The Exclusion Principle

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Historical revisionism is alive and well in India, and has taken hold in the last ten years.

The Hindu right wing believe that Indian history has been hijacked by leftist historians who see Indian history as an interplay of power, caste and class, and not for what it actually is – which is 900 years of religious war and colonisation first by the Muslims and then by the Christians.

Therefore, India’s Muslim rulers are to be regarded as foreign rulers and colonisers, instead of being studied and written about as Indian Kings and Emperors.

They believe that when India became independent in 1947, there was an opportunity to bring Hinduism back as part of the State, since for the first time in over 900 years no foreigner was ruling India. This used to be the case when India was a set of princely states where the prince had a faith. Instead, the new government opted to separate church (or temple!) and state and deny the Hindu religion a place in government.

Under British Rule, India underwent a rapid modernisation of thought and ideas and issues of identity were hotly debated. The Hindu right wing, and its counterpart in Islam, were both alive and well during the early part of the 20^th century. In the battle of ideas, the centrist, broad-church Indian National Congress won, headed by people like Mahatma Gandhi, Nehru and Sardar Patel. When India became independent, power was transferred to the Indian National Congress who proceeded to set India up as a secular state.

India suffered a violent partition in August 1947 as the British left, leaving nearly 40% of undivided India in Pakistan. Nearly five million people migrated from one country to another in one of the largest population exchanges of all time. The population movement was accompanied by horrendous violence and exact number of those killed on both sides runs into hundreds of thousands.  Despite Partition, a large number of Muslims remained in the new State of India. Prior to Partition the population of undivided India was approximately 435m consisting broadly of 100m Muslims and mostly Hindus forming the rest (Christians and Sikhs are a very small part). After Partition, the population of Pakistan was 75m (with 10m Hindus and the rest Muslim) and India’s was 360m with 35m Muslims. 

Partition is taken as evidence that India’s Muslims have always had extra-national loyalties and Pakistan is nothing more than a visible symptom of these tendencies.

When India became a Republic with our own Constitution in 1950, it embraced secularism as a founding tenet – the separation of church and state. To restore religious harmony in India immediately after Independence and focus on building a new nation, the first Indian Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, consciously downplayed any visible demonstration of India’s Hindu majority to give the Muslims who remained in India the sense of belonging to the new nation.

In 1948, Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated by a Hindu fundamentalist who accused him of pandering to Muslims. The loss of the Mahatma was met with revulsion by the peaceful Hindu majority. It ensured that secularism succeeded.

Was this process of secularisation of public life taken too far? In schools, for example, the teaching of history downplayed the violence that conquest brings. As one observer put it, the Islamic conquest of India was treated as a ‘cultural exchange program’ by some historians writing school textbooks[1]. One can argue this both ways – why did Nehru not attend temple openings, for example. Or why did Nehru allow the Haj Pilgrimage to be paid for the exchequer. India’s Muslims were allowed to keep Muslim Personal Law (the right to polygamy, divorce by uttering the word ‘talaq’, no alimony on divorce). But Hindu personal law was brought in line with modern civil law.

Nehru was not anti-Hindu. He was an atheist and had no love for any religion. He frowned upon any display of religious fervour of any description by anyone in his government. He was a moderniser who regarded religion as an obstacle. His economic model was Soviet Union which had undergone the fastest industrialisation of the 20^th century so far. The USSR was a strong influence, but not to the extent of making Nehru a communist. Having said that, no one could ever mistake Mr Nehru’s rationalism for lack of love for this country. He had an almost mystical and emotional fascination with India.  As long as he was alive, and his love for and childlike fascination with the people of this country remained palpable to most Indians, the secular approach to public life was tolerated.

Today, the pendulum of public opinion has swung to the other extreme and there are a good number of Hindus who feel aggrieved.  They believe minorities have been pandered to, that Muslims are multiplying in droves, that Christian missionaries have actively targeted Hindus for conversion, etc. The Mahatma is no longer revered, indeed some people celebrate his assassin as a true patriot.

Rising economic prosperity, the availability of the internet, social media and the surge of Islamic terrorism over the last 25 years has only served to amplify these fears.  Christian missionaries in Tamil Nadu have sometimes crossed the line (these are Indians by the way), and Muslims have underperformed the majority in almost all areas including size of families. Repeated border wars with Pakistan (1965, 1971, 1998) and the terrible terrorist assault on Mumbai (2008) have kept relations with Pakistan in a state of suspended enmity. Since it was carved out of India as a Muslim state, it serves as a hook on which question the loyalty of Indian Muslims to the Indian Republic. This feeling persists even today among many Indian elite.

These feelings of Hindu hurt have caused a backlash against Indian historians who have traditionally treated India’s Muslim rulers as Indians first and Muslims second. The Mughals, the Khiljis, the Iltutmish, the Mamluks and myriad other Muslim dynasties may have made their way to India from Iran or Central Asia as conquerors but they settled down and ruled as domestic rulers. The new Hindu wants these rulers to be treated as colonisers, who destroyed temples, converted Hindus, raped Hindu women and stole Hindu wealth to be taken to Central Asia.

The truth is rather more complicated. The first Islamic invasions were just that – violent attacks. Once conquest was complete, society seems to have settled down into co-existence with Muslims. A ‘Persianate’ culture evolved based on imported Central Asian art, music, literature and cuisine, thoroughly indigenized, and which had a huge impact on Indian language, art, music, styles of rulership, warfare, attire – you name it[2].  This Persianate culture is under attack.  For example Urdu, the language born out of contact between Hindi and Persian, is dying out because it is strongly identified with Muslims.  Urdu was the language of class and refinement once upon a time, but no more.

As for temple destruction, it definitely happened. We could always say that one temple destroyed is a temple too many. Scholars have tried to piece together the exact number of temples destroyed by Muslim rulers over six centuries. The number is placed at around 500[3].  We could debate whether this destruction was systematic, targeted  and intentional due to Islam’s abhorrence for idol worship[4]. Or we could ask why the destruction was not more complete, as happened in the Arabian Peninsula once Islam became dominant. Was it because the Hanafi school of Islamic jurisprudence, which was the predominant school of Islamic law in India, was more conciliatory towards non-believers? That Muslim elites were vastly outnumbered by their Hindu subjects and hence adopted pacifism and symbiotic co-existence[5]? There is some evidence that temple destruction was not only a Muslim practice, but that it was also practised by Hindu kings[6].

The cultural cohesion was deeper than people believe. An American scholar has produced evidence, based on her deep scholarship in Persian and Sanskrit, that shows Muslim rulers and themes entered Sanskrit in poetry and literature[7].

Claims are made that India was a vastly wealthy nation whose riches were systematically drained by Muslim rulers in a systematic manner. This is a frequent assertion by interlocuters these days but it does not stand up to scrutiny. The fact is that the last big foreign Muslim ruler to take over the Indian empire was Babur in the 15^th century. But for four centuries after the founding the Mughal dynasty, his descendants settled in India and ruled as Indian kings. It was a fabulously wealthy country, and this is what attracted the Portuguese and the English to come to India as traders. Once the English established supremacy in India, the East India Company systematically drained India of treasure, financing the Industrial Revolution and the rise of the West[8].

The most polarizing Muslim figure is the last great Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb, who reigned from 1637 to 1707. He is routinely considered a monster who persecuted Hindus, taxed them to death[9] and destroyed some 30,000 temples and did his best to eradicate the religion[10]. Other historians contend otherwise, that he was a ruler of his times who had a complex relationship with his subjects[11][12].

The points made above are to illustrate that contact between cultures and peoples is always complex, and cannot be simplified into tweetable memes. Further, there is no such thing as definitive history given that records get lost, monuments are broken, and memories fade. When Sir William Jones and like-minded Company officers started to uncover India’s Buddhist past, they found that the memory of the faith had been completely lost, and very little trace remained other than a few monuments and inscriptions. And it was not that the invading Muslims destroyed them all[13]. The Buddhist learning centre at Ratnagiri in Odisha functioned until the 15th century before being abandoned, as the religion had died out. It was not due to violence. With so many unknowns, historians struggle to posit reasonable conjectures about the past supported by as much evidence as possible and if that is not available, they leave it as a question.

How these are presented to school children struggling to learn Math and Science and two languages will mean simplification which is sometimes astonishingly naive, as I have alluded to earlier. The lay person has no patience to piece the evidence together for herself and will rely on interpretations. And therein lies the danger, not just in India but in any country.

The new brash right wing Indian is justly proud of being a Hindu. But she believes Hindu pride and pride in our multi-cultural past are mutually exclusive. This is unfortunate. Even if Indian history was not written by Marxist historians (as is now alleged) how can one hide the complexity and the rich texture of cultural assimilation?  You can only simplify by substituting assertion for argument, volume for intellectual rigor.  For these reasons, Indian historians of the old school are under attack.

The struggle to understand and accept the past is a huge step in the evolution of a nation. When the Normans landed on the coast of England in 1066, they brought with them a new language and new practices. The process of conquest was violent. Norman landowners displaced their Saxon predecessors. The practice of droit du siegneur or jus primae noctis  was commonplace.  Yet no one remembers that today. Germany and France fought three wars over a hundred years (1870, 1914-18, 1939-45). Yet they made the European Union a reality. The transition from apartheid to majority rule in South Africa has not been perfect but has gone better than expected, and the role that the Truth And Reconciliation Commission played in that process should not be underestimated. 

We have to understand and accept the past because there is nothing we can do about it other than learn from it. Revising the past is not the answer; understanding and appreciating it is what is needed. Sadly, India seems to be headed the other way.

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[1] Kapil Komireddy. “Malevolent Republic”, 2014

[2] Richard Eaton: “India In The Persianate Age”, 2019

[3] Richard Eaton in “Beyond Turk and Hindu: Rethinking Religious Identity in Islamicate India” (ed. Gilmartin and Lawrence), 2000.

[4] Andre Wink: “Al-Hind: The Slavic Kings and the Islamic conquest”, 2002

[5] Richard Eaton in “Beyond Turk and Hindu: Rethinking Religious Identity in Islamicate India” (ed. Gilmartin and Lawrence), 2000.

[6] Romila Thapar, “Somanatha: The Many Voices Of A History”, 2003

[7] Audrey Truschke, “The Language Of History” 2021

[8] Several: Jon Wilson ʼIndia Conquered, 2016; Shashi Tharoor ‘Inglorious Empire’, 2017; and William Dalrymple ‘The Anarchy’ 2018.

[9] Sir Jadunath Sarkar, ‘A History of Aurangzeb’, 1912.

[10] See the writings of Francois Gautier, a French historian living in India.

[11] Audrey Truschke, “Aurangzeb”, 2014.

[12] Romila Thapar and Percival Spears: A History Of India.

[13] Charles Allen ʼThe Buddha And The Sahebs’  2003 has a great account of how the Buddha was ‘rediscovered’!

I sit in one of the dives
On Fifty-second Street
Uncertain and afraid
As the clever hopes expire
Of a low dishonest decade:
Waves of anger and fear
Circulate over the bright
And darkened lands of the earth,
Obsessing our private lives;
The unmentionable odour of death
Offends the September night.

•  W H Auden, “September 1 1939”

This is a short account of the last four days before the start of the Second World War. I wrote this for my daughter from well-known sources. I enjoyed writing it and thought I would share it with a larger audience.

Was it possible, in the last days of August 1939, to avoid war? That would have required all parties to back down – the Poles to agree to a hand over of Danzig, for Hitler to agree to yet another peace conference like what he did in 1938, and for the British and French to abandon the Polish guarantee and give Hitler a free hand.  Given the recent past of Hitler’s behaviour, these were unlikely options and it was left to a few men to chart the course that ultimately brought one of the most destructive wars on the world. 

Reflecting on the last few days before the war actually began, it is possible to conclude that there were misconceptions and miscalculations, which usually precede any conflict. Hitler had been playing cat and mouse with the British and French for three years. The British and the French were understandably reluctant to commit to another war so soon after the last horrendous one that had concluded less than twenty years ago.  Every statesman involved had either fought in the Great War or had lost family and friends to it, especially in France. Hitler assumed that Britain and France will blink only in order to avoid a second international war. The actions of the men involved were rooted in domestic preoccupations and expectations from their counterparts in this interplay of personalities.

Germany nearly went to war on August 25^th itself. Plans and preparations had been made for the Wehrmacht to move to the Polish border.  SS and Wehrmacht troops had been smuggled into Danzig to seize the city once war began. Yet on the evening of August 25^th, with forces about to strike, Hitler cancelled the assault.

The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact had been signed only on August 23 1939. Hitler had hoped this would deter the British and French from confronting Germany, since ideologically this was an improbable alliance and hence might give them pause. Unknown to Hitler, the surprise element was already lost. British and French Intelligence were aware of the developments between Germany and the USSR. As a result, when Hitler did not see any change in British and French positions after the signing of the agreement, he cancelled the attack.

The single most important reason Hitler called off the invasion of Poland was because he did not want a World War. He did not want to internationalize his invasion of Poland and he was hoping that the pact with the USSR and German overtures would dissuade the British. He considered them the more important power to reckon with.

While British resolve was firm, the French could be excused for appearing less resolute. Many French politicians had fought in the Great War and had lost family and friends. The carnage at the Somme and the Marne was still fresh in French minds and there was a strong pacifist streak that arose from the memories of the previous war, scarce twenty years behind. They did not want to be rushed into defending Poland when it was clearly impossible to do so. To them the German-Soviet pact was hugely disconcerting.

There was a better basis for Anglo French resolve largely due to two factors. First, the British and French militaries were much better prepared and the French in particular had a very good army and air force. They also had the Maginot Line of fortifications to counter the kind of infantry thrusts from Germany that occurred in 1914.  Second, public opinion had changed in favour of confronting Germany after March 1939.

Prime Minister Chamberlain, who came from a merchant background in Birmingham, had never met anyone like Hitler who could give his word and then break it. He was deeply disappointed when Hitler occupied Czechoslovakia in March 1939. From then on, he was firm with Hitler without losing any opportunity to stop yet another European war, and any assertion that he was too weak in September 1939 is incorrect.  Even more than Chamberlain, his Foreign Secretary Lord Halifax (who was Viceroy of India in 1931) was resolved to ensure that Hitler would not get away this time. Both Lord Halifax and Mr Chamberlain were not averse to preventing war through discussions on the principle that all war was bad. But they were equally resolved to make sure Hitler did not repeat March 1939.

The French Prime Minister Edouard Daladier was a man of great energy. French politics of the 1930s was marked by fractiousness between the Right and the Left. In order to govern he had armed himself with near dictatorial powers. Despite internal troubles, by August 1939 he was as resolved as Chamberlain that Hitler should be stopped. More than the British he also hoped that Italy would join the British and the French.

On August 24^th, Chamberlain made a statement in Commons expressing concern at the situation and in defence of a Government motion asking for Parliament to arm HMG with special emergency powers in the light of the situation. The motion was carried almost unanimously. Hitler received this news with some alarm, and next morning he summoned Sir Neville Henderson, British Ambassador to Germany at the Chancellery. In a meeting marked by great cordiality, Hitler offered a similar no-war pact along the lines of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact to Britain and offered to guarantee the integrity of the British Empire, once the Polish business had been settled. He was hoping for a local war, not an international one.  The next day Henderson flew to London to convey Hitler’s requests.

That very morning Hitler asked the army to prepare to invade Poland.

At this point Hitler was still unsure about whether he had Mussolini’s support. He needed Italy so that he could put pressure on the British and French to keep from internationalising his imminent assault on Poland.  He hoped that Italian naval presence in the Mediterranean would be an advantage. But the Italians were alarmed by Hitler’s expansion into Central Europe and Italian public opinion was not yet inclined towards war. The German-Soviet pact had the effect of signalling to Italy that they were no longer centre stage in European affairs as they had been before the Pact, and this caused concern to Mussolini who had territorial ambitions.

On August 25^th the Italian Ambassador to Germany delivered a letter informing Ribbentrop that Italy would stay neutral in any German war in Poland.  That evening at 530pm, the French Ambassador to Germany called on Hitler to tell him, very firmly, that France would stand by the guarantee she had given to Poland. This did not do wonders for Hitler’s mood.

Later that evening at 630pm, Ribbentrop was stunned by the announcement of an Anglo-Polish Pact for Mutual Assistance which the Polish Ambassador to the United Kingdom signed just a few minutes ago. Though the agreement had been in the works for two months, the fortuitousness or otherwise of the timing of the signature was not lost on Lord Halifax. Ribbentrop and other advisers pressed Hitler to find a way to isolate Britain. It was at this juncture that Hitler called off the attack but asked the German Chief of Staff Wilhelm Keitel to carry on preparations.

On August 27^th at 1pm, Henderson reached London and conferred with the Prime Minister and with the Foreign Secretary. A letter had to be sent to Germany that was firm and yet did not leave any opportunity for misunderstanding. On August 28^th, Henderson flew back to Berlin with the reply. The letter stated that Germany and Great Britain must discuss how to protect Poland’s essential interests and that failure to do so would be calamitous. The exact words used were: “A just settlement of these questions between Germany and Poland may open the way to world peace. Failure to reach it would ruin the hopes of better understanding between Germany and Great Britain, would bring the two countries into conflict, and might well plunge the whole world into war. Such an outcome would be a calamity without parallel in history”. 

Shorn of diplomatic language, its meaning was clear. When Hitler and Henderson met, Hitler read the letter and again told the Ambassador that he would negotiate and provide guarantees to the British Empire. Henderson replied that Hitler would have to choose between friendship with Poland or war with Britain.

Observers who saw Hitler at close quarters in those days commented adversely on his state of mind. He was unsure of himself, having brought Germany to the brink. Once before, at Munich, Hitler pulled back from the brink. Now was he going to do this again? This had not gone down well in military circles, and indeed within the Nazi Party. Hitler was risking being considered weak minded and less than firm, a man who loses his nerve when at the brink.   The hesitation shown on August 26^th was not lost on the French who believed that when confronted with force, Hitler would climb down. It only served to strengthen their resolve.

The mood in London and Paris was optimistic about peace even at this stage, and this was founded on two points. First, Germany was experiencing economic difficulties and the Anglo-French view was that Hitler would not choose this time to risk a bigger war. 

Second, they believed Hitler was facing opposition from the Nazi Party and the German High Command. Many in London believed Hitler was more vulnerable than he actually was to a coup. The reality was that while there were rumblings, they were limited and conditional and not enough to stop Hitler. The Wehrmacht was concerned about an international war and Hitler was shown a military paper that laid out the difficulties of fighting a multi-national war. Hitler dismissed these concerns since he was confident of isolating Britain and fighting a local war. A number of German politicians of the old school who opposed Hitler as a charlatan and a chancer were happy when he called off the attack on August 26, and expected him to lose power quickly as a result.  Word was sent to the British Embassy asking the United Kingdom to stand firm and not let Hitler wriggle away from a difficult situation of his own making.  The British had also been given the impression that Hermann Goering, second only to Hitler in the Reich, was waiting for an opportunity to seize power for himself. This was conveyed by a Danish businessman Dahlerus, who mounted his own peace mission to stop any impending war between August 24^th and 28^th . But these notions were discounted by the British Foreign Office as being a bit too fanciful and no credence was given to them.

The private diplomacy of Dahlerus and the general reasonable tone of the British seemed to strengthen Hitler’s view that the British could be detached from the French and hence prevent an international war. He gave firm orders to the German Army to cross the Polish border on September 1^st.  Meanwhile Hitler and Ribbentrop lost no opportunity to tell the world that they did not want war and that they just had a local dispute in Poland based on genuine German grievances.

In the hope of preventing war,  the British Ambassador to Poland conveyed a message to Berlin asking if they would be willing to meet the Polish Government for talks. Nothing came of it. The Polish Army had anyway been mobilizing, but in the light of these peace moves, Poland stalled forward movement. Valuable time was lost. On August 29^th the Polish Army moved into forward positions on the German border.

On August 29^th, Hitler handed his reply to Henderson. Hitler and Ribbentrop stood and watched as Henderson read it. The demands it contained were an unacceptable basis for any discussion: the return of Danzig and the entire Corridor territory, safeguards for the other German minorities living in Poland, and the necessity of involving the Soviet Union in any settlement in Poland. At the end of the reply Henderson read the demand that the Polish government send a negotiator with full powers to sign by the following day, 30^th  August.

On August 30^th, Lord Halifax replied to Hitler that it was unreasonable to ask for a Polish plenipotentiary to be available at such short notice, and that besides, no formal request had been made by Germany to Poland. This reply was delivered by Henderson to Ribbentrop late that night. The reply angered Ribbentrop, who produced his own set of demands on the Polish Government, which he read out but did not hand over to the British Ambassador. The meeting had both men shouting at each other and ended on a hostile note.  The sixteen points were conveyed informally by the Danish businessman Dahlerus to the Polish Ambassador to Germany, who tried and failed to meet Ribbentrop. By the time he was given time to meet Ribbentrop, it was 9pm on August 31^st, and the attack was due to begin. The phone lines between Berlin and Warsaw were severed shortly thereafter.

Even as late as August 31^st the mood in London was optimistic that Hitler would not go to war, thanks to their reading of the German situation and their view on how vulnerable Hitler was. In Paris however the mood was less certain, and Daladier was committed to confronting Hitler. In Germany, the interval between the cancellation and the final invasion of Poland on 1 September was used to bombard the German public with inflammatory propaganda against the Poles. Details of Polish ‘atrocities’ were magnified by the German press; publicity was given to alleged reports that Germans living in Poland had been castrated. All of this was designed to ensure that the outside world would understand the German casus belli, and that the German public would wage a Polish war with sufficient enthusiasm after years in which they had become accustomed to the bloodless victories achieved by threats, menaces and bluff.

In secret, Germany had begun preparing for instituting lebensraum in Poland, as much as five months prior. Groups were formed and attached to military formations, to round up and murder the Polish elite, destroy synagogues and disable any resistance after occupation.  These groups were now activated and mobilised along with the Wehrmacht.

To give spurious cause, Himmler’s Deputy and Head of the Secret Police Reinhard Heydrich ordered the staging of what is now known as the Gleiwitz incident. On the night of August 31st, a small group of German operatives from the Abwehr seized the radio station at Gleiwitz on the German-Polish border, and broadcast a short anti German message. A mock Polish attack was staged at two other places. German prisoners dressed in Polish Army uniforms were shot and bodies left as proof of a Polish attack. The incident was claimed as evidence of Polish double dealing and as the trigger for military action.

At 4am on September 1, the German Naval vessel Schleswig-Holstein, which was visiting the free city of Danzig on what was ostensibly a training mission, opened fire on a nearby Polish naval fort, signalling the start of the War. German troops and Nazi party officials who had been smuggled into the Free City took control of the city and unveiled the German Swastika.  At the same time, the Luftwaffe and the Wehrmacht began offensive operations. The Polish Air Force was destroyed on the ground.

News of the German attack reached London at 7am on September 1, and Paris shortly after. Chamberlain and Daladier conferred to co-ordinate their responses. Both countries had picked up information on a Polish assault on Germany the previous night but they had the good sense to discount it for what it actually was. A note was sent to Berlin asking them to stop the aggression and withdraw troops promptly, failing which HMG would have no choice but to act on its guarantee to Poland. Chamberlain announced this in Parliament that night and told the Members that no time limit had been given.  The French prepared a similar reply despite the objections of some members of the French cabinet on its peremptory tone.

At 930pm on September 1^st, Henderson called on Ribbentrop and conveyed HMG’s response formally, and insisted on an immediate reply.  At 10pm the French Ambassador followed suit.

The German response was puzzling, to say the least.  Party functionaries gathered in the chancellery lobbies still thought the West was bluffing. Hitler was unable to decide if the notes were formal ultimatums or not. Henderson had been told by the Foreign Office, according to Halifax’s later recollection, that he was authorized to say that the note ‘was a warning and not an ultimatum’, though he did not relay this to Ribbentrop. 

In London, blackout curtains were hung in all windows. But, among MPs there was a sense of puzzlement about the failure to give Germany a definite time by which to comply. One could argue that adding a time limit would have made it an ultimatum – which the Foreign Office wanted to avoid – but at the same time the insertion of the word “promptly” in the demand for troop withdrawal made it clear it was actually one.  The uncertainty thus created around British intentions caused consternation amongst the many critics of Chamberlain.  So why did Chamberlain not actually declare war if that was his intent.

This could be explained by a few factors. First, the French wanted to mobilise and also move six million reservists close to the frontier. It would take them a couple of days to do so. There were fears that the Luftwaffe would do in France what it did in Poland. The Luftwaffe did not have that capacity but the French were not to know that.  Second, Mussolini suddenly intervened with an offer of mediation between the powers at a conference proposed to be held on September 5^th.

London was lukewarm and so was Daladier, but not his foreign minister George Bonnet, who made no secret of his desire to stop war even at the risk of appeasing Hitler. Bonnet went to the extent of telling Ribbentrop that France was in favour of a peace conference and put out a statement to the press to this effect. The Italians were delighted and on September 2^nd, they talked to Hitler who wanted to know if the British and French notes were ultimatums or mere requests. He also told the Italians he would reply only the next day.

Historians attribute this to Hitler’s desire to further confuse his adversaries while holding out hope for peace. He may have also believed that attending the conference with Danzig in his pocket might increase his bargaining power. Bonnet, without consulting either his Prime Minister or the British, told Hitler the notes were not ultimatums. 

Daladier, who was also Bonnet’s political rival, told London only Parliament could make or stop war – and he had no intention of backing down, essentially disowning Bonnet’s statements purportedly made on behalf of the French Republic. 

Lord Halifax was taken by surprise by the Italian overture as well as Bonnet’s actions. At 630pm that evening, Lord Halifax phoned his Italian counterpart to tell him that regardless of any Peace Conference, immediate withdrawal of German troops and the restoration of Danzig as a free city were non-negotiable pre-conditions.

Chamberlain and Halifax found themselves in a difficult situation with British MPs who were not happy about their failure to indicate a time for compliance by Germany in the British note. They were not persuaded by the French request to hold off on specifying exact dates and they accused Chamberlain of confusion and weakness. On September 2^nd, Chamberlain came to Parliament at 7pm after keeping MPs waiting the whole day. In what is regarded as one of the significant days in British Parliamentary history, he made a brief and unimpressive address, explaining the nuances around a possible peace conference brokered by the Italians and that the French were also in the process of confirming their position. He further stated that if the Germans agreed, they would have to vacate Poland and restore Danzig. He sounded tired and it was not the firm and definitive statement that MPs wanted to hear.

The Leader of the Opposition, Sir Clement Attlee was in hospital, and deputising for him was Arthur Greenwood, who rose to respond. Apparently as he rose, Leo Amery, the Conservative MP, shouted out to Greenwood, “Speak for England Sir!”.  Greenwood rose to the occasion by challenging Chamberlain thus: ‘I wonder how long we are prepared to vacillate at a time when Britain and all that Britain stands for, and human civilization are in peril.’  There were more shouts and confusion in Parliament and MPs refused to hear Chamberlain’s reply.  Parliament adjourned for the day and the British Cabinet huddled into a meeting at 9pm.

The French Ambassador to Britain Charles Corbin was summoned to Downing Street. Chamberlain was convinced his government would fall the next day. Corbin was asked to get Daladier to agree to an ultimatum and was told failure to do so might cause a collapse of the British Government.  Daladier agreed to send an ultimatum to Germany the next day. The cabinet met again at 1130pm to draft the note to Germany.

At 9am on September 3^rd Henderson entered the Chancellery to convey the ultimatum in person to Hitler. It was short.

 “In the communication which I had the honour to make to you on 1st September I informed you, on the instructions of His Majesty’s Principal Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, that, unless the German Government were prepared to give His Majesty’s Government in the United Kingdom satisfactory assurances that the German Government had suspended all aggressive action against Poland and were prepared promptly to withdraw their forces from Polish territory, His Majesty’s Government in the United Kingdom would, without hesitation, fulfil their obligations to Poland.

“Although this communication was made more than twenty-four hours ago, no reply has been received but German attacks upon Poland have been continued and intensified. I have accordingly the honour to inform you that, unless not later than 11 a. m., British Summer Time, to-day 3rd September, satisfactory assurances to the above effect have been given by the German Government and have reached His Majesty’s Government in London, a state of war will exist between the two countries as from that hour.”

If the assurance referred to in the above communication is received, you should inform me by any means at your disposal before 11 a. m. to-day, 3rd September. If no such assurance is received here by 11 a. m. , we shall inform the German representative that a state of war exists as from that hour.”

Hitler’s reaction apparently was one of partial surprise, indeed he was a bit stunned. Perhaps he did not believe it would come to this.  He had been assured by Ribbentrop that Britain and France were in no mood to fight. Germany now found herself confronted by the very thing she wanted to avoid, a World War.

For close to two hours Halifax and Chamberlain waited for a German response. By 1050am it became clear there was going to be no German response. At 1115 am, Chamberlain went on BBC Radio and delivered a sober speech informing the British public that despite his very many efforts to keep the peace, German intransigence meant that Britain was now at War with Germany. In France, a thumping speech by Daladier said that France was now at War with Germany.

While Chamberlain was speaking, a long and rambling reply justifying German conduct was handed over to Henderson in Berlin. Hitler made a bellicose speech to Germany over radio but in private expressed his hope that Britain and France would fight a limited war! Observers say the public mood was sombre and anything but triumphant.

Polish Government officials heard the two declarations of war with some happiness. But that was short lived, as they quickly realised that in practical terms there was no assistance forthcoming from the British or the French.  The Wehrmacht and Luftwaffe completed their demolition of the Polish state. Two weeks later, the Soviet Union invaded Poland from the east, as agreed with the Germans in the secret codicil to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. Poland ceased to exist.

The evening of September 3^rd was calm and the mood sober in all three capitals. That evening, British and French diplomatic staff posted in Germany, and German diplomatic staff posted in London and Paris, were repatriated according to international law.  

Europe, and shortly the world, was at War.

This is the term paper I wrote for my course requirements at Ashoka University.

Is it possible that a cosmopolitan, urbane, law abiding jurist of repute was looking to find that equitable representational framework within a United India, but faced with Hindu extremist intransigence, was forced to push for the extreme solution of Partition?

Muslim politics in India from 1858 to 1947 is a narrative of the demand for protected or disproportionate representation in legislatures for the Muslim minority. Right through from the first Council elections in 1892, to 1909, then the Provincial and Central Legislative Council elections in 1919 and after, until the 1935 watershed elections – this is the skeleton on which the entire body of Muslim politics hangs. It ultimately resulted in Partition through the agency of Mohammad Ali Jinnah.

The two-nation proposition that Jinnah is credited with was not something that he created. Rather, Muslim fears about being swamped by a Hindu majority surfaced when elected representation in Legislative Councils was first mooted in 1883 as a way of bringing Indians into administration.

When it began, the Indian National Congress consisted of largely English-speaking Indians, most of whom were Hindu. Starting with Sir Syed Ahmed Khan in 1888, Muslims were told that in the event the British ever left India, a vengeful Hindu majority will extract vengeance for 700 years of Muslim rule. He argued that the Muslims were not just a minority but a nation. And the safety of that nation can be only guaranteed by loyalty to the Crown. This argument was supported and amplified by men like Theodore Beck, Principal of the Mahomedan Anglo-Oriental College in Aligarh and his successor Theodore Morrison.

To counter Hindu domination several attempts were made to create Muslim organizations. Finally, with full British connivance that can only be attributed to the desire to Divide et Impera, the Muslim League was born in 1906. The League claimed to speak for all Muslims, loyal to the Crown, and committed to British Rule. The main plank of the League? Electoral and employment preferences in the form of nominated seats, reserved seats, separate electorates and employment reservations.

A friend of Tilak and a disciple of Gokhale, Jinnah entered politics around the time British hostility towards Ottoman Turkey brought League and Congress together. The League adopted resolutions on national goals of self-government since the Congress backed the League’s position on Turkey.

At the 1913 session of the League Jinnah positioned himself as a nationalist first, thereby acting as a bridge between the national and the communal interest, and declared himself a votary of Hindu Muslim unity.

The Lucknow Pact concluded in 1916 ushered in greater harmony between Congress and League. Jinnah was an enthusiastic Congressman as much a member of the League. The Rowlatt Act in 1919 and the Khilafat Movement further united Hindus and Muslims. Gandhi assumed leadership of the movement and Jinnah was supportive but disapproved of the law-breaking tactics of the Congress.

The Chauri-Chaura incident in 1922 not only ended non-cooperation, it also put a brake on the momentum of Hindu Muslim relations. Soon after that, the behavior of the Moplah rebels against Hindus during their Rebellion inflamed Hindu opinion. Right from 1921 to 1924 the country suffered a series of Hindu Muslim riots which British police officers are suspected to have sparked.

Hindu communal forces reappeared in the form of Swami Shraddhananda’s “Shuddhi” movement, and the Hindu Mahasabha emerged from the shadows. Lala Lajpat Rai emerged as a vocal and extreme mouthpiece of Hindu fears. Even the great Tagore voiced fears that Muslims could not be counted on to confine their patriotism to one country.

The League never abandoned its raison d’etre throughout this entire period. In 1924, while insisting that self government and nationalist convergence with the Congress was the goal, Jinnah continued to move resolutions for electoral protections against the Hindu majority. Despite attempts to preserve agreement on representational schemes, by 1925 the Lucknow Pact was dead.

Jinnah continued to be a nationalist. In 1926 he broke ranks with the Muslim League to join Congress in the boycott of the Simon Commission. In 1927 he participated in the Convention to prepare the Swaraj Constitution. A combination of communal obstinacy by the League and the Hindu Mahasabha left the convention struggling for consensus and it foundered on the issue of whether or not Muslim Majority provinces like Bengal and Punjab should have open electorates or reserved seats. He tried again in 1928 to get the League’s objectives

Jinnah attended the 1928 Convention to conclude the Swaraj Constitution and made a case for Muslims getting one-third of seats, reserved seats, proportional representation in Muslim Majority provinces, and residuary powers with provinces. Every one of his amendments was defeated. Nevertheless, in 1929, he tried to argue for the Nehru Report in the League and did not succeed. Instead he prepared his own Fourteen Points, which incorporate the League’s demands but also articulates a federal vision for United India.  This was ignored by Congress and excorciated by factions in the Muslim League. It died a natural death.

Jinnah’s departure from India at this juncture was a result of his distaste for the politics of mass agitation preferred by Gandhi, and frustration at the inability of the parties to compromise. During his attendance at the Round Table Conference in London in 1931, he showed willingness to be constructive even as the rest of the Conference descended into noisy haggling. Sir Mohammad Iqbal’s clear call for a division of India[1] was ignored by Jinnah. The Communal Award was the result of the parties failing to compromise.

The watershed for Jinnah was the 1936 elections following the passage of the Government of India Act 1935. Jinnah returned to India to take charge of the League’s campaign. The League program was very similar to that of the Congress[2] except in respect of restrictions on property.  However, the League lost badly, not just in the open seats which the Congress decisively won, but also in the reserved seats where they won just 108 out of 485. Jinnah’s political career was rescued by the Prime Minister of Punjab Sir Sikandar Hayat Khan, who was a Unionist and opposed to the League[3].

Congress should have recognized there was an opportunity to bridge the gap with the League and include them in government. Rather, Nehru’s speeches claimed that the Congress had a better emotional link with the Muslim poor than the landlords who supported the League[4]. The League lost badly.

Behaving like a political party, the Congress ignored the League and formed governments. Since the Congress was largely Hindu, the Treasury Benches were Hindu. The Muslim opposition would never be able to replace the Congress thanks to the communal voting system. Though the electorate was still restricted, it served as an illustration to Muslims of what could happen – just as Sir Syed had warned.

Failure to form governments with the League has been described as a catastrophic error of judgement[5].

The decisive actions Jinnah undertook from here on were designed to make the League an organization with a mass base. The Congress, resorting to behavior akin to a political party than a national movement, undertook populist measures that upset the Muslim minority albeit unintentionally[6]. A series of reports alleged that there were atrocities against Muslims though none of them were properly substantiated[7]. Meanwhile the Hindu Mahasabha accused the Congress ministries of Muslim appeasement[8]!

As War loomed, it was convenient for the British to consider Jinnah to be the spokesman of the Muslims from which community a bulk of the Indian Army was drawn.

The resignation of the Congress Ministries in late 1939 in response to Linlithgow’s Declaration of War was a windfall to Jinnah. In March 1940 he delivered his address to the Lahore session of the Muslim League, declaring unequivocally that Hindu and Muslim were separate nations, and that if the British were going to leave the country, they must leave it as two states and not as one.

It is difficult to prove that this intransigence was due to Hindu extremists in the Congress. The Congress was always in a difficult position – it allowed the League to address the Muslims because the Hindu Mahasabha was able to raise the spectre of Hindu communalism. For most Muslims the Congress was a Hindu party despite its strenuous efforts to be secular.

The contortions that the British went to favour and accommodate Jinnah only served to enhance his sense of destiny. By the time Wavell was in Delhi, very little could be salvaged. The only man who could do so was Jinnah. May be it was his sense that his own life was running out, or that the iron had entered his soul somewhere. He did not compromise to the end.

The State of Pakistan today stands as a monument to the failure to reach a compromise.  The true victims of Jinnah’s stubbornness are the Indian Muslims today – forever condemned to be the other, with loyalties suspect and patriotism questioned.

Bibliography

1     French, Patrick: Liberty or Death: India’s Journey to Independence and Division. Harper Collins, London 1997

2     Gopal, Ram: Indian Muslims: A Political History 1858-1947, Asia Publishing House, Delhi 1959

3     Wolpert, Stanley: Jinnah of Pakistan, Oxford University Press, New York, 1984

4     Jalal, Ayesha: Sole Spokesman: Jinnah, The Muslim League and the Demand for Pakistan, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1994

5     Sarkar, Sumit: Modern India 1885-1947. Palgrave MacMillan. New York, 1989

---

[1] The Times, October 12 1931

[2] Wolpert, Stanley: “Jinnah of Pakistan”, pp 144.

[3] Jalal, Ayesha: “Sole Survivor”, pp 39.

[4] Wolpert, pp 147

[5] Wolpert, pp 148; Jalal, pp 38

[6] Aziz, ed. Muslims Under Congress Rule, Vol I pp191

[7] Sarkar, Modern India, pp 355

[8] Gopal, Ram: Indian Muslims: A Political History (1858-1947) ,  pp 258

During our years in Paris – which now seems an eternity away both in terms of time as well as memory – the Seine was a constant presence in our lives. We could see the river from our bedroom window over the Parc de Passy. At night the big tourist boats would come sliding close to the banks, with strong searchlights focused on the posh apartment complexes on the 16^th Arrondisement. We were in one of these posh complexes but set at a height, so we never had our privacy disturbed. Seeing the boats, my daughter would always be tempted to sing these lines taught to her in her play school:

Bateau sur l’eau
La rivière, la rivière
Bateau sur l’eau
La rivière au bord de l’eau

Bateau sur l’eau
La rivière, la rivière
Bateau sur l’eau
Touni est tombé dans l’eau, plouf

But I digress. The bridge closest to us over the Seine was the Pont du Bir Hakeim. Most early mornings I would run from our home in Rue Lyautey down to Porte d’Auteuil, and run back via Avenue Mozart, cut into Rue de Passy, run all the way down and  turn right to go down to the Passy Metro station.  It was a daily ritual for me to walk on the bridge at the end of the run, and then walk back home.

The bridge itself is a beauty. It has a road at one level, and the Line 6 railway line on the second level on top of an iron bridge.  The beautiful wrought-iron columns of the bridge would be familiar to movie enthusiasts.  Marlon Brando and Maria Schneider are pictured walking separately and unknown to each other on the bridge one cloudy Paris morning in the opening sequence of “Last Tango in Paris”. As you start walking on the bridge towards the South, you cannot miss the spectacular rise of the Eiffel Tower on the left. No matter how many times you see it, the sight of the Tower will never fail to make you sigh at its sheer beauty, silhouetted in the morning sun.

This is the Pont du Bir Hakeim.

Midway between the two banks, there is a small island called the Ile aux Cygnes (Island of Swans). It has a small garden and a replica of the Statue of Liberty. On a nice summer evening I would take my daughter over there to play and gawk at the swans. Where the bridge opens out to the island there is a small balcony.

On the balcony is a plaque.

The balcony is popular with lovers and dawdlers alike and everyone ignores the plaque. But that plaque tells a very important story and explains why this bridge has this funny foreign name.

Bir Hakeim used to be an oasis in Libya, now completely vanished from the map. At one time, when there was water, it was a desert fort during the days when the Ottoman Empire covered these desert tracts.  It was also one of the last outposts of civilization before the desert began – a vast empty sea of sand stretching thousands of miles south almost to the Atlantic Coast.

France fell to Germany in 1940, and most French forces were disarmed and told go home. When Charles de Gaulle escaped to London and made his famous speech over BBC on June 14, 1940, asking all Frenchmen to resist, there were a select few who heeded his call, who refused to accept the apparent finality of defeat and occupation, and decided to fight on. They became the Free French.

War in North Africa began as soon as the French surrendered, when Italy declared War on the Allies. The British, who controlled Egypt, attacked Libya, which was an Italian colony. After the Italian 10th Army was destroyed by British and Allied forces, the Germans stepped in, and the vaunted Afrika Korps under General Erwin Rommel took charge of the fighting in 1941.

Egypt controlled access to the Suez Canal, and that made it a German target.  There was also the question of oil.  British Commonwealth forces consisted not only of British divisions, but also Indian, South African, and Australian Divisions. It also had the First Free French Division which consisted of former French Army soldiers, some Foreign Legionnaires, some Spanish mercenaries and pretty much anyone who wanted to fight the Nazis.

Taking over from the apparently feckless Italians, Rommel scored some stunning successes. He was going for Cairo, for the Suez Canal.  The fighting stuck closer the coast, where the fortresses were and where tanks could operate. 

By May 1942, Rommel was pushing the British towards Tobruk from the west.  Tobruk would have been an important staging point to begin the offensive on Egypt, and for the Commander In Chief of Commonwealth forces, General Sir Claude Auchinleck, losing Tobruk was out of the question.  This is where the story of Bir Hakeim begins. It lies south of Tobruk, and expecting the Afrika Korps to approach Tobruk from the West and South, it had significance. 

Until this time, the Free French had not made any impression. They had important symbolic value but not as a serious fighting formation – there were too few of them and they had no equipment of their own. General Auchinleck did not expect too much from the Free French. Whether it was because he fully expected the Germans to roll over the French or because he valued their symbolic significance, he assigned the defence of Bir Hakeim to the French.

The Commander of the Free French Division was General Henri Koenig, a colourful man. His friend and alleged lover, a British woman called Susan Travers, was also in the Free French fighting as a Foreign Legionnaire – but assigned to drive the General. She was with him in battle.

General Koenig knew that the Germans also did not think too much of the Free French, and that the Afrika Korps would attack Bir Hakeim as soon as they learnt that the French were defending it.  Expecting a full fledged attack, he prepared as best as he could, laying minefields and hidden explosives and preparing fortifications.  He had about 3600 men under arms – vastly outgunned and outnumbered.

The assault began on the night of May 26, with the Italian armored regiments in the lead.  Successive waves of Stuka dive bombers pounded the French positions.  German tanks soon joined the Italians. The attacks were non-stop, the fighting was hand-to-hand at places.  Water was short – a situation made worse when Indian POWs released by the Germans in the desert a few days before wound up at Bir Hakeim needing medical assistance.  Notwithstanding these challenges, the French stood firm, sometimes taking the attack to the Germans, and defending their position doggedly and with great courage.

Rommel now turned his full attention to Bir Hakeim by the first week of June, realizing that he had a serious problem with his supply lines if he did not take the position.  Respectful emissaries were sent to General Koenig under white flag, offering fair terms if they surrendered.  The emissaries were respectfully spurned.  

By June 10^th fresh German forces surrounded Bir Hakeim and it was clear that the position would not survive.  General Koenig realized that his position was untenable.  He then did something remarkable.  He asked wounded French soldiers to man defensive positions and to continue to fire on the enemy.  The territory behind Bir Hakeim towards Tobruk was very heavily mined. He and the rest of his troops essentially drove through the French minefield in a daring move to escape north towards British positions – General Koenig’s transport had Susan Travers at the wheel.  Men and vehicles were lost but the vast majority made it through.  Out of 3600 men, some 2700 survived. Among them were ambulances with the wounded. Through June 10 and 11^th British patrols looked for and picked up those lost in the desert. It was a heroic escape.

On the night of June 11, German forces broke through to Bir Hakeim, only to find a couple of hundred wounded Frenchmen. The battle was expensive for Rommel – not only had the campaign to take Tobruk been delayed by three weeks, he lost nearly 3,300 dead and wounded, and 164 tanks and vehicles taken out by accurate French anti-tank weapons. 

Hitler was enraged and apparently he ordered Rommel to execute the French POWs.  History says that Rommel ignored the order and made every effort to treat the Free French POWs honourably, as befits an enemy in war.

Tobruk did fall to the Germans, and this episode by no means marked a turning point in the war. That was to come much later, when in the Second Battle of El Alamein, the new British Commander of the Commonwealth forces – known as the Eighth Army – General Bernard Montgomery famously beat Rommel’s Afrika Korps in an epic battle. That marked an inflexion point not only in North Africa but for the rest of the War. So why is Bir Hakeim important?

The significance of Bir Hakeim is that France was able to tell the world its spirit was not dead.  The fighting soul of France was alive and well.  The easy contempt with which some Allied commanders treated the French due to their spectacular defeat turned to grudging respect. Less than 4,000 Frenchmen held off 45,000 German and Italian troops. By delaying Rommel for three weeks, the French ensured that the British were able to reinforce their positions east of Tobruk.  It indicated to all Frenchmen that their independent heart was still alive, beating somewhere in the sands of North Africa.

The plaque at the Pont de Bir Hakeim is simple and moving.

“At Bir Hakeim from May 27 to 11 June 1942, the First Free French Brigade repulsed furious assaults from two divisions of the enemy and affirmed to the world that France has never ceased to fight”.

The Indian Army’s Official War History tersely states that Lt Col D A Taylor and 192 men perished in the cold in November 1962. I tried to reconstruct his last two days on earth from available sources. This is what I found.

November 1962. The remnants of the 2^nd Battalion 8^th Gorkha Rifles, 2 Madras and Assam Rifles detachments started pulling out of Menchuka and commenced their withdrawal to Along. Orders were received over crackling radio from 2 Division Command by the Area Commander Lt Col D A Taylor.

Menchuka is about 30 miles from the McMahon Line, the disputed frontier on the North East between China and India. Its a tiny little town, more a village, that lies in a valley, on the road to the nearest town called Along. At that time this was not so much a road but a bridle path, clinging to the valley as it zigzags between peaks on both sides, heavily wooded with pine. Quite beautiful on any other day but no one has eyes for it on this day. A number of small villages mark the road – you cannot call them villages really, more like small agglomerations of habitations. It heads to the South East, determined not to be distracted or diverted by the big peaks on both sides. It winds forward and backwards, in hairpin bends, hugging the hillsides, not much wider than a cart at some places.

About 8-9 kilometers down, the road crosses a small stream called Sen Chu over a causeway. Towards the South West at that crossing point, lies a spot called Rego.  Another few kilometres down towards the South East the road reaches a town called Payum. There it bends sharply to the South and another 15 kilometres down is the larger town of Along.

Col Taylor instructed his men to travel light. There were no porters or mules to carry anything heavier than a Heavy Machine Gun.  Heavy winter clothing had not yet been issued – there were a number of plainsmen like the Madrasis who were clearly not used to the weather. Everyone was going to find it difficult but there was no choice.

The Siang Front shown on the map below is the broad green line near Menchuka. Five battalions of the PLA were ranged against the Siang Front. It was divided into three sectors, Menchuka being at the centre.

The Chinese attacks had commenced on October 20, all along the NEFA front. The attacks were simultaneous. They had obviously been months in preparation and overwhelmed the thin Indian defences.

India’s Forward Policy, put in place in July 1962, required the Army to operate very close to, and sometimes across, the McMahon line.  The terrain was heavily wooded and mountainous. A distance of two kilometres on the map between two points could take up to three hours to traverse.  Across the border the Chinese built up troop and supply strength. Good roads had been constructed leading right up to the McMahon Line.

Skirmishes between Indian and Chinese patrols turned serious. As Chinese forces pushed in they encountered lightly armed Indian patrols, who sometimes engaged vastly superior forces. At Lamang the Assam Rifles patrol fought the Chinese for three hours until 9pm, until Chinese Verey lights revealed they were surrounded. They withdrew towards Menchuka.

To the right of Menchuka, towards Manigong, the results were similar. Chinese advance parties engaged Indian patrols and pushed them back to local headquarters. The Dogras posted at Manigong retreated under pressure from the Chinese, delaying them as much as possible. Under Major Pandarinath Rege, the Dogras beat back four attacks by the Chinese, causing casualties, until they retreated due to shortage of ammunition.

At Tuting,  the Assam Rifles detachment just managed to delay the Chinese. Lance Naik Hasta Bahadur Gurung and Rifleman Baji Ram Thapa displayed significant heroism under fire.

The GOC of 2 Division was Maj Gen M S Pathania – cousin of the more famous Maj Gen A S Pathania who was GOC 4 Division that operated towards the left of 2 Division, upto the Bhutan border.  The Division was a brand new formation, raised on October 24, to create the command structure to focus the defence of Walong (see map). It was raised just after the disaster of the battle of Nam Ka Chu, near the Bhutan frontier – in the very first battles that took place on October 20, the Chinese destroyed 7 Brigade and took the Brigade commander Brigadier John Dalvi prisoner.

The disaster forced the Army to remove the erstwhile GOC 4 Div Maj Gen Narayan Prasad and bring in Maj Gen A S Pathania to command 4 Division.

Both first cousins were now responsible for the defence of the Brahmaputra Valley.

By November 9^th it became apparent that the Chinese were going to outflank Menchuka by cutting off its road link to Along near a place called Tato. Nevertheless, Maj Gen M S Pathania asked the Siang Front to hold at all costs.  

By mid November, repeated Chinese probes convinced the Command that Menchuka risked being cut off.  The Menchuka sub area was told to be ready to pull out towards Along. Two days later they were told it had to be a fighting withdrawal. Col Taylor was in touch with the Brigade Major of 192 Brigade, his direct superior. They tried to get more men from Along to Menchuka but the weather was turning and no mule transport was available. It would have taken days to get there by foot.

Lt Col Taylor and the garrison stood their ground for another day. On 18^th November the 2 Madras positions came under sustained Chinese artillery attack. The Madrasis replied with their mortars. Col Taylor and 192 Brigade conferred on wireless. They assumed that the Chinese had managed to cut the road to Along and determined to use hill paths to make their way back.  With that Lt Col Taylor broke off wireless contact.

Lt Col Taylor and a party of 35 men started out in the early hours of the 20^th, looking for a jungle track to conceal their withdrawal.  Along with them went the Adjutant 2/8 GR Capt Ghosh, the Medical Officer 2/8 GR Lt Sharma, and Maj Pimple of 2 Madras. They carried no rations and wore their regular uniforms – not winter clothing, because they had none. They traveled mostly in the dark.  The main party, led by Major Dar of 2/8 GR, followed a little while later.

The path Col Taylor took was little used by locals and hard to find. It started to rain and snow quite heavily, and movement became difficult.

Major Dar and his party followed Lt Col Taylor after a few hours but on the more conventional path, lower down in altitude and closer to the road to Along. They were met by a Chinese ambush. The men scattered and decided to take the more hazardous route over the snow.  Some of them decided to trudge on to Dapori Jo, due south about 23 kilometres as the crow flies. Others decided to go towards Tato, about 8 kilometres on the road to Along towards the South East.

Conditions must have been terrible. The snow was steady and visibility was close to zero. The men must have had to make their way very slowly to avoid going over the hillside. Men began to fall by the wayside with severe frostbite and exhaustion. Those who could not move had to be left behind.

The party that tried to reach Tato ran into the Chinese, who had blocked the track to Along. After a brief firefight, they were taken prisoner. They were released in May 1963.

But not Lt Col Taylor. He and his men, hearing the gunfire, must have decided to get off the path going South East to Along, and to cross the mountains, going due south to get to the Brahmaputra Valley, when they had reached Rego. They must have been joined by other stragglers from 2/8 Gurkha Rifles. There were now 190 men, making their way across a snow covered path, 14000 feet high, with nothing more than autumn clothes and no rations.

In the assessment of Brigade, the invading Chinese parties were well-equipped but did not number more than two hundred. The Menchuka garrison alone had 800 men. Beffore setting out on this hazardous journey, Col Taylor must have received confusing orders and heard the traffic of contradictory orders that had flowed up and down between the Corps, the Division and the Brigade. The tone of the messages was pessimistic and confused. They inspired no confidence in Lt Col Taylor that the Division will find a way to support him in case it came to battle. And so he set out on this retreat.

The men who started towards Daporijo reached their destination after a month, enduring severe hardship on the way.

Lt Col Taylor and his men never reached their destination. He and a hundred and ninety two officers and other ranks must have died of exhaustion and frostbite.  Their bodies were never found.

Who was Lt Col Taylor? What are the stories of Captain Ghosh, Lt Sharma and Maj. Pimple, and of the other 190 who perished.  We will never know.

The least we can do is to remember them in gratitude. Rest In Peace.

This is a recording of my Zoom show on Modern Jazz on June 20 2020

Mogaung is a small and sleepy town in the Kachin State of Myanmar, forgotten by most people today.  It lies about 150km due east of the Indian border, and barely 60 km from the closest Chinese frontier. The bigger town of Myitkyina is about 20 km north east of it. Thick jungles and hilly terrain lie between Mogaung and the Indian border.

This is a story of great but forgotten heroism, and of human foibles. It is mined from my study of the Burma War 1941-45, which was fought by the Indian Army and Allies against the Imperial Japanese Army. The great men involved in this episode were all so deeply flawed that many deaths resulted from their egos and their actions. And yet it is possible for us to admire the actions of lesser known men who stood out for their selflessness. Not that they were devoid of weaknesses. But this package is what makes us human.

Our story is set in June 1944, and explainswhy June 23 is celebrated as Mogaung Day by the Gorkha Rifles. Read on.

The map below shows the town is located, and its closeness to both the Indian and Chinese borders.

The forces fighting the Japanese juggernaut in Burma were multinational and filled with complex personalities.

General “Vinegar” Joe Stilwell

China was invaded by the Japanese in 1932. The then-nationalist Government of China, led by General Chiang Kai-Shek, was a great friend of the United States. As the Nationalist Government of Gen Chiang was also facing a communist insurgency led by Mao Ze Dong. This made the Nationalists allies of the United States, and the US began a program of providing active military assistance to the Chinese. Given that the Nationalists were being pushed into the south of the country by the Japanese, the more natural route for the Americans to supply the Chinese would be via India, via the Assam frontier to be specific.

This was being done through two routes – the hazardous flight over the ‘hump’ – from Gauhati to Kunming. The other was via a road route that was being built even as supplies were being sent by land via mule.

The third route was to land supplies at Rangoon harbour and transport them by rail to the Chinese border. But when the Japanese occupied Rangoon and most of Burma by March 1942, this supply route was closed off.  Arming and feeding the Chinese became doubly important because they were also fighting the Japanese.

The man in charge of managing the American aid program to the Chinese was General Joe Stilwell. He was loud, racist, bad tempered and acerbic, with an inflated opinion of himself. He had contempt for General Chiang Kai-Shek – calling him “Peanut” in private. Worse, he hated the British, calling them limeys and cowards.

Stories of Stilwell’s many foibles are a book in themselves, so let us get back to our story.

Stilwell was effectively in command of some of the Chinese Armies. He had seen the British being chased out of Burma – he himself had walked all the way from Rangoon to Assam – and did not think the British had it in them to fight. He believed in his Chinese troops – indeed he had two battalions of them in Ramgarh in Bihar since 1942.  He was very keen to throw his Chinese troops into battle to push the Japanese out of Burma.

The Allied Command Structure

In 1943, General William Slim was put in command of a new grouping called the 14^th Army, consisting of all British Empire forces in SE Asia.  He reported ultimately to Lord Mountbatten, who was designated the South East Asia Supreme Commander for all Allied Forces.  Gen Joe Stilwell reported to Lord Mountbatten technically, but he did pretty much what he wanted and the British were under instructions from Churchill to ensure that Stilwell was not upset in any way. The Commander In Chief of  India was General Sir Archibald Wavell.

Pushing The Japanese Back

By June 1944, the Japanese invasion of India had run out of steam. Out of the 55,000 who battered themselves at Kohima and Imphal, some 30,000 were dead. Most of the survivors were starving.  The Japanese started to fall back, pushed very hard by the Indian Army eager to seek revenge for three years of defeats. 

Bill Slim and Joe Stilwell were keen to capitalise on the momentum gained, and sweep the Japanese back towards Rangoon.  The plan was to capture Myitkyina. It was on the Irrawaddy, had good road connections, and had an airfield that could be used to attack Japanese positions.  It was also close to the Chinese border. Myitkyina was also a major Japanese garrison – eliminating it would open up the Irrawaddy plains for allied motorised troops to sweep down.

The Allied Plan had several moving parts, and for the story to be told, lets understand one of the most important of all.

The Chindits

The proper name for this outfit is the Long Range Penetration Group. The concept was pioneered by Brigadier Orde Wingate, a charismatic British Army officer. It consisted of creating a brigade of troops, lightly armed but extremely mobile, who would seek out the Japanese and hit them hard, and disappear. They were to avoid pitched battles since they would not have anything more than battalion level mortars. They would travel light and rely on supply from air.

The first Chindit assaults in 1943 were very successful though casualties were very heavy. The Chindits won the support of Churchill, largely because the Prime Minister was frustrated with the slow progress in Burma.  Wavell was not on the Prime Minister’s good books because he considered him slow and plodding. Wavell was also not the most communicative of men but he knew India, the Indian Army and was an exceptionally good soldier himself.  Churchill approved the concept of the LRPG – now known as the Chindits – and asked Wavell to ensure they lacked for nothing.

In May 1944, the Chindits, who had been operating behind Japanese lines but with very heavy casualties, were placed under the command of Stilwell. The specific Chindit unit involved in this affair was 77 Brigade, commanded by Lt Col Mike Calvert, an outspoken, charismatic man also called “Mad Mike” because of his great personal courage and his willingness to fight alongside his men on the front with a rifle.

The area between Myitkyina and the Indian border was the scene of Chindit operations since February 1944. This was before the Japanese attack on Kohima and Imphal began. Jungle airfields were cleared out to allow Dakotas and Gliders to land, with men, supplies and mules. The Chindits also established well-provided supply and medical stations in the jungle to ensure that they could operate in hit and run mode. In this they were very successful.

But in May 1944, Slim ordered the Chindits to abandon these supply dumps and revert to being an infantry formation. Further he handed over command of the Chindits to Stilwell. Historians speculate that Slim never really did agree with the idea of the Chindits, and he may have resented Wingate’s charisma and access to the Prime Minister, And after Wingate was killed in an aircrash in February 1944, the Chindits lost their champion.

The Assault on Mogaung

In May, once Stilwell had command of the Chindits, her ordered Mogaung to be attacked by the British. His Chinese and American forces were trying to take Myitkyina and making a fist of it.  He wanted Mogaung taken so as to take some pressure off Myitkyina.

Stilwell had well-equipped Chinese troops in the area, with armour and heavy weaponry. But he refused to deploy them and instead asked the Limeys and Indians to fight it out on their own. It was suicidal for the Chindits to attack prepared Japanese positions without the normal complement of artillery that a traditional infantry regiment enjoys. But orders were orders, Stilwell had to be kept happy, and if Calvert had any objections he was certainly not going to be heard.

So Calvert and his men began the 160 mile trek across difficult jungle country from India. The Brigade consisted of 3^rd Battalion/6^th Gurkha Rifles, the Lancashire Fusiliers and the South Staffordshire Regiment. There were about 2,000 men. 

The terrain around Mogaung was tricky. The obvious point of attack would have been from the West but that was dominated by a deep and fast flowing river which would have been difficult to ford. The only other way was to attack from the east. It was marshy but there was a point where the attack could be mounted – this was the Pin Hmi Bridge across one of the smaller rivers to the east.

The men of the 77^th were lucky to be led by Calvert. Apart from being very brave himself, he was also extremely bright – he had become a fluent Chinese speaker when posted in Hong Kong, he had served as an observer during the Sino-Japanese fighting and hence knew how the Japanese operated and he had an engineering degree from Cambridge. Calvert worked out a plan of attack and on June 6 the assault began. 

The Brigade was positioned south and east of Mogaung – east across a river that had a heavily defended bridge called the Pin Hmi Bridge. They were aware Japanese forces were rushing to fortify the town hence speed was of the essence. They could rely only on mortars and air strikes that took two hours to arrive.

The Japanese defence was skilful and tough, but Calvert pressed on despite losses. They crossed the Wettauk Chaung River that flowed to the east of Mogaung.  The Gurkhas meanwhile attacked the bridge, which had high embankments, and were beaten back again and again.  It took the them 4 days to capture the bridge. But that was time enough for the Japanese to garrison the town with fresh troops.

From June 10^th the monsoons began, which created a fresh set of problems – trench foot, malaria and typhus were rife. The brigade was taking heavy losses and Calvert sent repeated messages to Stilwell for reinforcements. Stilwell then sent a Chinese Infantry Regiment to support the Chindits. The Chinese also brought 75mm Mountain Guns. With the Chinese troops – three battalions of them, Mogaung was now surrounded.

Despite the rain and conditions, and some skilful and courageous Japanese resistance, the 77 Brigade – now reduced to 600 men – fought the Japanese through the town. The Railway Station, the Court House, a big red building that was some kind of municipal office.  The Gurkhas led the way in ferocity. Two of their men were awarded the Victoria Cross – Gurkha Captain Michael Almand (posthumously) and Rifleman Tun Bahadur Pun. Pun in particular engaged the Japanese in hand to hand fighting with his khukri.

Over fifteen days the assault continued. The Chinese 77mm guns were able to provide  artillery support and the Chinese 1/114 Infantry Regiment kept the town surrounded to prevent escape.

On June 25 1944 the last Japanese soldier left the devastated town, and 77 Brigade declared victory.  Of the original 2000 men, barely 150 were left standing.

It was the first town in Burma recaptured by the Allies as part of the offensive against the Japanese.

Aftermath

As soon as Stilwell heard that Mogaung had been captured, he told the BBC that the 1/114 Chinese Regiment had captured Mogaung, without even mentioning the British role. This enraged the British. Calvert, who was not a man to tolerate things, then telegraphed Stilwell that “While the Chinese have taken Mogaung, the British are taking umbrage”. 

Stilwell’s son, Lt Col Joe Stilwell Jr, was his intelligence officer. He  boasted to the American press that Umbrage is so small he could not find it on a map.

At this point Calvert was positively mutinous and sent several strong messages to Stilwell, asking that 77 Brigade be withdrawn to allow the men to rest and recuperate.  Stilwell asked him to come in person to see him.

When they met, Stilwell was surrounded by his yes-men, anti British American officers. They fully expected a proper dressing down for the Limey officer.

Stilwell began by saying, “You send some very strong despatches, Calvert!”.

Calvert replied. “Sir, you should see the despatches my Brigade-Major (his staff officer) will not let me send”.

There was stunned silence, and then Stilwell roared with laughter.  The ice was broken, and Stilwell listened carefully to what Calvert had to say. At the end, he personally awarded Calvert the American Silver Star.

These actions won Calvert the Distinguished Service Order and Bar. He and his troops were repatriated back to India.

Mogaung Day

The 5^th Battalion, 5^th Gorkha Rifles celebrates Mogaung Day on June 23 every year to celebrate the first major Burmese town to be captured by the Indian Army.

Why the 5^th/5^th  and not the 3^rd Batt/6^th Gorkha Rifles? This is because in 1947 the 6^th Gorkha Rifles transferred to the British Army but the 3^rd Battalion alone remained, and was transferred to the 5^th Gorkha Rifles.

Where to this day, they are known as the “Chindits”.

Mad Mike Calvert

The story is not complete without recounting what happened to Mike Calvert. He was not only an extremely bright man but also very brave, and fought with great distinction in the War.

Calvert was invalided home in September 1944. He served a stint in the Special Air Services. After the War he was selected to lead the Malay Scouts with the rank of Brigadier, during the communist insurgency. By now Calvert was drinking heavily. However, his penchant to neglect staff work but lead operations from the front meant that training and discipline were neglected. He was removed from his command and sent home.

In 1951 he was assigned to a minor administrative post in British Occupied Germany. There he was accused of homosexuality with four German youths, court-martialled and dismissed.

Much doubt exists about whether or not his conduct was “lewd” by the standards of the Army because none of the youths were reliable and all of them recanted their testimony. He lost his appeal and he was out of the Army he had served so well. Calvert was adamant that he was innocent to his dying day. The dismissal broke him.

He spent the next 35 years as a near destitute, a very large part of that in Australia where he did menial jobs and manual labour, most of his employers being totally unaware that this was a Chindit hero.  He sold all his medals and memorabilia, dying as an alcoholic in 1999.

Honour the Brave and the Dead

On Mogaung Day let us honour the brave men of 77 Brigade, particularly 3^rd Battalion 6^th Gorkha Rifles – and their legendary commander late Lt Col Mike Calvert DSO and Bar.

Further Reading

“Prisoners of Hope”  By Lt Col Michael Calvert, Leo Cooper Ltd 1971

“Burma Victory”  By David Rooney, Phoenix 2000

An electric lamp, a conical lampshade with a bare electric bulb underneath it, emits a jagged light, shedding its harsh glare in rectilinear rays on the chaotic scenes laid out below. The scene is filled with dystopian images – a bull standing over a grieving woman, and the woman holds a dead child in her arms. A horse with a hole on its side. A dismembered soldier underneath a horse, his left with stigmata. The tongues of the animals are daggers, as though the violence is not just physical. An oldstyle oil lamp in the hands of a woman, lunging from the right in despair

This is Pablo Picasso’s masterpiece “Guernica”, painted in 1937 for the Paris World’s Fair at the behest of the Spanish Republican Government. Earlier that year, German and Italian Air Forces, fighting on the behalf of the Royalist Nationalists in the Spanish Civil War, had attacked and destroyed the civilian town of Guernica in the Basque country in a clinical display of air power. The Republicans ultimately lost the Civil War, ushering in a military dictatorship headed by General Francisco Franco under a restored but nominal monarchy. Picasso never returned to Spain, dying in 1973. Two years later Franco died, paving the way for reconciliation and ultimately, restoration of democracy in Spain. The painting itself returned to Madrid in 1981, once Picasso’s executors were satisfied with Spain being a Constitutional Democracy albeit not yet a republic.

The world wept for Guernica. Since then, we have seen the unleashing of industrial scale death and destruction to civilians. Within a very short while of the painting’s inauguration, Europe and Asia tore themselves apart in the Second World War. Technocrats got to showcase their lessons from the Condor Legion. The Blitz. Bomber Harris’s deliberate targeting of German civilians.  The Tokyo Fire Bombing of 1945. The Dresden Fire Bombing of 1945. Hiroshima. Nagasaki. Ever since, the world has lived under the spectre of instant planetary destruction with tens of thousands of nuclear weapons in the hands of several states. Several other civilizational challenges face humanity – the threat of global Islamic fundamentalist terrorism and the sometimes fascist reaction to it, the threat of climate change, the threat of global pandemics, the possibility of planetary ecological disaster.

Looking at the painting one sunny winter afternoon at the Museo de Reina Sofia where it now resides, I asked myself:  do we remember Guernica and the painting only because they mark the starting pistol in the race to industrial scale destruction? Within two years of its creation, we found ourselves huddled round our radio sets, listening to events unfold, “uncertain and afraid/ As the clever hopes expire/Of a low dishonest decade*”.

The world is still an uncertain and dark place. Hopes expire and dishonesty prevails. It may not be the threat of mass destruction that scares us all the time. There was a brief glimmer of hope when the Communist Empire, having first killed off millions of its own citizens,  destroyed itself between 1989 and 1991 – first the Chinese began to undo their totalitarian state in small measures and then the Soviet Empire collapsed in a heap. Then world began to take for granted the liberal orthodoxy that seemed to be the future of nations, calling it the “end of history”, to indicate that the big civilizational conflicts were resolved and mankind would move towards a liberal nirvana.

Just as the Cold War ceased, Islamic fundamentalism unleashed its havoc on the world. 9/11 and subsequent attacks on the UK, Spain, France, India, Indonesia and elsewhere have been met by harsh responses and illiberal actions necessary for liberal democracies to combat its enemies from within.   The world today looks even more divided and confused about issues of identity and nationality.  Islamic fundamentalism is the result of a conflict of cultures and identity. Instead of the internet uniting the world for good, it has also made the spread of terrible ideas that much easier.

The liberal paradise promised to us has rolled back. There is a revolt against liberal democracy due to the rise of nationalist populism. The copycat model of aping the institutions of the West without the liberal underpinnings that bind Western societies has clearly not served the purpose. There are democracies that are either in name only, or who openly govern in the name of their native majorities. The biggest and most successful democracy in the world is slowly turning against its own citizens in the name of the majority.

Technology has played a major role in changing the economic lives of people. Globalisation has meant the flow of jobs and incomes to the poorer countries, depriving those who once did these jobs to fend for themselves. Labour mobility is now shown to be a false premise. Those who were left behind have stayed behind. And those who came in have made the technological leap, over these stay-behinds, stoking resentment and encouraging populism. The harsh light of the lamp in the painting now shines on the victims of technological obsolescence, of technology-fueled resentments, of technology-mediated nativism, and technology-enabled terrorism.

The stark, black and white cubist images on that painting today represent a different type of dystopia – equally technological and very human all the same. The world today seems eerily close to world in the 1930s, leading full circle back to the time when Picasso put brush to canvas.

*WH Auden, September 1939

I wish this was the speech that was made in May 2014. I am sure someone attempting this counterfactual would have many other points to make.

Dear Friends, Brothers and Sisters

The nation has spoken.  You have given your mandate, your trust, to our party.  You have given us your instructions very clearly. To govern this country so that everyone progresses, and everyone becomes prosperous. We are grateful and humbled. And I, as the leader of the party, bow down my head in humility to you the people of India. You are 130 crore people – rich and poor; Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, Christian, Jain; you speak 26 languages and live in 29 states. And yet, when you speak, you speak clearly and without any doubt. I have heard you loud and clear and as your servant, I bow my head to you.

During the campaign I promised you that this Government will be very different, a government of change. I plan to live up to that promise. You have seen our program in the manifesto. But the time for elections is over, and the time for talking is done. Now, as your servant, you are entitled to know what we plan to do and how it will better your lives. Allow me to lay out the big changes that we will make.

The first job of a government is to ensure that the prosperity of the nation goes up. Without money in the bank, without a job, without food in your stomach, you cannot be a good citizen. If people are seeing their prospects improve, tensions in society will decrease. Most of the tensions we have in our country are about competition for resources – for jobs, houses, land.  Our goal is to end these tensions by increasing prosperity.

Prosperity can only come when entrepreneurs and industrialists feel that they can set up companies without any interference or problems. These companies will create jobs. You should no longer expect that the government will be the source of all jobs. Those days are gone. If we keep generating non-productive jobs for people, then we will just be paying salaries. Then how can we invest in roads, railways, ports, airfields, in the latest arms for our defence forces?

To ensure job creation in the private sector, we will do the following

First, reduce the number of clearances and permissions the business needs. We have to ensure the business does not harm the environment, takes care of pollution, and adopts fair labour practices. Other than checking these, we will not interfere in how they run. Permissions will be granted quickly, in fourteen days time, once they satisfy us on these three.

Second, we will give all businesses tax reliefs on their initial years of running. New businesses, and existing businesses expanding operations will be given tax reliefs that are linked to employment generation as well as quantum of investment.

Third,  private companies are invited to invest in road infrastructure. We will announce our project preferences in two months time. We will give interested private companies one month to respond to tenders. Every such investment will receive a tax holiday for fifteen years provided the project is completed on time and to our satisfaction.

Fourth, we will cut corporate taxes to bring them in line with other countries in Asia with whom we compete for investment.

Fifth, there will be no tax on dividends. This will encourage people to start investing in stocks and shares to help private companies to invest.

Sixth, in selected sectors like defence, government will announce a Future Purchase Program to enable indigenous industries to plan and develop technologies for investment.

Seventh, we will announce Strategic Industry Partnership Initiatives to create annex exploit technologies for water conservation in farming, river cleanliness, ground water recharge, waste management and alternate energy sources.

In the field of agriculture, the country has made tremendous progress. But more needs to be done to ensure that our farmers can earn good incomes from agriculture. Wherever possible, we will use Minimum Support Prices to help farmers shore up income. But going forward, we will ask FCI to implement cold storage systems to help store food surpluses of items like onions which cause a lot of suffering due to wild price fluctuations – both to farmers as well as to consumers.

We will ask the State Agriculture Ministries to help farmers move to less water-intensive modes of cultivation. This will take a few years to accomplish but we must start now. The country has the lowest per-capita availability of water among all major countries. Global warming is here and it will affect rainfall patterns. We need to be prepared.

Access to credit for farmers will improve in our administration, but to maintain a healthy flow, we will ask farmers to repay loans. Not paying back a loan does not reflect well on our culture. We will ask the States to be extra sensitive to this aspect.

Coming to the Banking system. The previous government had started the Asset Quality Review which is a good step. But we will take it further. First, all politically directed lending will stop. Bank officers will be allowed to make their own decisions on credit. Further if a credit decision is made on the basis of facts, the bank officers will not face criminal prosecution.  This will allow them to function freely and without hindrance.

To enable the public sector banks to act without political interference, we are hereby abolishing the Department of Financial Services.  There will be no privatisation of the banks but these banks will now have to manage their affairs freely under the total supervision of the RBI.  We will appoint individuals of repute to act as Independent Directors representing the government as a stockholder in these banks. But there will be no more remote control.

The tax burden in this country is borne by a very few people. To make this fairer, we propose to do the following.

Income tax will now be paid by all. The threshold for no tax will be set high enough so that poor farmers and poor people do not have to pay. Tax rates for low incomes will be low.  It is a national duty to pay to keep your country safe and prosperous. The Income Tax Act will be amended to reflect this aim.

Further this government will abolish all state level Octroi and Sales Taxes and move to a national Goods and Services Tax system. It will take two years to design it properly and two years for it to stabilise. I ask my countrymen to be patient. If we get this right, the immediate benefits can be illustrated as follows: a truck of Alphonso Mangoes from Ratnagiri will take three days to get to the Capital, without any Octroi stops, instead of ten days at present.  A separate commission consisting of all states will be set up to ensure that the states do not lose revenue. But if some states do, they should remember the whole nation benefits. Farmers benefit. Industries benefit. Customers benefit.

The Government will provide incentives to those who pay at shops by debit or credit card or by IMPS.  The incentive will be credited directly to the payer within 15 days of such payment. Insist on paying by card at a shop. India has the lowest merchant charges, and the merchant saves money in cash handling. WE will introduce schemes to ensure that every Indian is able to pay by card.

Turning to foreign policy – India has always desired peaceful relations with our neighbours, particularly Pakistan.  I ask my fellow Indians to be patient. Pakistan is a country in great trouble. But they are our neighbours – and we cannot chose our neighbours. Our government will engage Pakistan at civil society, inter-governmental and in people to people levels. We will punish anyone who launched a terrorist attack on us from their soil. But we will reward such countries for good behaviour.

Last and most important – I wish to address the question of our approach to secularism. There has been a lot of scaremongering about our party during the elections. Do not believe these rumours. There will be some changes but here is what I want to tell my Muslim, Christian, Sikh, Jain and other brothers and sisters from any religion.  You are Indian first and last. Hindus are Indian first and last. As Indians you are equal in the eyes of the law. There will be no discrimination – either positive or negative – on the basis of religion. Any person caught doing so will be punished under the Constitution. At the same time, my brothers and sisters from the minority religions, you will agree with me that a lot of misuse of secularism has taken place in the past. Vote bank politics, encouraging illegal migration, fomenting communal violence – all of this has been done by political parties in the past. This ends now. The civilisation of this country has benefited from Islam, Christianity and other religions. But it is largely a Hindu one. This should not scare you. It is the same Hindu religion that welcomed the Parsis, the earliest Christian evangelists, that co-existed with Jainism and Buddhism, and enabled Islam to become an Indian religion. My government will ensure this is not forgotten but this is not at the expense of our fellow Indians from other religions.

My friends, we have a lot to do. Let us swear an oath to work hard. I and my government, as your servants, will make a solemn vow to you to make your lives better over the next five years that you have given us. Jai Hind! Vande Mataram!