BOOKS:
ARCHITECTURE AND INDEPENDENCE
Hundred-year FoundationsA wealth of architectural detail which is likely to sustain
historical and academic interest.
By Gautam Bhatia
With all the stale bits of historical trivia that have surfaced in the 50th year of
Independence, the release of any book this year is likely to be dismissed as yet another
piece of nationalist hoopla. Architecture and Independence: The Search for Identity --
India 1880 to 1980, billed as a celebration of Indian Independence is, however, far from
trivial. It is a thoughtfully researched document; instead of the usual double spreads of
imposing structures that conveniently fill the pages of architecture books, it is
selective in allowing photos to intrude into its finely wrought arguments. As a serious
assessment of architectural urbanism, it is likely to sustain historic and academic
interest.
Though the book is written primarily for the scholar, the authors manage to communicate
the technicality of architecture in simple terms. They explain the visual aspect of
important buildings from a viewpoint that is not solely whimsical and decorative; instead
the design of each structure is compared to similar developments in the city. The authors
ascribe such terms of reference as the "symbolic" and the "monumental"
to characterise the public landmarks of a place, letting the narrative tread the fine line
between the individual building and the larger city and so confer value on the association
of the two.
Yet the very vastness of the country, the diversity of style and building language, and
the 100-year span of the narrative, makes the task difficult. In covering examples as
diverse as baroque cathedrals in Goa, traditional houses in Gujarat, British residencies,
and towns like Shimla, Jamshedpur and Chandigarh, the book delves into uncharted and
unrelated architectural territories, but in doing so draws inferences on the political,
mercantile and social life that developed in and around them. It is these, the subtext to
"serious" architecture, that is a more interesting read.
The architecture in the earlier sections of the book -- British buildings, Hindu
temples and anonymous commercial and residential structures -- emerge not as
glorifications of great monuments but as suggestions of the clash of Imperial and Indian
attitudes, offering a kind of constructed evidence of the social and cultural rifts
prevalent at the time. It is this very inclusiveness, the messy confrontations of Indian
reality that captivate architecture to life.
The book reads as a fine-tuned historical text, outlining Imperial attitudes,
discussing the Swadeshi Movement and nationalism; pictures of the Viceroy House and the
Sevagram ashram mingle with those of Subhash Chandra Bose and Sri Aurobindo. The building
and the builder are never glorified, but are mere supports to the greater political tasks.
Against the charge of the day's conflicts, architecture merely sinks unnoticed -- a muted
background to life.
But things were bound to change. Modernism reduced architecture to the shallow aspect
of individual genius; where buildings once stood as ennobling public pointers in the city,
the post-Nehru era tainted them with aspiration. And killed the common urban thread that
made cities visually cohesive and livable.
When buildings have been realised as purely individual pieces of work, most appear like
valued paintings in a grand retrospective exhibition and the end chapters become an
unfortunate listing: a who's who and a what's what of architecture.
Unable to connect one with the other, or use buildings as urban markers to particular
times and places, the text flounders and conveys, in-advertently, the despairing
decrepitude of our own time.
BOOKS: 1947: A SOLDIER'S
STORY
Partition days
An intensely personal account of a general's
experiences.
By Manoj Joshi
The figures of Indian and Pakistani paramilitary personnel strutting in ritual
belligerence at the Wagah border checkpost between the two countries have now become a
minor tourist attraction. But there was a time, in August-September 1947, when there was
no indication where India ended and Pakistan began -- at least not for the sombre
processions that passed each other here along the Grand Trunk Road, fleeing to either
dominion for safety.
On October 11, 1947, Brigadier (later Major-General) Mohinder Singh Chopra, who had
taken over the 123 Brigade and who was charged with establishing and securing the border,
took a couple of white-washed drums and, along with his Pakistani counterparts, set up a
joint checkpost.
Brigadier Chopra's account of Partition stands out among the hundreds of books,
articles and commentaries on India's 50th anniversary of Independence, because it is at
once an intensely personal account, as well as one that captures a wider canvas. Before
coming to Amritsar, Chopra had been designated to oversee the security of the referendum
that resulted in Sylhet joining Pakistan.
The work has been compiled by Chopra's son, Pushpindar Singh, who has meticulously
pieced together his father's diaries and scrapbooks of clippings and photo albums into a
coherent collage. What comes through is a portrait of a mature soldier who did not let
personal considerations cloud his judgement. The brigadier was, after all, a Sikh who lost
his kith and kin as well as property in west Punjab. As his diary entry recorded,
"There is little need to describe the events of that period, September-December 1947,
for they are indelibly engraved in the memories of those who experienced them ..." |
