Books: Cross of Empire

PROVIDENCE AND THE RAJ
BY GERALD STUDDERT-KENNEDY
SAGE
PRICE: Rs 273
PAGES: 375

The subtitle (Imperial Mission and Missionary Imperialism) misled me. I expected a book resonating with the roar of the imperial lion. I thought it would narrate the sordid story -- so far unsaid -- of imperialism's Christian agents, the missionaries, drawing elaborate plans in collaboration with the rulers to win India for Christendom. On reading the book, however, I find that it is mostly about the mews of a few forgotten kittens of imperialism.

That the author has been able to catch these feeble noises from the historical void and present them as a book speaks well of his diligence. But does the history of the Madras Christian College magazine interest you? Or the affairs of Chatham House? If so this is the book for you. For lay readers, the only chapters of relevance are those concerning Gandhi and the Christian imperialism of the die-hard defenders of the Raj.

Writing on Gandhi the author tries to show that there was, during the inter-war years, a group of Tories in Britain who strongly felt Gandhian demands on the Raj were the quintessence of unreason and oriental deviousness and premature independence for India would be a betrayal of Indian Christians. This may well have been their feeling, but it can't be cited as evidence that the engines of British imperialism were propelled even partially on Christian fuel. Be they imperialists, communists or religious fanatics Gandhi befuddled them all and criticism of him was their favourite pastime. Christianity was hardly the issue.

The chapter on the die-hard imperialists is insightful. It says while they could recognise the contradictions within the National Movement and the potential for Hindu-Muslim conflict, the British liberals -- and the nationalists themselves -- glossed over these aspects. The research that has gone into writing this book is awesome. Even so, it doesn't fulfil what its cover promises.

AUTHORSPEAK
JOYDEEP ROY-BHATTACHARYA

Writer's Bloc

A Bengali whose literary territory is East Europe

A decade and a half ago Joydeep Roy, then a young executive with Lipton, decided to switch from being a yuppie to being hippie. "I was tired of living out of a suitcase," he chuckles, as he speaks of life before his first novel, The Gabriel Club. Instead of frequent corporate tours Roy, who studied political science at Calcutta's Presidency College, decided to hitchhike across Europe and north Africa. The failure of his marriage only reinforced his inner crisis. Eventually arriving in America for a graduate programme, Roy continued fighting mental fatigue: "The American world view not only disturbed me but bored me like hell." After dabbling in a few courses in political economy at the University of Pennsylvania, Roy moved to philosophy. In 1997, he added Bhattacharya to his name as a tribute to his mother, Bharati, who raised him following his father's death when he was 11.

The idea of writing a novel was hardly on his mind when he visited Romania: "I was still struggling to complete my PhD and fulfil my teaching load." But friends told him his East European travel journals contained a story or two. "When I sat down to write, I ejaculated 300 pages," he says. "Wasn't I surprised?" Distrustful of American editors, Roy-Bhattacharya sought English publishers. Most were intrigued by the book but were afraid it lacked popular appeal. At Granta though he found ready acceptance. The Gabriel Club (being published in India by Penguin) is an existential thriller about a group of young dissidents in Budapest who are forced to re-examine their lives, commitment and integrity five years after the fall of communism in 1989.

Roy-Bhattacharya is often asked why he hasn't written an Indian novel or at least a book with one or two Indian characters and if he sees himself as an Indian writer at all: "Of course I do. But the idea that an Indian writing in English must perforce write about India or at most about the Indian diaspora has decidedly paternalistic, indeed disturbingly colonial, connotations." The bearded, cat-loving Bengali, now 35, is irritated by this identity-fixation: "Why should there be a need for reductive labels? If I do have a home, it's on the page."

His next book, Through the Mirrors of Strangers, will have a "comparatively modest endeavour". It will chart the past 100 years of Russian history with St Petersburg serving as the backdrop: "Echoes of The Gabriel Club, but on a larger canvas." Talk of a globalised writer.

--Arthur J. Pais