As a change of pace I searched my bookshelf for one of 2 books I was given when working as a business consultant and during my several trips to India where our company had a dozen or so technology clients.
So for more than a dozen years, Indian Summer, The Secret History of the End of an Empire has graced my bookshelf untouched. Written by Oxford Graduate Student Alex von Tunzelmann and published in 2007, this book was acclaimed by other history writers and, in my view, rightfully so.
The basic goal of Tunzelmann’s book is to explain the unfolding of the nations of India and Pakistan as the British Empire sought to end its hegemony (and its Empire,) turning them loose (on paper at least) on August 15, 1947. While that event was intended to be the end of British rule, Britain did stay involved given the massive infighting (and killing) between the Sikhs, the Muslims, the Hindus – and worse – different factions within each of these groups. Add to this the rigid caste system in India at the time, including the periodic uprising of the Untouchable caste, and the birth of India as a nation and the concomitant establishment of then East and West Pakistan was, to understate it, a mess.
The book chronicles the role of Dickie Mountbatten and his wife, Edwina (who was often more a force for good than her husband,) and their relationship with Gandhi, Nehru, and the oft forgotten Ali Jinnah (the main advocate for Muslim independence and country-hood.) Mountbatten was charged with bringing British rule to an end and establishing a workable nation for all parties. Really an impossible task on many levels. Besides the players mentioned above Mountbatten also answered to British politicians, including Winston Churchill, about whom we see a different side than maybe history assigns to him. But then that’s also the case with Gandhi and Nehru as well. Suffice it to say that no one is perfect…
As for other characters, there are hundreds, all documented and footnoted. So this book really needs a study guide for in-depth analysis. Yet don’t worry about that. Just note what ‘side’ they are on and how they may have influenced the major players, and read on.
It’s a great read. Von Tunzelmann’s prose often excels as a literary work as she introduces the many topics associated with the end of British rule. And while footnoted thoroughly, she will sometimes take issue with documented elements, calling them into question and/or ‘flavoring’ them with her own conclusion which is drawn from opposing sources (also well documented.)
Yet my main reasons for recommending this book are first, it deals with a major event in world history and does so with both a political and personal ‘verve” (as one critic put it,) and is an important part of history we should know about to some extent, second, it delves into the fact that politics, policy, and war on a grand scale are still the workings of imperfect humans, and third, von Tunzelmann’s prose make this a highly readable, artful book and, even in the throes of evil, makes for a compelling, dare I say entertaining, read.
I’m not sure when I’ll undertake the other book I was gifted, namely William Dalrymple’s historical epic The Last Mogul, but I will sometime. Dalrymple is a well-known writer of India’s history. In this book he deals with the pre-British period and how the arrival of Britain ended what had been more than 300 years of multiple kingdoms throughout India, most of them ruled by those of Mongolian descent. But while those centuries consisted of dictatorial/kingship rule, many were tolerant and its subjects were often happy, healthy, and prosperous. Then comes Britain…
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