brutal and savage reprisals against Indians there. Of course Netaji perhaps was not aware of the ground realities. But then he bears some responsibility. Of course Bose bears no personal responsibility for the war crimes in the Andaman Islands as he spent only 2 days and a night in Port Blair. Though I am convinced that without Bose, India would not have become free, I am a Historian and so record the dark deeds as well.

Controversy over the death of Netaji has cast a huge shadow on Indian politics. Nehru was afraid that if Netaji was alive he could return and he knew that the public persona and appeal of Netaji was far more robust than his. The Intelligence Bureau was tasked to keep tabs. The Forward Bloc founded by Bose was active in Bengal politics. The BJP Government is able to deal with the Bose Questions fearlessly as its political legitimacy in no way gets diminished as a consequence of a Bose reentry into India. This is certainly not the case with the Congress. Bose is a symbol of defiance of both the Congress and the British and his legacy undermines the Congress system substantially. The dilemma of Nehru is clear from the records unveiled: He cannot accept the death of Netaji in the Air Crash of 1945 as that would enrage the supporters of Netaji and reignite the passions that had been set at rest. He cannot wish Netaji be alive as that would be a potent threat to his own legitimacy. A very difficult choice for Nehru and he got by as he is wont to do by prevaricating, grandstanding and cynical subterfuge.

In 1951 the priest of the Renkoji Temple where the Ashes of Bose were kept wanted the relics repatriated back to India. Nehru was terrified at this prospect. In fact the Priest complained as per the Note from the Embassy that India was "indifferent" towards a national hero who fought for India's freedom. This touched a raw nerve and the Government of India decided that the entire exercise of requesting the relics to be repatriated back to India was a mere pretext or ploy to increase the subvention of Rs 5000 which was paid to the Temple for keeping the relics. The Government decided to let the ashes remain in Japan till a "more favourable opportunity arose". 

In 1956 the Shah Nawaz Commission was appointed and it concluded that Netaji perished in the Air crash. Sugata Bose accepts this fact but the Forward Bloc whose founder was Netaji Bose was opposed to the finding of the Commission that the great Patriot had died in the August 18th 1945 Crash. When political will and courage are lacking, prevarication and deceit become easy substitutes for courage and conviction. The Note to the Cabinet makes the policy clear:

"As long as the ashes are kept in Japan, there would always be room for misgivings that the Government of India have not accepted the findings of the  Shah Nawaz Commission and the Khosla Commission regarding the death of Netaji". This passage is from 1977 a note written by R L Mishra on 21/07/1977.

The Parliamentarians Samar Gupta and Dr Subramanium Swamy were primarily responsible for raising the mystery of the INA Treasure and the Records show that the Government had much to hide in this matter as well. Shri Samar Gupta tabled a Motion before the Speaker on the issue of INA Treasure and Dr Swamy wrote to the then Prime Minister Shri Moraji Desai regarding the INA Treasure. And the files reveal some murky details. 

T C A Srinivasavardan the Home Secretary of the day put up a note on 17/11/1977 which gives some details of the Treasure but rejects further Inquiry. Netaji Bose was a prudent administrator and husbanded the resources of the Government well. On his birthday in 1945 he was weighed in Gold and if we assume that his weight was 70 kilos, the Treasury of Bose had at least 70 kilos of Gold. Of course we do not know how much of that gold was transferred on to the ill fated aircraft. What is intriguing is the clumsy manner in which this issue was handled which certainly reeks of a coverup.

A Note dating to the time of Nehru states that one Shri Damle who was a passenger traveling by air from Tokyo to New Delhi was approached by the Indian Ambassador whose name is not mentioned and was requested to carry a suitcase and hand it over immediately on arrival to the Prime Minister. Damle apparently sensed that something was amiss and stated that what should he do if he is checked by the Customs. The Ambassador told him that it would be taken care of. Upon arrival at New Delhi apparently B K Nehru was at hand to meet Damle and B K Nehru asked him to hand over the box. Damle remembering his instructions said that he will hand them over only to the Prime Minister. The date is November 10th 1952. The two drive to the PM's residence where the Box is opened and left in the custody of Nehru. Another note in the me file records that it remained in the Prime Minister's custody for a year before it was transferred to the National Museum. It is very curious that Nataji Treasure was sent to the National Museum and not to a Government vault for safe keeping. The note signed by Shri N S Sreeraman states that "Dr Subramanium Swamy has been relentlessly pursuing this matter". The value assessed was a mere 500,000 Rs. And therby hangs yet another scandal of the Nehruvian Age.

While it is likely that the legacy of Netaji Subash Chandra Bose has a huge future in Indian politics if he is exorcized of the contrived burdens thrust upon him by Jawaharlal Nehru.

 

Vellore Mutiny, July 10 1806 : A of review of Vellore Revolt, 1806

A look at the world of politics, statecraft, diplomacy and books

Vellore Revolt 1806

Dr K A Manikumar

VIT 

July 10, 1806 began like any other day in a cantonment of the East India Company. The oppressive Summer heat had yielded to some light showers and as the sun rose over Vellore on that day, the Sepoys of the Madras Army rose in revolt. They armed themselves and soon gathered in the parade ground to prepare for the attack on the Quarters of their officers. By the time the sun rose, more than 250 White Officers and their families had been killed and the handful of survivors has taken refuge in the Church in the Fort and in Cellars of buildings. They soldiers hunted them from their hiding places and slaughtered them. The savagery of the attacks was numbing. What lay behind this Revolt? 

The question has not been adequately answered as most historians were keen to establish the primacy of South India in general and the Tamil region, in particular, in embracing the cause of resistance to the rule of the East India Company and hence a precocious curtain raiser to the more spectacular Revolt of 1857. There is no doubt that the rule of the Company had torn the Moral Economy of South India and the agrarian changes particularly the resumption of land and its revenue by the Company after crushing the Polygar Uprising in 1803 had resulted in considerable distress. The caste composition of the Madras Army  essentially consisted  of Telugu warriors and peasants from the dry region of the  Peninsula, Tinnevelly, Ramnad, Madurai etc and social groups which were classified as "untouchable" particularly the "paraiah" caste. To this volatile mix was added the Palayamkottai Regiment which had taken part in the recent campaingns against Tippu Sultan in Mysore and in the expeditions against the Polygars. The presence of the deposed sons of the erstwhile ruler of Mysore in the Vellore Fort added an element of conspiracy to the entire event.

The "native" troops were seething with rage at the recent orders passed by General Craddock prohibiting the Sepoys from smearing their foreheads with "caste marks" and the leather cockade that was to be added to the turban was considered unclean. While these two grievance came to the fore in the Official Inquiry conducted by Lord William Bentinck as the Governor of Madras, more serious factors were at play. The brutal punishments inflicted on indigenous soldiers for minor infractions  was deeply resented. The Company has instituted a reign of terror to keep peace in the conquered regions and the Sepoys were flogged whipped and shot without trial or appeal. The savagery with which the Sepoys fell upon the white Officers can only be explained by deep felt resentment and hatred. 

By 9:30 the killings had stopped. The Sepoys were exhausted by their physically by the six hours of nearly non stop massacre, and having found the liquor stores of the white officers proceeded to indulge themselves, oblivious to the fact that they had even left the Main Gate of the Fort unguarded and had not noticed that at least a few White Officers and a handful of "loyal" soldiers had not been accounted for. As was the case in 1857, the soldiers lacked strategic sense and the ability to plan for the consequences.

Near Ambur, nearly 30 miles from Vellore Col Rollo Gillespie heard of the disturbances in the Fort from sepoy who had broken out of the fort. https://wordcraftandstatecraft.blogspot.com/2020/05/sir-rollo-

gillespie-and-battle-of.html. Without waiting for orders from Madras Gillespie rallied a handful of men and rode towards Vellore. He reached Vellore around four in the afternoon and chivied up the curtain wall of the Fort. With the few men at his command he managed to break into the Fort and the very sight of the Officer was enough to put the fear of God in the minds of the rebel soldiers.

The reprisal was swift and barbaric. Indian soldiers were quickly rounded up and  tied to the mouths of cannon and shot. A few of the Sepoys had taken shelter in the famous Jalakanteswara Temple, a late Vijayanagara temple located within the Fort. Till this day the walls of the inner sanctum bear the marks of the terrible battle that raged inside.

Jalakanteswara Temple

  By the time the Sun set over Vellore nearly 1500 sepoys lay dead. Col Gillespie extracted a tremendous price for the alleged disloyalty of the sepoys.  Was the Vellore Revolt an attempt at ridding India of Company Rule? Was it a vain effort to reinstall the sovereignty of the deposed Mysore usurpers? Was it a reaction to the cumulative grievances of  the Sepoys? Was it an atavistic attempt at stopping the Missionaries who were very active in the area. Historians are still debating.

The book Vellore Revolt 1806 by Dr Manikumar is an excellent introduction to these and other vexing issues surrounding the traic event that transpire on that July day in 1806.

THE INDISCREET CHARMS OF ENID BLYTON; POLITICAL CORRECTNESS IN THE LAND OF THE WOKE

A look at the world of politics, statecraft, diplomacy and books

Enid Blyton died at the age of 71 on November 28, 1968. Having written over 700 books and 4 500 short stories for children she ranks with Beatrix Potter and J K Rowling as one of the most celebrated writers of books meant exclusively for children. The recent decision of the Royal Mint not to honour her memory on a 50 pence coin on the ground that her work is " racist, xenophobic, and sexist " is not only misplaced but completely misses the enormous impact she had on those growing up is distant lands in a far more innocent age than our own. Racism is now a "Thought Crime" and anyone with views not conforming to the radical posturing of Wokedom is a racist and a whole litany of thought crimes are added to damn writers, politicians, actors and others. Enid Blyton is only the latest casualty of this kind of intellectual policing. Post colonial literary theories have fabricated a new aesthetic in which the anachronistic effusions of self righteousness often parade as criticism or worse a dog whistle for rounding up the proles. 

Enid Blyton (1897-1968)

I grew up reading Enid Blyton and as a child frankly did not find anything offensive in her writings. I bought a complete set of her Famous Five and Five Find-Outers and Dog for my daughter when she was 7 years old and could not resist the temptation of revisiting Peterswood, the rugged coast of Cornwall and capering round the world with Jack and his parrot Kiki in the Adventure Series even as I reread these books with my child. I can say that age has not withered nor custom staled the infinite charm of the world conjured up by Enid Blyton. To judge children's literature by a standard completely foreign to the age of the author is wrong and moral judgements can be invoked only if one sets out to propagate a set of values or ideology that one finds distasteful or abhorrent. Enid  Blyton wrote in a time and place less inflected with the pressure of flattening social and cultural spheres into homogenized wokeism.

Enid Blyton was born in 1897 in Dulwich, East London. As her daughter Gillian recounts in her biography of her mother, Enid Blyton was deeply attached to her father, Thomas Blyton who instilled in her a love for books, music, nature and animals. Enid Blyton set up several charities and trusts for animals and English Heritage must see beyond the narrow limits of self defeating political correctness while appreciating and memorializing her work. There is nothing but respect for Nature in her work. Even the baddies do not harm Nature and the lush English countryside is alive with flowers, shrubs and meadows all described in such vivid colours that to a child reading in distant India, the English countryside appears as natural as the mango tress and palm trees of his own drab world. The only instance when an animal almost comes to harm is in Mystery of the Holly Lane in which the hyper active dog, Buster, is accused by the rather unintelligent policeman Theophillus Goon of killing sheep. Reading Enid Blyton at an impressionable age will leave a child with a reverence nature and animals. 

What is the social world encompassed by Enid Blyton in her work. This is a large question. The Empire is hardly ever mentioned and it is very unlikely whether Enid Blyton had ever expressed any support or endorsed the Empire. Her characters were strangely far removed from the fast changing world that decolonization brought in its wake. The children like the Five Find-outers lived in sylvan villages in which the family was the stable unit and class determined one's place in society. Thus we find all service folk being entertained in the kitchen by the cook and even the village policeman accepts his station in life, without protest. Blyton wrote at a time when everyone knew his or her place in society. The vast changes after World War II that reshaped British Society were hardly at play during the years Enid was active writing. Britain was still a predominantly white country and it is therefore not surprising that all her characters are "white, pale and stale". 

The charge that Blyton was a racist needs to be refuted. Her character in Noddy's Toyland, Golliwog, may offend our sensibilities today. But did she intend a racial insult when she used Florence Upton's creation. Unlike Hardy Boys Series or Billy Bunter in which racist stereotypes prance around the pages, there is no overt racism in Enid Blyton. If Bylton ignores people of colour, that was because she was writing before the huge influx from the colonies flooded into England. 

The Royal Mint must honour Enid Blyton. Wokedom and its ideology cannot dictate the definition of culture and taste. Afterall Shakespeare and Charles Dickens can be read critically and wokedom can find serious thought crimes committed by these writers.

The Tyranny of Big Tech: The Sultans of Big Data and Human Liberty

A look at the world of politics, statecraft, diplomacy and books

Josh Hawley, the Senator from Missouri, has fired a powerful salvo against the Mega Tech Corporations-- Google, Twitter, Amazon and FaceBook. The book is a broadside against the erosion of human rights and freedom as a consequence of Big Data and Big Mega Tech Corporations which collect and manipulate the data. Hawley wants all these corporations to be brought under the Anti Trust Laws, as they have become monopolies and as such contravene the Anti Trust Laws passed in the early decades of the last century.  He spends nearly half the book on the Robber Barons who were the virtual industrial aristocracy of USA as it was emerging as an important economic power. He argues that if the Steel and Railroad magnates could be stripped of their monopolistic hold, it stands to reason that these later day Corporations too should be brought under the ambit of the anti trust laws.

However, these Companies do not produce anything tangible. They enjoy huge profits without production. Economics cannot explain why FaceBook is today a multi billion dollar establishment. And it produces nothing. It sells nothing. And yet its profits are huge. Since these Corporations do not produce anything tangible bringing them under the anti trust laws may for that very reason be difficult. Some US states have begun steps to curtail the power and reach of these Sultans of Big Data. But these attempts are few and lack a central focus. Hawley has identified what he thinks is a chink in the armour: the lack of competition and the virtual monopolies these tech companies have acquired in their respective domains.

All these four tech companies have one feature in common: they acquire and store huge amounts of personal data about their users. FB for instance has a user base several times bigger than the population of more than half the countries of the planet put together, And Mark Zuckerberg is quoted as saying that the Corporation is "built to accomplish a social mission". It is precisely this messianic ideology of the Mega Tech Companies that makes them suspect. Unlike political parties that carry out their mission in public, these Big Tech Corporations are shrouded in a veil of secrecy. And the alliance with "Wokeism" makes companies like Twitter engage in political brinkmanship without any concern about public good or welfare. The huge capitalization of these tech giants protects them from public scrutiny and gives them unprecedented power over the political sphere. The fact that Donald Trump was deplatformed by Twitter is not surprising. What was remarkable was that they chose to wait till the results of the controversial elections were declared. Josh Hawley himself is at the cross hairs of the Big Tech Giants fr his role in rallying opposition to the declared victor in the November 2020 Presidential Elections. Twitter is at the moment engaged in a heated battle with the Government of India over its partisan role in what is now called the "tool kit controversy" in India. It is still too early to say who will blink--Twitter or Government of India. The point here is compliance with National Law. Do States have the ability to police these digital East India Companies. 

All these Mega Tech Corporations collect Data in the form of personal data, online transactions, communications, bank details, geo locational data  surveillance data etc. While much of the data stored is probably useless, the data points provide the basis for the prediction of behavior and it is here that the political reach of Big Data comes into play. In USA where 85 % of the population has smartphones and is online 24*7, Data stored when shared with political action groups can tilt the outcome of elections. It is certainly possible that the hostility towards Dona; Trump uniformly displayed by these tech giants played an important role in the Elections. 

Hawley is a conservative and hence he sees the danger of Constitutional Rights and Liberties eroded largely as a fall out of the hunger for Big Data. With statistical Data Mining Programmes it is possible to use the aggregate data for marketing political campaigns and consumer behaviour. The Algorithms are powerful enough to seize changes in behaviour. After the January 6th 2021 Protests the FBI was given access to the Data from Banks located in the bloocks around the Capitol and all those who visited Banks for purely banking transactions were now parsons for interest for the FBI.

Josh Hawley has written an important book. I have no doubt that just as it took a few voices in the wilderness to raise the anti Slavery Movement, the anti Big Tech Movement will also gather strength. What is at stake here is the future of Humankind.

The Persistent Myth of the Aryan Invasion: New Research and Findings

A look at the world of politics, statecraft, diplomacy and books

Tearing Down the Aryan Invasion Myth

Dr Shiv Sastry

Bangalore Education Research Broadcasting

April 2021.

From the Eighteenth Century, 1784 to be precise when Sir William Jones founded the Asiatic Society of Bengal, one strand of interpretation has virtually dominated the discourse on early History of India. This line of interpretation denies the indigenous people of India Sovereignty over their land and delegitimizes efforts at reconstructing the past of India on its own terms. When William Jones postulated a common origin of Indian, particularly Sanskrit, and European languages such as Greek and Latin, he unleashed demons that are yet to be laid to rest. This is the alleged  Aryan Invasion Theory or as now modified the Aryan Migration Theory or Hypothesis. 

The book under review is an excellent introduction to the historical context in which the AIT (Aryan Invasion Theory) emerged and its ramifications over nearly two and a half centuries of debate and discussion. The recent findings from the Harappan site of Rakhighari in Haryana has clearly demonstrated that the Indian population does not have distinct European or Central Asian DNA. Genetic evidence from other important sites also support the view that the Indian population was not predominantly a population that either came as invaders or immigrants but were indigenous. It is unfortunate that even after DNA evidence has come into play, there is sustained effort to reinvigorate that AIT hypothesis. 

There are two facets to the AIT: Language and Horse. The obsession with the origins of Sanskrit language and the ideological compulsion to situate the language in either Europe or Central Asia led to philologists and experts on folklore like the famous Grimm Brothers postulate the existence of  "Indo European Languages" which explain the perceived similarity in the morphology of early languages spoken in Europe. The interesting implication of this theory is that it is not necessary  to have an Indo European homeland to explain the perceived similarity in word forms across the early European landscape, Brother, Mother and Father from a common root Brthr, Matr and Pitr can just as easily be explained as originating in India and spreading outward. The constant compulsion to decry and deny the sovereignty of the indigenous people of India has been an enduring theme in the Historiography of India. The creation of a mythical Race of Aryan by Max Mueller was a direct outcome of the common Homeland theory. As a consequence white American "scholars" like Sheldon Pollock and others can saddle India with part of the responsibility for the Holocaust perpetrated by the Germans. The Aryan Invasion Theory found some traction in India in the early twentieth century when leaders like Bal Gangadhar Tilak ransacked the Rg Veda and its references to stars to argue an Artic Home for the Vedas. It is now clear that the Rg Veda was composed on the banks of the Indus and the exact locale may evade researchers due to changes in the landforms and geomorphology of the Indus floodplains. Now the question of Equs/ Horse.

Another charming vignette  of the AIT is the horse riding warriors from Central Asia riding into India, defeating the native inhabitants and pushing them out of the lands they "occupied". This theory is another strong underpinning to the denial of the Sovereignty of the Indigenous people of India. And the theory has had devastating political consequences. The non existent Aryan is juxtaposed against the Dravidian which was identified with the indigenous population and the "Critical Caste Theory" comes in handy to equate existing social groups within this category. A flourishing political dynasty in Tamil Nadu thrives on this fake   equation identifying Dravidian as a binary opposite of Aryan. Unfortunately, Indian historians like Romila Thapar and other Marxists still cling to this outdated and vicious theory in an uncritical manner. The discovery of the Horse drawn chariot in a Chalcolithic site, Sinauli, in Uttar Pradesh. And the fact that the horse was domesticated in India is also attested by the discovery of true horse bones in post Neolithic sites of the Deccan like Dholavira and Navddatoli. It is higly disappointing that Yashwini Chandra in her The Tale of the Horse: The History of India on Horseback repeats this discredited myth. 

The author has covered a wide swathe of historical inquiry with almost professional precision. He rightly contests and rejects the notion that Avestan was a different language and the Mitanni Inscription found in Assyria which contains the list of Rg Vedic deities and the author rightly do not prove the Indo European origin theory.

This is a book that must be read and discussed by students of History as it is based on comprehensive research.

Doom: The Politics of Catastrophe Niall Ferguson's Analysis of the COVID 19 Pandemic

A look at the world of politics, statecraft, diplomacy and books

Niall Ferguson is provocative, prolific and perspicacious. Provocative because this book taken on the now popular ideologies of "systemic racism", "global justice" and "climate change". Unlike the journalists who find easy explanations in politics and personalities, the historian necessarily has to take a more nuanced position. As he has shown, Trump was not more responsible for the COVID pandemic than Bill Clinton was for the Rwandan Genocide or the War in the Balkans. He is a prolific writer as he and his team chum out books almost at an industrial rate and get it published to catch the latest headlines. And he is perspicacious as he has shown the strong lines of continuity between the present Pandemic and those in the past starting from the earliest ones known from historical sources and he finds a pattern. Governmental interventions in disasters are vital towards finding a solution, but the middle bureaucracy  can subvert the best laid plans of Presidents and Prime Ministers.

Those who come to this book with a background in History, as I do, will find this book rather inadequate. Many of the arguments were already made several decades back by William McNeil in his Plagues and People. And Of course, Alfred J Crossby in his Columbian Exchange has traversed this territory of pathogens and their impact on History. However the book is the first serious attempt at looking at the Global History of a Pandemic that is still reaping its macabre harvest the world over. While Ferguson rightly states that China was responsible for the Pandemic he avoids the question: Did China unleash a bio logical weapon against an unsuspecting world? Given the response to the outbreak in Wuhan, this question has a great deal of salience. Why did China suppress the human to human transmission and delay the confirmation of the deadly outbreak until it had spread to nearly 67 countries. The WHO which played an effective role under Gro Harlem Brundtland, a former Prime Minister of Norway, was rendered ineffective, indeed an accomplice in shielding China from international scrutiny. Dr Tederos was quite unconcerned about the responsibilities WHO had towards the World.

Niall Ferguson has provided a tour de force through all the major Epidemics and Disasters in History and he zeroes in on the 1918-19 Global Influenza Epidemic. This Pandemic which cost nearly 40 million lives was also a Corona virus which was effectively dealt with by a combination of medical intervention and sanitation without the use of Lockdown as strategy. The US Government under President Trump went in for total lockdown which was effective in bringing down infection rates but tanked both the economy and the political future of Donald Trump. 

An interesting feature of the book is the critique of the public health policies and measures adopted b different Governments. In UK the first instinct of Neil Ferguson (not to be confused with the author of this book) advocated herd immunity. Allow the virus a free run and hope that at the end of the dance people will be immune. From this ridiculous policy the team, New and Emerging Respiratory Threats Advisory Group  (NERVTAG). jumped to an alarming and obviously unrealistic daily rate of virus transmission. Like Generals fighting the last war, epidemiologists are busy preparing for the last Great Pandemic. The course of the pandemic has defied all theories, statistical extrapolations and models deployed by experts. 

Added to the noise of the experts was the cacophony in the Popular Press. Captive of the big Corporations like Google, Amazon, Twitter and FaceBook the Press took a negative stance e towards political  leaders of Democratic countries. For example FB prevented the use of its platform for contact tracing thereby helping to spread rather than contain the Pandemic. And mega tech companies, reluctant to alienate China as its Market was huge, branded Trump's China travel ban "racist" though they knew that the disease had traveled from Wuhan, China. Niall Ferguson rightly condemns the 'morality play" quality of COVID 19 reportage as though popular political leaders were responsible for the disease. Quoting from Washington Post, the author has demonstrated that the paper consistently downplayed the threat posed by the disease and  certainly shied away from asking searching questions about the role of China. Of course this has nothing to do with the fact that Jeff Bezos is both the owner of Amazon and Washington Post. And China is a huge market. In a happy eloquent phrase which will resonate with those who cherish human freedom, Ferguson writes, "the East India Companies of the internet have plundered enough data; they have caused enough famines of truth; and plagues of the mind". 

This is a book which is topical and timed to sell as the flavor of the season is COVID.