My Review of 2021

 

This is proving to be the bleakest year to date in terms of my customary annual review as I reflect on it. The second year of the Covid pandemic has taken its toll; there is much less than usual to sing about, as it were!  To repeat what I wrote in my review of 2020,”my formulaic recounting of what I did during the year has to be modified”- this time even more so!  Let me therefore begin as usual with the books that I managed to read, willy-nilly:

2021 Diary – Books

1) `The Confession` by Jessie Burton - Picador h/b 2019 – ISBN 9781509886142 ... lost interest after trying hard … abandoned!

2) `The haunting of Alma Fielding: a true ghost story` by Kate Summerscale  - Bloomsbury Circus h/b 2020 – ISBN 9781408895450 … had heard it serialised on Radio 4 and read it more than halfway through but then gave up as a lot of the stuff was familiar and far too graphic and detailed to sustain continued interest … even so it was interesting to know all the events described there were happening during the 1930s in a London neighbourhood that I had come to know some 40-50 years later.

3) `The Adventures of Maud West, Lady Detective, Secrets and Lies in the Golden Age of Crime` by Susannah Stapleton - Picador h/b – isbn 978-1-5098-6729-5 – © SS 2019 – 368 pp – a fact based reconstruction of the life and adventures of a true-life lady private detective who had gained much notoriety – well researched by a historian “with over twenty years` experience unravelling mysteries” as described in the blurb – a riveting romp through Maud West`s many cases and claims; the whole narrative gives a fascinating insight into the social mores of the post-Victorian/Edwardian era of English society.

4) `Such A Fun Age` by Kiley Reid - Bloomsbury Circus, h/b, 2020, ISBN 9781526612144 –  310 pp - dramatic opening sequence touching on the racial dynamics of US society that turned into an interesting chronicle of the daily lives and preoccupations of the motley collection of young black and white characters whose lives are closely intertwined – minutely observed social and cultural interactions … another light read in this time of the pandemic!  

5) `Agent Running in the Field` by John Le Carre – Viking h/b 2019, ISBN978-0-241-40123-1 – a delightful journey through the ageing spy hero narrator`s return to form on home ground in Brexit Britain; Le Carre`s last hurrah, as it were!  Needed some light reading in the midst of reviewing some heavy academic stuff.

6) `The Place of Cold Water: A Memoir` by Anand Panwalker – ISBN 13: 978-1548789084 – The Happy Self-Publisher – © AP 2017 – 405 pp – the blurb on the back cover best describes it as a “tale of an Indian immigrant family in British Kenya …[a] bittersweet story of resilience and courage amidst tumultuous local and global upheavals and deep divisions based on skin color, caste and religion [omitting to mention nationality and ethnicity]; of a dysfunctional and broken family seeking safety, acceptance and human dignity in a permanent home [the  USA] where they could live as valued citizens; of the triumph of the human spirit against overwhelming odds” and much more besides.  Familiar history indeed, but I could not agree with some of the claims and assertions. It is fair to mention that after the book and its author were introduced to the Namaskar-Africana forum, in the course of the exchanges that followed, we found one or two common friends and other shared experiences during the same timeline.  I had hoped to write a proper review of the book but that may not happen now.

(7) `What She Saw Last Night` by M J Cross – isbn 978 1 4091 7247 5 – Orion p/b -370 pp – picked up on a reading of the blurb at the local library when it opened up after lockdown – a thriller it promised to be – started well and carried on but then down two-thirds way it just deteriorated … lost interest in the minutiae of the narrator`s movements across Scotland leaving behind a two dead companions of hers with no moral compunction …  got to the end and wished hadn`t bothered with it … waste of time.

(8) `What You Are Stories` by M G Vassanji – isbn – 9780385692885 – penguinrandomhouse.ca – © MGV2021 – 246 pp – a delightful collection of short stories, just ideal for night bedtime reading, which is what I did, one every night – could relate to quite a few, and in particular An Epiphany, An American Family, A Shooting in Don Mills, The Sense of An Ending (reminiscent of the Julian Barnes novel) … good.  MGV and I had been having some conversations and he insisted on sending me a copy … the book arrived on 16 Aug with an inscription = finished reading night of 01/09/21.

(9) `Down Memory Lane` by Abdulrazak Shariff Fazal – no ISBN or other details; self-published (2021) by author who is a friend based in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and who persuaded me to write a Foreword on the basis of selective chapters of the manuscript – a wonderful mix of stories about people and places, family and friends, encounters and experiences and a lot more – part biography, part travelogue, part history – not a work of fiction but rather rooted in fact, observation and analysis - `down memory lane` indeed of more than half a century of his life, lived initially in his birth place of Zanzibar, then moving to the mainland, spending many years as a student in Mumbai (then Bombay) and as an accountancy professional in Dubai, before settling back in Dar es Salaam, and over the years travelling across the Middle East, Europe and America – all of which features in the book. The finished package when it came surpassed my expectations: a beautifully produced book with an attractive front cover, print format, colour graphics and photographs - what a pity the book was not meant for a wider readership!

(10) `World`s End And Other Stories` - by Paul Theroux – Penguin Books p/b 1982 (no ISBN) – 211 pp – a varied collection, in the classic tradition of short-story tales that do not always have a predictable ending … the plot of the last one, `The Greenest Island`, seemed to be based on his own early life affair, resulting in the birth of a child who was adopted and with whom he was reunited much later in life (this deduced from his 2017 memoir `Mother Land` which I reviewed on my blog in 2018). 

(11) `The Year of the End: A Memoir of Marriage, Truth and Fiction` by Anne Theroux – Icon Books – ISBN 978-178578-739-3 – © 2021 Anne Theroux – 242 – How appropriate that I should be ending the year with this book, even more so since the preceding one was by Paul Theroux, who of course as my readers will know features prominently in my writings as one of my favourite authors.  This however was one that I was eager to get into and relished every moment of my bedtime reading of it, in record time.  In the book, the author bares her soul and the secrets of her marriage to Paul T in keeping with the subtitle: it is frank and painful.  This is how she describes it in her Postscript: “Paul and I have spent even more years with our present partners than the 22 we were together.  Perhaps we learned from our mistakes.  Perhaps we became less demanding as we grew older.  Perhaps we chose more wisely.  We live thousands of miles apart but have met up on friendly terms for family celebrations”, and adds, referring to her career as a counsellor during which she had “listened to other people talk about the confusion and distress of troubled relationships … which have the seal of confidentiality, but now that I have retired, I can tell my own”!  The book contains so many points of reference that resonated with me in terms of familiar geographical locations and literary and cultural allusions in PT`s own writings that it calls for a proper review, which I may attempt in the new year.

2021 Diary - Films, Plays, Concerts etc

1) Mon 11 Oct – NFT2 – LFF - `Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy` - dir: Ryusuke Hamaguchi – Japan 2021 – 121 mins – with Kotone Furukwa, Ayumu Nakajima and Hyunri – a fascinating and stimulating cinematic experience – a tale of three women in seemingly disparate scenarios going through the angst of broken, betrayed or imagined relationships in contemporary Japanese society – this was my first outing into Central London after the pandemic hit us, and my first film after `Parasite` that I saw in February 2020.  I was determined to sample a flavour of this year`s LFF and am glad that I did so, with the second film at the same venue the very next day!   

2) Tue 12 Oct – NFT2 – LFF - `The Box` (La Caja) - dir: Lorenzo Vigas – Mexico-USA 2021 – 90 mins – with Hatzin Navarrete, Herman Mendoza and Elan Gonzalez (Spanish + Eng subtitles) – an extraordinarily complex tale of a youthful Hatzin who sets out to claim his father`s remains only to discover that he was alive and from then on the story develops into a series of bizarre twists and turns  through the working of the father-son relationship against the backdrop of the father`s entrepreneurial activities involving violence and an unexpected denouement – but again going to the cinema during the London Film Festival brought me face to face with a cultural experience that I had been missing for the last 20 months or so. 

3) Fr 05 Nov – Odeon Epsom - `No Time To Die` - Dir: Cary Joji Fukunaga – UK USA 2021 – 163 mins – Daniel Craig; Ram  Malek, Lea Seydoux et al – much hyped, with a lot of celeb types and others rushing to see it, in light of relaxation of Covid restrictions – rubbish – I did not enjoy it – was reminded of the older, classic Bond movies (Dr No, From Russia With Love and others such as On Her Majesty`s Service) – there was not much of a plot and too much juvenile stuff – pointless killings and destruction all round – wanted to see Bond dead, not knowing that that was in fact going to be the ending … good … it was clear who the replacement 007 is going to be … not enamoured by her --- all that said, I wanted to see a movie in our local cinema as a dare under Covid conditions … well that will probably be the last for 2021.

2021 Diary - Lectures, Talks, Events etc

None, but I have done a few zoom webinar and other sessions with professional colleagues.

2021 Diary – Miscellany

Again, I can more or less repeat what I wrote in my 2020 review.  While the above speaks for itself, I should confess that this year`s selection of books has been disappointing, except for the ones specially mentioned, though not for want of trying to find some better choices. A large part of the explanation for this is that I was much engrossed in reading up and analysing a number of `study` books for academic reviews: `Naoroji` and `Empireland` for the LSE Review of Books, and a fortnight ago was pleased to receive an email from the Managing Editor of the LSE Review saying that my review of Empireland was the second most read review for 2021. I also posted an extended version of the Naoroji review on my blogsite. Then there was a truly difficult one to write about: AMERICAN PRESIDENTS, DEPORTATIONS, AND HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS, for the Journal of Immigration Asylum and Nationality Law – that review is coming out in the next issue in February 2022; and the fourth one was J M Nazareth`s `Brown Man Black Country`, which was the focus of my regular AwaaZ column in Issue 3 of 2021.  All that took up a lot of time and attention.

It has been a trying year certainly but the good thing is that we are still alive and kicking. We have had our three doses (including the booster) of the Corona vaccinations and are keeping well free of the virus. That said, right now what is uppermost in our unconscious thoughts is survival – to carry on living in a self-protective mode – unconscious because it has become sort of second nature to daily existence and routine, to have a mask handy when stepping outside the home and make sure to take other precautions while out shopping or doing whatever else that involves contact or being near with other people. But of course the limitations on our social and cultural activities are an irritant; they seem to have taken hold. One has forgotten what normal life used to be like!  Will we ever get it back?

As shown above, I managed only three outings to the cinema; none to a concert hall or theatre or other place of live entertainment.  Foreign travel has become a distant possibility. Two years, 2020 and 2021 have already gone by and while I am longing to go on a cruise that may not happen in 2022 also, who knows! 

To end on a personal note, let me mention a proverbial good story about our NHS.  A little over three weeks ago, my wife was taken ill, had to be taken to our local hospital in an ambulance at about noon and twelve hours later underwent an emergency operation through the midnight hour at another, sister, hospital, and then following a spell in ITU and a further few days in a general ward she came home after a total of 12 days in hospital.  Her recovery is slow and painful, but the point of all this is that she received excellent care while in hospital, her operation was successful, and she did not contract Covid or any other hospital acquired infection, and I was able to see her every day for up to an hour, under strict conditions.  

 So, so far so good; compliments of the season and best wishes to you all for a better 2022.

RAMNIK SHAH

© 2021

Surrey, England

 

 

 

 

CORONA DIARY - III

 

It has been a long while since I last posted anything here, and even longer since my last Corona update on 30 November 2020, but now I return to that subject with some optimism, because I have broken out of the metaphorical Corona straitjacket. How come?  Well, last Monday, the 11th, I went into Central London by train for the first time in twenty months.  Let me explain: the London Film Festival 2021 (which ended yesterday) was on and considering that before the pandemic I always managed to see about half a dozen films every year, I was determined not to miss this year`s offerings.  So I had booked two, one for Monday and the other for the next day,Tuesday the 12th, and I am pleased to say I managed to see both of them; and next I am looking forward to seeing the new Bond film in the coming days.  All  these will feature in my Annual Review at the end of the year.

The outings on the two consecutive days – the train travel in both directions, walking through Waterloo Station to the South Bank, the general ambience at the National Film Theatre - all that was more or less like what used to be the case in the pre-pandemic days, but with a major difference in that one didn`t have to jostle with crowds in the streets or milling around on the station concourse.  To be on the safe side, I had kept a mask on throughout the journey and in the cinema auditorium, which incidentally was full, on both days.  Of course, having been triple jabbed, with the booster now, added to one`s confidence. Even otherwise, during the last few months, ordinary life (shopping, outdoor walks and other activities, meeting and mixing with people, though not in large gatherings or overcrowded conditions etc) has been returning to near normal. During and soon after the first lockdown last year, there was a surge in zoom meetings and sessions.  These have steadily declined; social interactions have become nuanced and generally we have settled down into new routines. For us, foreign travel is still not on, and much as I wish to go on a cruise, that will not happen until spring next year at the earliest. We await better times!

RAMNIK SHAH

© 2021

Surrey, England

 

 

 

Dadabhai Naoroji (1825-1917)

 Review of `NAOROJI Pioneer of Indian Nationalism` by Dinyar Patel                                               (Harvard University Press 2020 – ISBN 9780674238206 - 352 pp)

Like most South Asians in the diaspora of my generation, born during World War II, one had grown up hearing the name Dadabhai Naoroji (Naoroji), but only superficially as the first Indian to be elected to the British Parliament way back in the 1890s. This simple fact took on an historic significance, nearly a hundred years on, as the image of the immigrant communities in the UK began to change with the arrival in 1987 of a pioneering group of 4 non-white MPs: Keith Vaz, Diane Abbott, Paul Boateng and Bernie Grant. But even then there was precious little generally known about Naoroji`s background and trajectory.

Dinyar Patel has filled that void admirably in this book.  It will be of great interest to students of economics and political science, and of Indo-British history.  It draws the reader into Naoroji`s huge hinterland in these and other respects. What comes across is his passionate commitment to the concept of (an) Indian nationhood within the parameters of British rule, then at the height of Empire, that came to dominate his life. In this he was driven by an abiding concern for the poverty-stricken state of his country under the Raj.  It was this that was to spearhead his political activism after first landing in Britain in 1855.  Over the next 52 years he divided his time between Britain and India, with increasingly longer spells in Britain as he consolidated his political credentials and gained wide name recognition in the public sphere and in the corridors of power.

Naoroji was born in 1825 in a native area of Bombay to Parsi parents who had moved there to escape rural poverty from their ancestral Gujarat, and received his early education at a local English medium school as a non-fee paying pupil. In May 1840, he was enrolled at the prestigious Elphinstone College, having been awarded a special scholarship on account of his proficiency in mathematics. He excelled at Elphinstone, which became his alma mater.

After finishing his studies in 1845, he was invited to teach there and following a series of rapid promotions ended up as professor of mathematics and natural philosophy, `becoming the first-ever Indian to hold this rank at a British-administered institution of higher education` in India (p 272).  He also supervised a girls` school and was made a member of the Bombay Board of Education.

It was also during this period that his political thinking had begun to take shape, first publicly expressed at the inauguration of the Bombay Association in 1852 when he `suggested a link between faulty governance and poverty` (p 61), which he was to later articulate quite forcefully and with confidence.

But then came an abrupt change when he abandoned his promising academic career and departed Bombay for Britain in 1855 with a fellow Parsi to set up the first Indian commercial firm in Britain to trade in the growing cotton export market. He had applied for and been readily granted a two-year leave of absence from his professorial duties at Elphinstone, but he never returned to teach there. In 1856, however, he was appointed Professor of Gujarati at London University and thus re-entered the world of academia, combining it with business, having established his own Dadabhai Naoroji & Co around 1859, which alas did not do too well over the years and he had to close it down in 1881.

So what form did his political activism take?  Very soon after arriving in Britain in the mid-1850s, he joined certain societies (the Royal Asiatic Society and the London Ethnological Society, among others) `where he emerged as an academic and eventually popular authority on all matters subcontinental … [and] … helped create institutional space in the imperial capital for discussion of Indian affairs`. More importantly, in 1866 he founded the East India Association (EIA) - which brought together British Indian officials of the highest calibre (ex-Governors and the like) and leading Indian figures from across a broad spectrum of opinion and expertise in the law, journalism, education, and industry.  Its key function was to lobby MPs on Indian policy and be a cultural bureau and `clearinghouse for information on India, a resource for the public as well as Parliament` (p 127/8).

From here on, he picked up his theme of the linkage between British rule and Indian poverty, to develop and pursue it relentlessly over the next three decades under his generic `drain of wealth` theory of `thoughtless and pitiless action of … British policy … the pitiless eating of India`s substance in India, and the further pitiless drain to England` (p 9).  He argued that civil servants` salary and pension remittances to Britain, profound unfavourable trade balances, the cost of the military deployed to defend British possessions outside India, the siphoning off of substantial amounts of Indian tax revenues to imperial coffers and the like all contributed to this one-way traffic (p 62/63).

Naoroji presented papers, gave talks, engaged in discussion and correspondence with a whole range of high ranking government officials and MPs, appeared before Parliamentary committees, made representations to any number of other bodies and organisations, was asked to join in delegations and deputations concerned with matters Indian and much more.  

Fortunately, the author`s extensive and meticulous research has enabled him to produce a complete Timeline of Naoroji`s lifespan from birth to death that includes a list of his papers. Among these, on the drain of wealth theory specifically, were: `England`s Duties to India` at the first meeting of the EIA on 2 May 1867; `Wants and Means of India` at the Society of Arts in London on 27 June 1870; `Poverty of India, Part I` on 28 February 1876 and `Poverty of India, Part II` on 27 April 1876 both at the Bombay branch of the EIA. The list also contains a mention of `Poverty and Un-British Rule in India`, a compilation of Naoroji`s economic writings published in October 1901.

Naoroji`s Elphinstonian cohorts and others in the upper ranks of native Indian society had come to the conclusion that the administrators of the Raj were too inflexible and indifferent to the needs and interests of those over whom they ruled. In the absence of any platform for raising issues of governance and accountability, the Indians felt that they had to take their case direct to the British home public and policy makers for any meaningful change.  In this context, while the idea of Indian MPs in the British Parliament was nothing new, as we learn from Chapter 3 of the book (`Turning toward Westminster`), it was Naoroji who gave bold expression to it in his 1867 paper, `England`s Duties to India`, bemoaning `the almost total exclusion of the natives from a share and voice in the administration of their own country` (p 92), unlike the `rights of representation [enjoyed] by other colonized people in the French, Spanish, and Portuguese empires` (p 94).

This then was the prelude to Naoroji`s foray into politics proper, whose impact was to reverberate well into the next century. The book charts his path to becoming the first Indian MP in the British Parliament in great depth and detail. It had been a long and arduous journey, full of setbacks and challenges involving rival contenders from within his own Liberal Party as well as from Conservative opponents.  In one notorious incident, in November 1888, he was called a `black man` by none other than the Prime Minister, Lord Salisbury.  Salisbury had stated that he did not believe that the UK electorate would vote for Naoroji. That racist slur elicited such widespread opprobrium, from high profile national figures such as William Gladstone and other enlightened folk, that the National Liberal Club (NLC) held a dinner in Naoroji`s honour as a response to the insult (pp 166/67).

He had joined the NLC (affiliated with the Liberal Party) in 1886, and it had become the focus of both his political and `India related activity ushering a steady stream of subcontinental visitors through its grand entrance hall … [he] having fully taken on the mantle of Indian emissary` (p 129).  He had actually first considered contesting a seat in the House of Commons in 1872, but it was Lalmohan Ghosh, a prominent Calcutta barrister, who became `the first-ever Indian to stand for Parliament`, twice nominated as a Liberal, though he was unsuccessful on both occasions (p 90).  Naoroji himself was chosen as the Liberal candidate for Holborn at the 1886 general election, which he lost, and eventually fought and won the 1892 election, albeit with a wafer thin majority and for one term (1892-95) only, as MP for the Central Finsbury constituency.  It had most certainly not been an easy ride: he had been subjected to all manner of dirty tricks, internal party strife and external distractions, which continued to mar his subsequent attempts to re-enter Parliament.

By then, however, Naoroji had acquired such stature that, not surprisingly, he was hailed by both Indians and Britons alike as the `Grand Old Man (GOM) of India`, a contemporary reference to William Gladstone (who had succeeded Lord Salisbury as Prime Minister) as the United Kingdom`s GOM (p 190). Even across the Atlantic, the New York `Review of Reviews` in its issue of October 1892, carried an imposing sketch depicting Naoroji as a colossus straddling England and India as the Voice of India in his new found role as a British MP (pictured at p 191).

In Parliament, he made alliances with like-minded MPs, Liberal and Irish, some of whom had served in India, and with one, William Caine, MP for East Bradford, `founded an Indian Parliamentary Committee in July 1893, which soon grew in size to a whopping 154 MPs` (p 197).  Chapter 6 of the book, `Member for India`, gives a fascinating insight into his many roles as such both in and outside Parliament.

But he was a great deal more than that: he had an equal parallel standing in India as a leader and as a founding member of the Indian National Congress in 1885.  He was thrice honoured to preside over the annual session of the Congress: 1886 (Calcutta), 1894 (Lahore) and 1906 (Calcutta again). In December 1893, he had received a heroic welcome at Bombay on his first return visit to India as an MP and all through his whistle-stop train journey to Lahore for the Congress session.  He was similarly feted in later years as well. He had also helped open the Congress`s London office, `which became another focus of activity from the late 1880s onward` (p 129).

He remained an influential player in the nationalist movement that was gathering momentum at the turn of the 19^th into the 20^th century.  By this time he was also becoming markedly unsparing in his critical demand for Indians to be compensated for their past sufferings and to be recognised as worthy of equal status as subjects of the Empire.  In his last address to Congress at the 1906 Calcutta session (which was being held at a pivotal moment in the struggle for independence because of the partition of Bengal), he enunciated this as `Self-Government or Swaraj` on a par with that of the United Kingdom and the dominions of Canada and Australia.  It so happened that in August 1904 he had attended the International Socialist Congress in Amsterdam, in the company of the British radical Henry Hyndman, where he had railed against imperialism in like language and received critical acclaim.

There is much more that can only be mentioned in passing and not all of it either.  Bear this in mind: he was born in 1825, before Queen Victoria descended to the throne in 1837, and lived through all of her reign and beyond, until his death in Bombay in 1917. After first coming to Britain in 1855, he made many trips back and forth, when travel and communications between Britain and India took days and weeks at a time.  He lived a dual existence, with home and business, and political activities, spread across the two countries, with all that this entailed in practical and financial terms. He also had to struggle with frequent bouts of ill-health, family bereavement and other crises.

So what about his other activities?

Very early on, in 1859, he took up the case of the very first Indian candidate for the civil service, Rustomji Wadia, who was unceremoniously barred from taking the service entrance examination by the India Office on some spurious ground (p 61).  Thereafter, he persistently campaigned for a fundamental reform of the Indian Civil Service by removing barriers to the entry of Indians into the service. This was to culminate in a resolution that he, as an MP, cleverly managed to pass through a late night sitting of the House of Commons on June 2, 1893 with the help of a large number of sympathetic MPs, for simultaneous civil service examination to be held both in England and India.  However, it turned out to be a pyrrhic victory, for the government under Prime Minister Gladstone, no less, simply stonewalled the issue and let it slide into the long grass (p 214).

The breadth of Naoroji`s knowledge and interests was vast and varied.  For example, in his first few years in Britain, in the 1860s, he delivered papers to learned societies about his Parsi origin and Zoroastrian faith, and about `The European and Asiatic Races`, as part of what he must have seen as his wider mission to inform and educate the British public. These are also listed in the Timeline of all significant events and turning points in his life.   

In the early 1880s, it is possible that Karl Max and Naoroji may have met; at least a well-wisher had apprised Marx of Naoroji`s views on the drain of wealth from India, which were apparently echoed in a letter Marx wrote to the Russian economist Nicolai F. Danielson (p 84).

Naoroji had also taken an interest in the Pan-African Conference in London in 1900, and was thanked for a donation by its organiser, Henry Sylvester Williams, a Trinidadian, whom he assisted in searching for a parliamentary opening and, when that did not materialise, helped both Williams and another black activist, John Archer, win elections to London municipal councils the same year - perhaps `the best of all possible ripostes to Lord Salisbury`s "black man" jibe` (p 228/9)!

Naoroji also kept abreast with US politics and avidly read the New York Tribune and New York Sun to gauge American opinion and to pounce upon commentators who made ill-informed remarks about Indian affairs (p 229). In 1893-94,  moved by stirring testimony on the horrors of Jim Crow and lynch mob violence by Ida B Wells, an African-American civil rights activist touring Britain, Naoroji `joined a group of progressive MPs, journalists, and clerymen in founding an English Anti-Lynching Committee.  His name on the list of founders was duly noticed in an African-American newspaper in Philadelphia (p 228). 

We learn that Naoroji played an important role as a central hub of [British Indian] community life in the late Victorian age, `mentoring and supervising students, dispensing professional and educational advice, counselling on cultural adjustment issues,, extricating Indians from financial and legal difficulties, establishing and presiding over community-wide organizations, and facilitating a sense of national consciousness among Indians cast across the isles` (p 152/3).  He also functioned as the first point of contact for many Britons who consulted him on miscellaneous Indian matters.

Naoroji had made strong connections with campaigners for the Irish Home Rule, cultivated the working class vote, supported the Women`s Franchise League, the secularist freethinkers and other minority causes, all of which had enhanced his political base and appeal, leading to his election success in 1892. However, he lost his seat at the 1895 election (polling 2873 votes to his Conservative opponent`s 3588).  Thereafter, he missed the 1900 election due to illness, then contested the January 1906 election at North Lambeth as an independent Liberal but again he lost. 

That, however, was not the end of Naoroji as a political incarnate in Britain. In November of that year he accompanied Gandhi (who had first made contact with him in 1894 seeking guidance on his battles with the South African government and remained in close touch since) to a meeting with John Morley, Secretary of State for India, before sailing to India to preside over the Congress session at Calcutta in December.  Although he still harboured a wish to remain politically active, after a further year of poor health he finally left Britain in October 1907 to return to India for good.

On the Indian front, apart from politics, he had remained deeply involved in matters relating to education and social progress. We are told that he `possessed notably progressive views on female education [regarding] it as a fundamental pillar for establishing gender equality`. No doubt in this he had been influenced by his mother who, though illiterate herself, was `a staunch proponent of female education` and who had propelled him into schooling in the first place. Naoroji, though, had undergone an arranged marriage with Gulbai, who `was illiterate and showed little interest in being educated`, which explained why he did not appear to have an entirely happy marriage (p 39).  There are however  happier references to his children and grandchildren and their time in Britain and Europe.

During the 1870s he had done some poverty-related investigative work in the princely states of Gujarat and acted as diwan or chief minister to the ruler of Baroda, where he insisted on reforms of the judicial and administrative structures, but resigned after an unsavoury attempt by the ruler to poison the British Resident who had been opposed to Naoroji`s appointment.  He was subsequently elected as a member of the Bombay Municipal Corporation and in 1885 elevated to the Bombay Legislative Assembly.

There is so much packed into the book that no overview can do justice to the complex narrative of Naoroji`s long life and accomplishments, all graphically captured in this extraordinary biography.  The endorsements on the back cover of the book by distinguished academics and historians - Ramachandra Guha, Steve Beckett, Farrukh Dhondy and Sunil Khilnani – are an impressive testament alone to Dinyar Patel`s brilliant creation.  He is Assistant Professor of History at the SP Institute of Management Research in Mumbai and previously had taught in the Department of History at the University of South Carolina – see www.dinyarpatel.com. 

Apart from the Timeline, the book contains short sketches of key individuals, a note on sources, copious endnotes and a comprehensive index. In his note on sources, Patel recounts the many years of his underlying research and the problems encountered by him in accessing and handling original papers, most of them in a delicate state, in the National Archives of India and elsewhere. He has also generously acknowledged the contribution of earlier biographers - Rustom M Masani and two more recent ones - in adding to the body of knowledge about Naoroji.

And in his own thoughtful `Conclusion`, Patel reflects on Naoroji`s impact on the independence struggle  and states: `It is simply impossible to imagine how the nationalist movement would have developed without [Naoroji]` (p 263).   

In Naoroji, then, Patel has constructed a rounded portrait – on the basis of surviving records, traceable sources and a whole host of other documented material, all properly referenced – of a giant of a man, a true Pioneer of Indian Nationalism indeed; a hero and role-model not only to his contemporaries but also to future leaders like Gandhi and Jinnah, who had touched base with him, and worshiped him, and who later came into their own to complete the nationalist struggle.    

This is a timely publication, when so much of our current national discourse is concerned with a reappraisal  of the story of Empire. 

RAMNIK SHAH 

(c) 2021

Surrey, England

                                                           

                        

(a condensed version of this review appears on the LSE Review of Books site at  https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/lsereviewofbooks/2021/02/08/book-review-naoroji-pioneer-of-indian-nationalism-by-dinyar-patel/)