Burma’. His Lordship was out of countenance. He had come splendidly attired in an admiral’s deep-blue uniform splattered with gold epaulettes, ribbons and a chestful of medals. Instead of making a spectacular entry at a glittering reception as he had planned, he was having to waste time with a nondescript clerical type. I asked him about the Partition and the stormy days that followed; he answered me in bored monosyllables.
I tried to provoke him: ‘Lord Mountbatten, many people feel that if you had not forced the pace the exchange of populations might have been smoother and we might have been spared the enormous bloodshed that took place.’
At this, His Lordship was needled into replying: ‘I don’t give a damn about what my critics say today… I will be judged at the bar of history.’
I was taken aback by Mountbatten’s pomposity. However justified, I did not expect a sophisticated English gentleman of breeding to air assumptions of immortality. It wasn’t pucca.
The next encounter revealed yet another facet of Lord Louis’s character. He was to inaugurate an international trade fair in Toronto, and his speech was punctuated with allusions to his royal connection. ‘My cousin the king’, ‘my cousin the queen’s consort’, ‘my uncle the duke of someplace or the other’, etcetera, etcetera. I remember very little of what else he said.
Was there anything of substance to this man? I am not sure.
MADHAV SADASHIV GOLWALKAR
(1906–1973)
As I think on the communal beast that threatens India today, I realize that part of the Sangh Parivar’s success over the years can be attributed to the charm and charisma of many of its leaders. They were men of polite manners, obvious sophistication and intelligence who cloaked their fascist ideas in sweet reasonableness, with impeccable etiquette.
I met Madhavrao Sadasivrao Golwalkar, the then head of the RSS, around forty years ago. Guru Golwalkar had long been at the top of my hate list because I could not forget the RSS’s role in communal riots and the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi, and its attempt to change India from a secular state to a Hindu rashtra. There were passages in his 1939 tract, We, or Our Nationhood Defined , that seemed to suggest that Golwalkar shared Hitler’s ideas about racial purity and approved of his methods to purge Germany of Jews. I could thus not resist the chance of meeting him in November 1972 and interviewed him for The Illustrated Weekly .
I expected to run into a cordon of uniformed swayam sevaks. There were none. Not even plainclothes CIDs to take down the number of my car. I arrived at what looked like a middle-class apartment. It seemed as though there was a puja going on inside—there were rows of sandals outside, the fragrance of agarbatti, the bustle of women behind the scenes, the tinkle of utensils and crockery. I stepped inside.
It was a small room. In it sat a dozen men in spotless white kurtas and dhotis—all looking newly washed as only Maharashtrian Brahmins can manage. And there was Guru Golwalkar—a frail man in his mid-sixties, black hair curling to his shoulders, a moustache covering his mouth, a wispy grey beard dangling down his chin. He wore an inerasable smile and dark eyes twinkled through his bifocals. He looked like an Indian Ho Chi Minh. For a man who had only recently undergone surgery for breast cancer, he seemed remarkably fit and cheerful. Being a guru, I had imagined that he might expect chela-like obeisance. But he did not give me the chance. As I bent to touch his feet, he grasped my hand with his bony fingers and pulled me down on the seat beside him.
‘I am very glad to meet you,’ he said. ‘I had been wanting to do so for some time.’ His Hindi was very shuddh.
‘Me too,’ I replied clumsily. ‘Ever since I read your Bunch of Letters .’
‘ Bunch of Thoughts ,’ he corrected me. He did not want to know my views on it. He took one of my hands in his and patted it. ‘So?’
I tried to provoke him: ‘Lord Mountbatten, many people feel that if you had not forced the pace the exchange of populations might have been smoother and we might have been spared the enormous bloodshed that took place.’
At this, His Lordship was needled into replying: ‘I don’t give a damn about what my critics say today… I will be judged at the bar of history.’
I was taken aback by Mountbatten’s pomposity. However justified, I did not expect a sophisticated English gentleman of breeding to air assumptions of immortality. It wasn’t pucca.
The next encounter revealed yet another facet of Lord Louis’s character. He was to inaugurate an international trade fair in Toronto, and his speech was punctuated with allusions to his royal connection. ‘My cousin the king’, ‘my cousin the queen’s consort’, ‘my uncle the duke of someplace or the other’, etcetera, etcetera. I remember very little of what else he said.
Was there anything of substance to this man? I am not sure.
MADHAV SADASHIV GOLWALKAR
(1906–1973)
As I think on the communal beast that threatens India today, I realize that part of the Sangh Parivar’s success over the years can be attributed to the charm and charisma of many of its leaders. They were men of polite manners, obvious sophistication and intelligence who cloaked their fascist ideas in sweet reasonableness, with impeccable etiquette.
I met Madhavrao Sadasivrao Golwalkar, the then head of the RSS, around forty years ago. Guru Golwalkar had long been at the top of my hate list because I could not forget the RSS’s role in communal riots and the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi, and its attempt to change India from a secular state to a Hindu rashtra. There were passages in his 1939 tract, We, or Our Nationhood Defined , that seemed to suggest that Golwalkar shared Hitler’s ideas about racial purity and approved of his methods to purge Germany of Jews. I could thus not resist the chance of meeting him in November 1972 and interviewed him for The Illustrated Weekly .
I expected to run into a cordon of uniformed swayam sevaks. There were none. Not even plainclothes CIDs to take down the number of my car. I arrived at what looked like a middle-class apartment. It seemed as though there was a puja going on inside—there were rows of sandals outside, the fragrance of agarbatti, the bustle of women behind the scenes, the tinkle of utensils and crockery. I stepped inside.
It was a small room. In it sat a dozen men in spotless white kurtas and dhotis—all looking newly washed as only Maharashtrian Brahmins can manage. And there was Guru Golwalkar—a frail man in his mid-sixties, black hair curling to his shoulders, a moustache covering his mouth, a wispy grey beard dangling down his chin. He wore an inerasable smile and dark eyes twinkled through his bifocals. He looked like an Indian Ho Chi Minh. For a man who had only recently undergone surgery for breast cancer, he seemed remarkably fit and cheerful. Being a guru, I had imagined that he might expect chela-like obeisance. But he did not give me the chance. As I bent to touch his feet, he grasped my hand with his bony fingers and pulled me down on the seat beside him.
‘I am very glad to meet you,’ he said. ‘I had been wanting to do so for some time.’ His Hindi was very shuddh.
‘Me too,’ I replied clumsily. ‘Ever since I read your Bunch of Letters .’
‘ Bunch of Thoughts ,’ he corrected me. He did not want to know my views on it. He took one of my hands in his and patted it. ‘So?’
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