The Gupta Empire Trilogy: Filling a Gaping Hole in Indian Historical Fiction

“The story of the Gupta emperors was indeed lost for many, centuries, even though the Gupta Age was India’s ‘first spring’. . . It was economically prosperous, politically strong, vibrant, cosmopolitan, cultured, liberal and enlightened. However, the Gupta Emperors have, unfortunately, not received the kind of interest or patronage that turned Emperor Ashoka before them and the Mughals after into an intrinsic part of our cultural consciousness.”

That is Nandini Sengupta writing in her foreword to her third book in the Gupta Empire trilogy, The Ocean’s Own. The other two are The King Within and The Poisoned Heart. All three have been published by Harper Collins.

The Ocean’s Own is the story of Samudragupta, his ascension to power after his father Chandragupta’s death, how he secures his empire and expands it to encompass the Dakshin (southern) kingdoms of Kanchi and Palakka. It is also about his turbulent and complicated relationship with Angai, the warrior princess from Kanchi.  

Though this book is the third in the series, the other two are about Samudragupta’s descendants. The King Within is about his son, Chandragupta Vikramaditya and The Poisoned Heart is about his great grandson (Chandragupta Vikramaditya’s grandson), Skandagupta. So if someone is interested in reading the trilogy and has not already read the first two, it is best to start with the third book first.

Nandini Sengupta has very deftly interwoven historical facts with a bit of fiction (and historical figures with fictional characters) to give three wonderful stories. Each story has a woman character with whom the emperor has a complicated relationship – Angai in the case of Samudragupta, Darshini, the courtesan-turned-Buddhist in the case of Chandragupta and Rohini, the half-Hun enigma in the case of Skandagupta.

Between the three books, the Gupta era and the social mores, the governance, the attire and fighting techniques are depicted wonderfully. The research is stupendous. What’s more, details are woven in so deftly into the narrative that at no point does the interest flag.   

In the preface, Nandini Sengupta lamented the lack of attention to the Gupta era. This trilogy is certain to pique interest in the Gupta dynasty and the period during which it ruled. More importantly, it also fills a gaping hole in Indian writing in English – fiction set in ancient India.

Book Review: Insightful Takeaways on Governance

 

METHOD IN THE MADNESS: Insights from my career as an insider-outsider-insider. Parameswaran Iyer. HarperCollins, 2021. Pp 245. Rs 499

When I started reading this book, India was reeling from the utter collapse of governance and administration in the wake of the second wave of the Covid pandemic. Questions were naturally being asked about bureaucratic competence as well as inflexibility, and the hoary generalist-versus-specialist debate had resurfaced. I hoped this book would give some answers. Fortunately it did.

The day after I finished it, the clip of a district magistrate physically assaulting a young man for violating the lockdown in Chhattisgarh had gone viral. That brought back memories of another district magistrate in Tripura, who was also caught on camera slapping people at a wedding for a similar offence. Obviously one started wondering about bureaucratic arrogance and whether something in the system either actively fosters it or simply fails to discourage it. Unfortunately, this book doesn’t yield any answers on this count.

But this is just an aside. It would be unfair to burden Method in the Madness with the expectations of readers revolving around incidents the author is not even remotely connected with. In any case it isn’t Parameswaran Iyer’s failing alone. From what I remember of the memoirs of other bureaucrats that I have read, no one touches upon this very real problem of high-handedness with the public. They dwell on, as does this book, their training at the Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration, being constrained by – and getting around – hidebound rules and budget constraints, navigating political undercurrents and corruption, the specialist-generalist debate. But this issue is glossed over. Maybe some future memoir will make up for this lack.

Iyer, who was in the Uttar Pradesh cadre of the IAS, became a household name because he was the face of the Swachh Bharat Mission, but he also has under his belt the success of the Swajal rural drinking water programme in the mid-nineties. And he also went back and forth between the government and the World Bank, specialising in the water and sanitation sector. So this book ends up offering wonderful insights on work cultures and problem solving approaches – not just in the government and World Bank but also in other countries he dealt with when working with the latter. It is a very readable account and Iyer peppers it with pithy management tips highlighted in boxes.

So what are the key takeaways from the book?

One, there is a case for specialisation after a point of time (Iyer feels it should be after 15 years of field experience), but specialists with a good grounding in administration/management can deliver better results. But the civil services system is not inclined to encourage specialisation. A year into the Swajal project, Iyer was offered a more attractive posting but he turned it down to his senior’s befuddlement. This was a case of him being offered something; he might well have been transferred summarily. Indeed, how can any developmental project succeed if the person helming it is to be transferred within a year? After his return from the World Bank, Iyer was posted in higher education despite his domain expertise and then to environment in less than a year. Such stories abound in the annals of civil service history.  

Related to this is the issue of lateral entry into the civil service – can domain experts with no knowledge of how the `system’ functions be effective? People like Mantosh Sondhi, Raja Ramanna, D.V. Kapur have proved they can but this may not always be the case. Iyer’s stint outside the government certainly helped him implement SBM with innovative methods, including getting young professionals to help district magistrates. But could he have, say, broken down silos without the benefit of knowing how the system works?

Two, it is important to get the political leadership on board. In 2002, Kerala was all set to launch a public-private-partnership for handwashing with soap (PPP-HWS) along with Unilever. But the state government scrapped it, despite the support of the senior bureaucracy, as it was seen as a “World Bank/capitalist (multinational soap company) ploy to undermine the socialist traditions of the state”. Years later, while helming SBM, Iyer met Akhilesh Yadav, then Uttar Pradesh chief minister, who promised all help to get two districts open defecation free. Nothing happened for months. Things changed, he writes, when Yogi Adityanath became chief minister.

And then there are chief ministers like    Mayawati who do not let political considerations override good economics and administrative practices. In the mid-nineties, Mayawati overruled opposition from her entire cabinet to a proposal to get rural communities to share the capital cost of the Swajal scheme. Women have to bear the burden of fetching water and a small contribution by the community to get piped water to villages is perfectly alright, she said. No wonder Iyer observes “political leadership is a golden ticket to implementing big ideas”.

An interesting tidbit: when touring China during his World Bank days, Iyer found that water was not supplied free; water utility managers had to collect a minimum percentage of the dues and even poorer households were willing to pay.

Three, any successful development programme requires community involvement. Iyer demonstrates this in the context of the Total Literacy Campaign during his years as district magistrate, Swajal as well as SBM. In the case of Swajal, community involvement reduced the project scheme cycle from 27 months to 18 months.

Four, the lack of enthusiasm among district level officials for a particular development programme is not always due to their apathy. In many cases, it is because of the sheer number of schemes they have to implement along with other responsibilities; they find it difficult to focus on any one.   

Iyer has edited a volume on the Swachh Bharat revolution, but the account in Method in the Madness is more suitable for the lay reader. It is a fascinating telling of the two daunting challenges of scale and speed, overcoming resistance within the bureaucracy, deciding between the carrot or stick approaches, involving the community, breaking social taboos, using whatever leverage was available, dealing with negative commentary in the media and much more.

This is a good read for anyone interested in how the government works and how it can work.

Book Review/A Much Needed Compilation of Dalit Icons

MAKERS OF MODERN DALIT HISTORY by Sudarshan Ramabadran and Guru Prakash Paswan; Penguin, 2021. Pp 172; Rs. 399 

To anyone who is not a Dalit, any discussion on Dalit icons instantly brings to mind the names of B.R. Ambedkar and then social reformers like Jyotiba and Savitribai Phule as well as politicians like Babu Jagjivan Ram, Kanshi Ram and Mayawati. Names like Sant Janabai and Soyarabai (key figures in the Bhakti movement), Dakshayani Velayudhan (the first Dalit woman graduate), Kerala folk musician Ayyankali and Telugu poet Gurram Jashuva would be mostly unheard of – except perhaps in the regions/states they hailed from, and even then, it is quite possible that their caste may not be known.  For example, everyone familiar with the freedom struggle would know that Udham Singh killed Sir Michael O’Dwyer; hardly anyone would know he was a Dalit.

Makers of Modern Dalit History attempts to address this lack, profiling eighteen personalities who are believed to have shaped Dalit history and consciousness. Regretting that many of these personalities “have been redacted from mainstream historical and intellectual discourse”, the authors say the book attempts to “enable them to be a source of inspiration to the Dalit community” (though they also say the book is not just for a Dalit readership). This is, no doubt, an important task – any community which has suffered oppression for centuries (and continues to face discrimination and humiliation) needs more than one or two iconic figures to look up to.

The profiles of the lesser known personalities are eye openers. Nandanar, one learns, was the only Dalit Nayanar (the sixty-three Saivite saints from Tamil Nadu). Janabai, a maidservant of Sant Namdev, earned the title of Sant. Dakshayani Velayudhan was not only the first Dalit woman graduate but was also a member of the Constituent Assembly.   

And yet one finishes the book with a sense of discontentment, as the chapters fail to flesh out the individual personalities or highlight pivotal incidents in their lives.

Take the example of Dakshayani, who was from the Pulaya community in Kerala which was forbidden to walk on public roads and whose women were not allowed to cover the upper part of their bodies – at the most, they could use beads. The fact that she was the first girl from the community to cover her upper body with cloth is buried in the chapter! What gave Dakshayani the courage to do what she did, what was the reaction to her very inspiring act of defiance? One doesn’t know. Apparently the name Dakshayani (which means Durga) was never used by the depressed classes told. Who chose the name? What role did her parents play in her evolution into a strong woman?

Of the six pages on Rani Jhalkaribai, two are about how Indian academia has been unfair to historical figures like her. This is a general problem, not specific to her. Kabir, we are told, was one of the few figures in history to have undertaken holistic intervention to end casteism. But one would have liked more details on how exactly. His being equally critical of Hindu and Muslim orthodoxies does not explain his approach to Dalit upliftment. This lack of elaboration on such crucial issues is a lacuna in other chapters as well and, unfortunately, stands in the way of a good book becoming a great one. For this, the publisher has to bear the larger blame. This is the kind of shaping of a book that editors should do.

Perhaps this could have been addressed if there was conceptual clarity: is the book about people who determinedly shaped Dalit consciousness or people who became icons because they overcame innumerable odds to achieve success?

One reason for this shortcoming could be, as the authors admit at one point, lack of information about these figures. Perhaps they could have spent some more time researching and writing about the lesser known figures if they had consciously decided to leave out the more well-known personalities? The life and work of Ambedkar, Savitribai Phule, Jagjivan Ram, Kanshi Ram, K.R. Narayanan have been very well documented. Fitting them into this has resulted in their achievements being summarised in nine to ten pages, which does not capture the magnitude of their achievements.

Their inclusion was perhaps necessitated by the title of the book – any compilation of modern Dalit history without these figures will be preposterous. But what if the book was about Forgotten Dalit Icons or The Other Dalit Icons? Then perhaps space could have been devoted to the other thirteen personalities, which include Ved Vyasa and Valmiki, and how they `made’ modern Dalit identity. Also, other lesser known personalities could have been included; there could have been a chapter on, say, Dalits role in the 1857 war of independence.

The conclusion chapter, which lists what the authors call ‘today’s Dalit heroes’, is quite problematic. This is not to question the credentials of those included – Milind Kamble and Kalpana Saroj of the Dalit Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (DICCI), economist and Rajya Sabha member Narendra Jadhav, educationists Bhalchandra Mungekar and Sukhdeo Thorat, to name just five. These are very worthy names.

The problem is really about exclusion. Two names come readily to my mind – that of Chandrabhan Prasad and Bezwada Wilson.

Prasad was, along with Kamble, one of the driving forces behind the setting up of DICCI; indeed Prasad has been advocating Dalit capitalism for long. He is at the forefront of shaping a Dalit narrative that is more empowering rather than the purely atrocities-led narrative that finds favour in popular discourse. Prasad and DICCI seem to have parted ways but mentioning Kamble and not Prasad makes the authors as guilty of airbrushing personalities as the academia they accuse of redacting the personalities that figure in this volume.

Wilson has been campaigning relentlessly against the practice of manual scavenging – an occupation that is still reserved for Dalits. Ideologically, he is the exact opposite of Prasad and Kamble; not for him ideas like Dalit capitalism. His criticism of right wing ideology and politics can be extremely harsh and strident. But that should not have led to his being excluded from any list of those shaping the modern Dalit narrative and situation.

These quibbles, however, do not detract from the importance of this book.  It is actually more than a compilation of profiles. The nearly forty-page introduction gives an insightful snapshot of the history of Dalit awakening, including the evolution and importance of the term Dalit. It talks about how subaltern literature has come to represent the quest for dignity. It takes readers through early Dalit literature in the nineteenth century – from Maharashtra, the erstwhile Central Provices, Bengal and Punjab, with special praise for the last. “No other language perhaps has so far had Dalit literature of such high literacy calibre.”

There are, no doubt, a number of academic works doing much the same. But those would not appeal to the lay readers – Dalit and non Dalit. This book does and that increases its value immensely. Sudarshan Rambhadran and Guru Prakash Paswan deserve to take a bow for this work; and they deserve applause.