Thy Hand, Great Anarch! India: 1921-1952

by Nirad Chaundhuri

The author looks back on his life and the history of India from 1921 to 1952 and describes changes in Indian culture and society

Genres: India, History, Nonfiction, Biography, Asia

Paperback

First published January 1, 1987

Reviews

[Preetam Chatterjee · Rating 3 out of 5]

He is thoroughly with the British. He thinks that the British rule in India did not come to an end on account of Gandhi, but it did so, owing to the Achilles' heel of the British rulers. The British ignored the function of cultural proselytisation which was the secret of the success of ancient Roman emperors and modern French colonizers.

Thy Hand, Great Anarch (1987) is a sort of postscript to Autobiography of an Unknown Indian.

The tome opens in 1921, when Chaudhuri was in search of a job after his failure at the M. A. examination. The author outlines the assorted ups and downs of his life in the work-a-day world, and ends with an explanation of the writing and reception of his autobiography in 1951.

Chaudhuri displays atypical aptitude for character demarcation and psychiatry of events. His extensive learning, piercing surveillance and consummate mastery over literary English make it an extraordinary work.

The book is furthermore incredible for Chaudhuri’s deprecation of Mahatma Gandhi as ‘a great anarch’ and piss poor pathetic for his lament over the independence of India.

As far as Mahatma Gandhi is concerned, Chaudhuri says: “It appeared to me that his entire ideology was driven by a resolve to abandon civilized life and revert to a primitive existence.”

And as far as the independence of India is concerned, Chaudhuri deplores it.

The British willed their own end when they felt that they could not continue to rule over India in the postwar world.

[Ian Chapman · Rating 5 out of 5]

The memoirs of an exceptional man. An unusual portrayal of the Indian Independence leadership, by an insider. The author was a professional secretarial clerk, first for the headquarters of the British Indian Army, then for the Indian Congress Party. He writes movingly of General Auchinleck the morning after Indian newspapers had published his wife leaving him for another man. Years before, as a clerk, he had been present at a meeting with Auchinleck, but the latter didn't remember him. Some rare commentary on Indian admiration for the initial victories of nazi Germany, some in obscure religious terms. The author was regarded as an eccentric for admiring Churchill, but does remark that he liked Subhas Chandra Bose as a man.

Also a picture of middle class Indians in the British Raj. Chaudhuri describes, with generous humour, his experience as a Hindu schoolboy at a Presbyterian school.

The literary style is some of the best English writing of the last century.

[Daniel Polansky]

The follow up to Autobiography of an Unknown Indian, during which Chaudhuri chronicles the final years of the Raj and his life during it. Chaudhuri is a brilliant, cantankerous, original thinker, a peculiar mix of Burkean conservative and unreformed Nietzschean, and his take on the tragic inevitability of partition is compelling if odd. Amounting to his final testament (he was 90 when he wrote it), it probably could have used some editing of its bible-like length (a 50 page biography of Tagore, a slightly shorter section on his love of European orchestral music), and no doubt there are many who would quibble with his affection for the British Empire and his general contention that imperialism is a positive mechanism for human development. For all that, it is a document of genuine value, both for its critique of Western civilization from a sympathetic but foreign perspective, and as the chronicle of a decent man trying to survive morally in a corrupt and chaotic age.

[Omar Ali · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great book. Everyone who was anyone in India in those tumultuous times shows up in this book, but mostly it is Nirad Da and his trenchant observations and blunt honesty that makes it a must read book about the events leading up to Indian independence.

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

I learned a tremendous amount from this book—about the nuances of British colonialism in India, about Hindu-Muslim cultural relations, about the political fracturing of Bengal, and about India’s nascent government, struggling with corruption post-WWII. Still, Chaudhuri’s prose reflects ideas which are (intentionally?) inflammatory and, at times, patently offensive. Along with his poignant insights and impressive (second language!) English acrobatics, he also offers seething criticism of Ghandi and the doctrine of non-violence throughout, calls the British “the Nazis of that age” (p. 669), and calls white tourists an “abomination”(p. 735)--as if each one is politically motivated on every visit to India. He writes nostalgically, longing for the lost Bengali intellectual, but ignoring that it was an exclusively upper-class, caste-based, male institution, and for traditional gender roles, despite their clear limitations. Chaudhuri writes brilliantly about terrorism (“a mental disease arising out of nationalism”, and “political rabies” he calls it on p. 292), but he later “emphatically reject[s] the idea that empires were opposed to human dignity” (p. 788), presenting “dictatorships [as] being as democratic as parliamentary government”. I think parts of Africa and Southeast Asia, and most of South America, would disagree.

This book is certainly worth reading, though it could be at least 200 pages shorter. Chaudhuri’s voice is a rare one, having escaped colonial India and made it into print in English. This book, and his Autobiography of an Unknown Indian (which I have not read), present a rare glimpse from a largely unarticulated perspective. Whether that perspective represents more than just Nirad Chaudhuri, though, remains to be seen.

[Stephen Coates · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a successor to "The Autobiography of an Unknown Indian". That being said, this book covers the author's life from his early 20s until he moves from India to the UK in his 60s (?) during which he held various jobs in India, then a British protectorate, amongst them writing broadcast scripts for the All-Indian Radio. His assessment of the Congress Party's quest for independence is insightful and his portrayal of Mahatma Gandhi, in contrast to that in the Richard Attenborough, is less flattering, based, in part, on numerous first-hand experiences. It isn't a small book but puts the reader in a simpler and less hurried India as it moved slowly yet inevitably towards independence.

This is another author I was introduced to via Clive James's "Cultural Amnesia".

[Mik Hamilton]

This is the second part of Nirad C. Chaudhuri's autobiography. The first part was "Autobiography of an Unknown Indian". He is the best Indian writer in the English language I have ever read. (I haven't read a book in years that sent me to the dictionary as much as this book!) It covers the unbelievable years at the end of the Raj through Indian independence, 1921 to 1952. If you have any interest in what happened, this is a must read. He blows away previous myths and writings on the subject, especially giving a truthful eyewitness look at Gandhi.