About Life, Universe and Everything-I : "Is This world real?"

About Life, Universe and Everything-I

In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.        - Douglas Adams

The scope of this blog is pretty simple.

It’s to have a glance as to how philosophers down the ages have addressed certain questions:

• Is this world real?

• What about God? Does he exist?

• Does life have any meaning?

From Socrates to Aristotle, Descartes to Hume, Kant to Schopenhauer, Nietzsche to Santayana……….

The answer to ‘Life, Universe and Everything’ is of course ‘42’, as explained by Douglas Adams.(Read- Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy)

But of course, we are looking for a much deeper answer to the primal queries and we are not satisfied with a simple ‘42’.

If you are looker for a deeper answer, well……there is nothing much that you will find here either.

Primarily because, nobody knows much of it. Period.

As the wise Socrates (469 BC – 399 BC) said eons ago: ‘One thing only I know, and that is that I know nothing.’

So let’s start with the questions, one by one.

Is this world ‘Real’?

Turns out the answer might not be so simple after all. Philosophers down the ages have spent many a waking hour trying to answer it.

For instance Plato(424 BC – 348 BC) divided ‘Reality’ into two:

The world around us that we experience by our senses is not the true ‘Reality’, says Plato. It is just a ‘transient reality’.

Then what is the true reality?

The only ‘true Reality’ are the  ‘knowledge/ideas’ that we understand with our ‘reason’.

The world of ‘ideas’ acquired through our ‘reason’ or ‘intellect’ alone is ‘true knowledge’.

And how do we get these ‘ideas’ if they are not supplied by our sense organs? Where does this reason/intellect come from?

The immortal ‘Soul’ says Plato.

Plato believed in a soul that transcends the body.

Hence the Sense organs that are part and parcel of the body are not reliable as they are perishable. But intellect or ‘reason’ resides in the soul. Hence by ‘Reason’ you can acquire true Knowledge.

What nonsense ,said Aristotle(384 BC – 322 BC), a student of Plato. He  bunked his teacher’s idea that we are born with an innate ‘knowledge/ideas’, which has its seat in the ‘immortal’ soul’

Aristotle said that we only know what we have comprehended with our senses, and that is all that constitutes our individual consciousness.

We do have ‘innate intellect’ but we definitely do not have ‘innate ideas’

So the battle began. Reason or senses?

The cat –fights between philosophers are legendary. As the joke goes:

The First Law of Philosophy: For every philosopher, there exists an equal and opposite philosopher.
The Second Law of Philosophy: They're both wrong.

The battle lines remain drawn for about 1800 years or so.

The debate got a new lease of life when   Descartes (1596 – 1650) known as the father of modern philosophy, rekindled it with a few provocative queries.

Descartes started with the basics: He asked “What is real? ”

‘When we dream, we feel we are experiencing reality. What separates our waking feelings from our dream feelings?

‘”When I consider this carefully, I find not a single property which, with certainty separates the waking state from the dream,”

So  “How can I be certain that my whole life is not a dream?”

So thinking, one thought struck him: It was that he doubted.

When he doubted, he had to be thinking, and because he was thinking, it had to be certain that he was a thinking being.

And thus he arrived at the grand conclusion: 

Cogito, ergo sum-I think , therefore I am.

There’s an old joke of Descartes of how he vanishes in a poof of logic:

Descartes walks into a restaurant and sits down for dinner. 
The waiter comes over and asks if he'd like an appetizer.                                                                                                      

"No thank you" says Descartes, "I'd just like to order dinner"

"Would you like to hear our daily specials?" asks the waiter

"No" says Descartes, getting impatient

"Would you like a drink before dinner?" the waiter asks

Descartes is insulted, since he's a tee-totaler

"I think not!" he says indignantly, and POOF! he disappeared.

For Plato it was ‘reason’ that was important, whereas Aristotle  relied more on his ‘senses’.

Descartes took a cue from Plato’s book – he relied not on his senses, but solely on his ‘reason’.

So Descartes was certain that he was ‘real’.

But what about the world as we see it?

Descartes thought the external world might be a fantasy. At least he was certain that the thinking ‘I’ was more real than the external world.

But there were certain characteristics which one could  perceive with our reason. These are mathematical properties, such as length, breadth and depth. These ‘Quantitative’ properties must be real.

But there were ‘Qualitative’ properties such as smell, color, taste etc that are linked to our sense perception and hence might not actually describe the true reality.

Thus there are two forms of reality.

One ‘reality’ is ‘thought’, and the other is the 'world', which he called ‘extended reality’ or ‘matter’.

The ‘true reality’ of the world is colored by our sense organs.

For a Bat ,the world is in ‘black and white’ only, as he does not have the sensory organs to recognize color. So trying to explain to a Bat, that the world is actually full of myriad colors is an exercise in futility.

Similarly we are also limited by our sense organs from recognizing the true reality.

So Descartes essentially divided ‘reality’ into two: Mind(thought) and matter.

He was what we call a ‘Dualist’

Enter Spinoza(1632 – 1677). He  did not consider ‘Reality’ in dualistic terms.

He coined two terms – ‘Mode’ and ‘Substance’.

The ‘Mode’ of Spinoza combined both ‘mind’ and ‘matter’ of Descartes.

Thus a ‘Mode’ was any  shape, form or even ‘thought’ that ‘true reality’  transiently assumes: you, your body, your thoughts, your planet etc.

And what is the ‘True Reality’?

It is ‘Substance’.

‘Substance’ is the ultimate reality. It is the very structure of existence, underlying all events and things, it constitutes the essence of the world.

And  ‘Substance’ is ‘Nature’ is ‘God’.

There is only ‘Substance’ and nothing else. Spinoza saw the world as ‘one’, hence he is considered a ‘Monist’.

How did Spinoza die? By ‘Substance’ abuse.

But Locke (1632- 1704) bunked the idea of ‘Substance’ or ‘God’. He was an empirist and he only believed what his senses revealed to him.

He said that we cannot have anything in our mind except what  we perceive first in the senses.

Before  we perceive anything, the mind is a ‘tabula rasa’ - an empty slate.

We eat an apple and by its taste and smell, we get the idea that we are eating an apple. Every knowledge that we gain can therefore be traced back to a simple sensation.

But can we rely on what our senses tell us?

In this aspect, Locke said something similar to what Descartes had said earlier. He divided ‘Reality’ as having two ‘qualities’: Primary and Secondary qualities.

Any mathematical quality such as length, weight etc can be objectively perceived, hence they are real  and  are ‘Primary Qualities’.

‘Secondary qualities’ such as color, smell, taste etc are not inherent. It is the effect of the outer quality on our senses. Hence we can only talk of their effect on our senses.

So the irrevocable conclusion that was being arrived at was that since only material things can affect our sense, we know nothing but matter, and must accept a materialistic philosophy.

If sensations are the stuff of thought, matter must be the material of mind.

The thought process tended towards materialism.

Not so fast said Berkeley(1684-1753).

Of course, Locke was right when he said that all our knowledge is derived from sensation.

Therefore all our knowledge of anything is merely our sensations of it and the ideas derived from these sensations.

So any ‘matter’ is just a bundle of perceptions.

We do not perceive things as tangible objects.

To assume that what we perceive has its own underlying substance is jumping to conclusions.

If we sense a table, by thumping on it, it is just a sensation of something hard, but you didn’t feel the actual matter in the table. In a dream also, you are hitting something hard, but there isn’t anything hard. So what’s the difference between your dream and reality?

If you had no senses, and you keep striking your thumb with a hammer, the hammer would not exist for you at all. Hence what you experience as a hammer is just a bundle of sensations, or a bundle of memories; it is a simply a condition of the mind.

All matter, then, is simply a condition of the mind. And the only reality that we know directly is mind. 

So now there was no matter ,only mind!

Overheard in 18th century England: "Did you hear that George Berkeley died? His girlfriend stopped seeing him."

But the debate did not end there for sure. Enter Hume(1711-1776).

He said, who says there is such an entity as ‘mind’? Just as we know matter by perception, so also we know ‘mind’, only by perception, only in this case the process is internal.

We do not perceive any such entity as the “mind”; we perceive merely separate ideas, memories, feelings, etc.

The mind is not a substance or an organ that has ideas; it is only an abstract name for the series of ideas; there is no observable “soul” behind the process of thought.

So there is no mind either!

Locke had said there was nothing but matter;

Which was bunked by Berkeley by proving that only ‘mind’ exists;

And along came Hume who said that no entity such as the ‘mind’ exists either!

So the joke going around was: “No matter. Never mind.”

Voltaire(1694 – 1778) did some plain talk on what he thought of philosophers.

Here are a few quotes:

 “As wise as it is possible for men to be;… he knew as much of metaphysics as hath ever been known in any age,- that is, little or nothing at all.”

“Every chief of a sect in philosophy has been a little of a quack.”

“The further I go, the more I am confirmed in the idea that systems of metaphysics are for philosophers what novels are for women.”

“Four thousand volumes of metaphysics will not teach us what the soul is.”           

It took a Kant(1724–1804) to restore some sanity to the proceedings.

Kant agreed with empiricists that knowledge comes only through our senses.

 But hold on, he said- “Not all knowledge”.

The mind of man is not just a  ‘tabula rasa’ or an empty slate as Locke supposed, nor is it, as Hume, theorized a mere abstract name for the series or group of mental states.

Mind is an active organ which functions in three stages:

First stage: It receives sensations through its sense organs;

Second stage: it further applies the sensations received  to ‘forms of perception’

Third stage: It thereafter carries out  coordination of the perceptions so developed into ‘conceptions’.

What are these ‘forms of perceptions’ that mind uses in the second stage?

Space and time, says Kant.  Any sensation that we experience will not have any meaning if it is not ascribed in ‘space’ and ‘time’.

The sensations which have been received are ‘catalogued’ in ‘space’ and ‘time’ by the mind.

Thereafter the mind forms ‘conceptions’ by following the ‘law of causality’.

The  ‘Law of causality’, states : Human mind perceives everything as  a  matter of ‘cause and effect’.

A man, when he sees a ball coming  towards him will try to see where it comes from. But a cat will run after the ball without thinking where the ball came from. That is the ‘Law of causality’, which is a primary human condition.

Kant further says ‘Space and Time’ are not concepts that exist independently. They are also conditions of the human mind.

We are conditioned to think in terms of ‘space’ and ‘time’ as also the ‘law of causality’.

So to get back to Locke’s statement that Mind is a ‘Tabula Rasa’. The answer is ‘no’, as per Kant.

Because the concepts of ‘space and time’ and the ‘law of causality’ exist in the mind even before we have any experience.

They are a priori.

So, what about the world? Is it real?

Kant says we cannot say for sure.

Of course, unlike Berkeley he did not deny that the world exists.

The world that we experience is of course what we know through our senses and thought.

What it ‘really’ is we cannot know.

We know nothing but our manner of perceiving them; through the unique manner of human mind’s proclivity to put all sensations through the rigmarole of ‘space and time’ and the ‘law of causality’.

Science is naïve - as it supposes that it is dealing with reality. But philosophy realizes that the world is just a bundle of sensations, perceptions and conceptions and true reality can never be known.

Hinduism  has also an interesting take on ‘Reality’ too.

Analogous to Spinoza’s ‘Substance’ the wise seers also talks of one ‘Super Self’ or ‘Supreme Consciousness’ which permeates the entire world -  meaning you and  me; the entire world of sentient and non-sentient beings; the universe itself and anything else you can think of.  

Hinduism says there is nothing, but the ‘Self’. The whole purpose of this existence is to comprehend the underlying reality of the ‘true self’. For this purpose Man gets reborn again and again till he is able to get rid of his attachment to this illusory world and become one with ‘Reality’.

In Advaitism, a branch of Hinduism, however, this concept of the ‘illusory world’ goes one step further.

Advaita does not stop at just conceptualizing a ‘Supreme Self ‘ which pervades everything. It says ‘Self’ is the only thing that exists. Rest everything is a ‘Maya’ or a ‘illusion’.

Meaning that everything else, apart from the ‘Self’ is ‘Unreal’.

And why do we not see this reality of the ‘Self’? It is because of our ignorance. This can be explained in the metaphor of a rope and a snake:

“Imagine entering a darkened room and you see dimly, lying in the middle of the floor, a snake ready to strike. You run away scared, and after a little while, mustering up courage, re-enter the room, now armed with a large stick and a good torch. Shining the torch on the floor, you see now that the ‘snake’ was actually a coiled piece of rope.

In the same way, because of our ignorance (=darkness), we  see what appears to be a world of discrete objects, the creation(= snake). When we bring in a torch( =gain ‘self’ knowledge) we discover that we are imposing false names and forms on what is in fact our own ‘Self’.”

This  idea of ‘Non-Duality’ of reality is essentially Adi Shankaracharya’s interpretation of the Vedas and Upanishads. There are other branches such as Shaivism which do not  consider the world to be a dream. They say that this world is ‘real’ but transient, but the ultimate Reality is of course the ‘Supreme Self’.

But  Buddha did not buy this theory of the ‘supreme self’. 

He bunked the entire idea of a ‘Supreme Self’ as a delusion.

Unlike others, Buddha was no armchair specialist. He walked the talk, and followed severe penances and followed the Yogic instructions to the letter in an attempt to achieve and understand the ‘Self’ as had been promised by the Sages.

Buddha’s experience was that the Yoga and penances laid down, gave practitioners only a brief respite from suffering.

That , according to him would be a contradiction in terms, 
since Nirvana was eternal.

He thus walked his own path and attained Nirvana. In his teachings, Buddha taught his philosophy of the ‘Four Noble truths’ and the ‘Eight fold path’, while completely rejecting the concept of an eternal, unchanging ‘Self’.

Buddha saw life as an unbroken succession of mental and physical processes which keep people in a continual state of change. (akin to what Hume said later)

A Buddhist walks up to a hotdog stand and says, make me one with everything. The Buddhist pays the vendor and asks for change. The vendor says, change comes from within.

“The infant is not the same as the adult; I am not the same today as I was yesterday. There is nothing of which I can say “this is mine,” said Buddha.

There is thus no “I” or unalterable ego.

Buddha also rejected the idea of an eternal soul.

“All that we are is the result of what we have thought. The mind is everything. What we think we become.”

Role of Sam Manekshaw in the 1971 war

Lieutenant General J F R Jacob, in his autobiography, “An Odyssey in War and Peace”, has heaped criticism on Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw, the Army Chief during 1971 war,and the then Army Commander, Eastern Command Lieutenant General J S Arora for their role during the war in which India was instrumental in creation of Bangladesh.

Lieutenant General Jacob, then Chief of Staff, Eastern Command has unabashedly claimed that he had masterminded the 1971 campaign while both the Field Marshal and General JS Arora were actually incompetent figureheads who garnered the credit.

It is not surprising that Lieutenant General Jacob's Books 'Surrender at Dacca' and his recent autobiography are widely read and regurgitated. There are absolutely no authoritative books on the Field Marshal, which scrutinize the role played by Sam in the 1971 war. So there will be speculations and slander and mud slinging and eulogizing. but no attempt at an appraisal of the military achievements of the Field Marshal.

Imagine- India's first Field Marshal, who gave us such an important victory, which gave birth to a nation - but no objective history on the legend exists in the country today. All we have are the jokes that Manekshaw cracked and how he liked to dance.

That Indians have no sense of history is an understatement.

I had chanced upon Lieutenant General Jacob in Delhi a couple of years ago in Nov 2009 and got to chat a while with him. Seeing my interest in his earlier book, 'Surrender at Dacca', he kindly consented to email me Pakistan's assessment of the 1971 war,which corroborates General Jacobs version that he was the mastermind behind the victory in Bangladesh. Given below is a copy of his email to me sent in Dec 2009:

PAKISTANI ASSESSMENTS OF OPERATIONS IN EAST PAKISTAN

There has been much disinformation put out in India about the 1971 operations. My book 'Surrender at Dacca' was published in 1997. I personally gave copies to Manekshaw and Arora. There were no rejoinders.
Am forwarding an extract from Shuja Nawaz's book CROSSED SWORDS . [ He was the brother of a former Pak Army Chief ]

" In the words of a later Pakistan National Defence College study of the war, the Indians planned and executed their offensive against East Pakistan in a text book manner. It was a classic example of thorough planning,minute coordination, and bold execution. the credit clearly goes to General Jacob's meticulous preparations in the Indian Eastern Command.
[ page 301 ]
[note the only public surrender in history]


Niazi had sent a cease fire proposal that specified a withdrawal of armed forces, para military and ethnic minorities under the UN. The government was to be handed over to the UN . No war crimes trials were to be held. There was no mention of India in his proposals. Ihe cease fire proposals were rejected outright by Bhutto. A cease fire was announced by India on 15 Dec.
Jacob was asked by Manekshaw on the morning of 16 Dec to just go and get a surrender. Jacob negotiated the surrender with Niazi on his draft instrument of surrender that he had earlier sent to Delhi but remained unconfirmed from Delhi .
it is relevant to quote from the Hamood Ur Rehman commission of inquiry questioning Lt Gen Niazi--

' Gen Niazi, when you had 26,400 troops in Dacca and the Indians only a few thousand outside and you could have fought on for at least two more weeks , the UN was in session ,[ Polish resolution-Soviet bloc ] and had you fought on even for one more day the Indians would have had to go back, why then did you accept a shameful ,unconditional ,public surrender and provide a guard of honour commanded by your ADC. '

Niazi replied ' i was compelled to do so by Gen Jacob who blackmailed me into surrendering etc etc. this he has repeated in his book ' 'Betrayal of East Pakistan '.
Suppose Jacob had failed to convert Niazi's proposed cease fire under the UN into an unconditional public surrender, the only one in history? the UN would have ordered a withdrawal and taken over the administration.
Thus India became a regional super power.

The above Pakistani excerpts hopefully put events in their proper perspective."




Recently I had happened to meet Lieutenant General Depinder Singh,who was the MA to the Field Marshal in 1971 when Sam was the Chief of Army Staff. The General has also authored a book on the Field Marshal -'Soldiering with Dignity'

The General Officer had his own take on General Jacob's version of the events. He had prepared a small write up on it and had shared it with me. Given below is the article by General Depinder reproduced verbatim:

THE 1971 WAR REVISITED

1. Lt Gen JFR Jacob has written one more book about his experiences in war and peace. Such books, written by military leaders, are to be welcomed as coming generations can read and learn from experiences contained therein. I have not read the book but a few newspapers and atleast one periodical have published reviews and I have perused these. Some of the views expressed by the author are patently unfair and I write this both to try and correct distortions and, more importantly, to reply on behalf of more eminent military leaders who have since passed on to the great beyond. I was Military Assistant to the Chief of Army Staff during the period 1969-1973 and, therefore, while junior in rank to General Jacob, had a seat where the screen was wider. Later I was to serve under General Jacob; I found him to be kind, considerate, fair and courteous, always displaying impeccable integrity and character. Therefore it is all the more mystifying to find him levelling unfair and unwarranted criticism.

2. Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw, who was Chief of the Army Staff (COAS) at the time of the 1971 war is accused of lacking strategic sense; not designating Dacca as the main objective; and being obsessively concerned that China would intervene in the war. Additionally, Lt Gen JS Aurora, who commanded Eastern Army during the 1971 war and to whom General Jacob was Chief of Staff in the rank of Major General , is accused of sycophancy; also that Sam Manekshaw did not like the Army Commander.

3. What is strategy? The Websters Dictionary defines strategy ‘as the science and art of employing the political, economic, psychological and military forces of a nation or group of nations to afford the maximum support to adopted policies in peace or war’. In laymans language strategy means the creation of a favourable environment so that the achievement of the national aim is facilitated.
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4. On 25 March 1971 when Pakistan cracked down on its eastern wing, the Prime Minister (PM), Mrs Indira Gandhi, was briefed by the COAS late in the evening in the Army Headquarters Operations Room. On completion of the briefing she asked what we could do to ameliorate the suffering of the people of East Pakistan. The COAS replied that since he had not been permitted to enroll ‘badmashes’ and army formations were widely dispersed overseeing elections, there was nothing he could do at the moment. The PM smiled, thanked him and left. Therefore the claim that, around this time, the COAS ordered the Chief of Staff of Eastern Command, bypassing the Army Commander, to commence offensive action is preposterous. What must have happened is that some cautionary orders would have been issued from Army Headquarters and memories of these may have created a mistaken impression in General Jacob’s mind writing many years after the event. In any case, if an order was issued, how could it have been refused by any soldier let alone a staff officer? In the next few days the BSF was directed to examine the possibility of creating pinpricks along the Indo-East Pakistan border to divert the attention of the Pakistan Army from the genocide they were engaged in. Therefore, the assertion that Mr Rustomji, Director, BSF at the time was planning to ‘invade’ East Pakistan is equally absurd.

5. A few days later when the full cabinet met to consider the situation, the COAS was invited to attend. With almost every minister urging immediate armed intervention, the COAS was the lone voice counselling delay citing the following reasons :-

(a) The Army was widely dispersed at the time, overseeing elections in Assam and Bengal. Units and formations would need time to move back to parent cantonments, marry up with heavy equipment, re-equip and reorganize before they were ready for war.
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(b) The modernization process of the armed forces was way behind schedule (sounds familiar!).

(c) The northern passes were fast opening up and the chances of Chinese intervention was very real.

(d) The monsoons were due shortly, flooding the rivers and countryside in East Pakistan making offensive operations time consuming and more difficult.

(e) World public opinion needed to be moulded to see India as a victim rather than the matter being seen as an internal affair of Pakistan.

(f) Existing infrastructure would permit the opening of only one axis of attack from West Bengal. Time was needed to develop infrastructure for opening more axes from Tripura and Meghalaya.

6. The PM, farsighted and visionary as she was, saw merit in the recommendations of the COAS; closed the meeting and, a day or so later, gave the COAS permission to start operations at a time of his choosing. This was an extraordinary display of strategic sense on the part of Sam Manekshaw, not to mention an incredible show of character, and a rare display of statesmanship on the part of the PM. To diagress slightly, some years later, harsh criticism emanated from another writer of military history, Maj Gen DK Palit, who felt we should have intervened in April 1971 to save lives in East Pakistan. He conviently chose to forget the consequences of starting a war without proper preparation as happened in 1962 against the Chinese. He was Director Military Operations at the time. Some people will never learn. Sam Manekshaw stood firm and had his way to create the right circumstances that eventually resulted in a great victory.


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7. Criticism is also directed over Dacca not being designated as the main objective. When operational plans were being finalised, it was quite clear that speed would be of the essence as world public opinion notwithstanding, the US and China would mount pressure in the security council to stop operations. Therefore the aim was to capture maximum territory in the shortest possible time. Designating Dacca as the main objective would have negated the prime requirement of speed not to mention that it would give Eastern Command two contradictory aims, i.e, capture Dacca and occupy maximum territory in the shortest possible time. When operations commenced on 3 December 1971, the advances were so swift with Pakistan Army defences bypassed, that it became apparent that the apprehension about Dacca being defended in strength was no longer valid. In light of this, around 9 December 1971, Dacca was designated as the objective. This change of plan in the light of developing situations, showed flexibility, another essential quality of a military leader.

8. The next item on the criticism agenda concerns, what General Jacob terms, Sam’s obsession with China intervening. While General Jacob saw the War through the narrow prism of one sector, the COAS, with many more inputs, was seeing a much wider screen. Also, radio intercepts between East and West Pakistan, with the former clamouring for assistance from the ‘Yellow’ and ‘White’ brothers and the wests reassurances that they were ‘coming’ created the justifiable concern. So, rather than terming this as an ‘obsession’ it has to be viewed as prudence, more so as the white brothers did actually venture into the Indian Ocean. In any case, during the first week of December satellite pictures provided by the USSR confirmed that there were no abnormal Chinese moves. Hence the release of two brigades from the Indo-Tibet border sought by Eastern Command was really no secret from the COAS as claimed by the Author.
 
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9. Next we come to the amazing criticism leveled against the Army Commander, Lt Gen JS Aurora. To begin with Gen Aurora was no pushover as a small incident that occurred will confirm. The COAS wanted to speak to the Army Commander one day. He was not available and so also were the other senior officers, the Chief of Staff and Brigadier General Staff. When they finally did get to talk, the COAS mentioned the absence of all three to which the reply was, ‘now you are going to teach me how to run my Army’. How do I know this? I know, because I was listening to the conversation as, those days the MA’s telephone did not get disconnected when the COAS was on the line and the MA was expected to remain on listening watch. After the ceasefire the PM wanted the COAS to take the surrender. He graciously declined stating that it was General Aurora’s victory and he would take the surrender. Does this show dislike ?

10. Remaining with Gen Aurora an incident is referred to where, as host, he poured a drink for the COAS, and Mr DP Dhar a close friend of Sam and, at the time, Chairman of the Policy Planning Division in the External Affairs Ministry. Now I ask you, is it degrading for a host to do this ? It is very much part of hospitality, especially Indian hospitality, for a host to offer a drink to a guest. General Aurora was a great military leader and he discharged the heavy responsibilities that were entrusted to him with great competence and elan.

11. I will conclude with an old saying “Victory has many parents, defeat is an orphan.” Let there be no doubt in anyones mind, the military architect of the great victory in 1971 was Sam Manekshaw.

The Russian Campaign(1941-1943)

The Storm of war -Andrew Roberts

The Russian Campaign(1941-1943)

One of the enduring mysteries of the Second World War is as to why Hitler opened a second front against Russia when Britain was as yet undefeated.

The consensus by most historians is that Hitler believed that by defeating Russia, Britain would be further isolated and further subjugation would be easier.

In addition, Hitler anticipated a quick victory over the ‘racially weak’ Russian Slavs. He did not expect the battle to last more than seven weeks.

But this decision of Hitler changed the course of war. By opening up a second front when Britain was not yet conquered was a gross miscalculation by the fuehrer.

And to compound it all Hitler declared war on the United States on 11 Dec 1941 (after Pearl harbor).

This was an unimaginably stupid thing to have done in retrospect, a suicidal act less than six months after attacking the Soviet Union. America was an uninvadable land mass of gigantic productive capacity and her intervention in 1917 – 18 had sealed Germany’s fate in World War I.

‘The entry of the United States into the war is of no consequence at all for Germany, ‘ Hitler had remarked in November 1940, ‘ the United States will not be a threat to us in decades – not in 1945 but at the earliest in 1970 or 1980. ‘
Talk of famous last words!

Hitler’s Russian campaign commenced in Jun 1941 (op barbarossa) and by Feb 1943 the campaign ended in a comprehensive and massive defeat from which the Germans never recovered. In attempting the Russian campaign, Hitler was repeating the same errors as Napoleon had over a century ago. And it was the same enemy that defeated Napoleon that proved to be the undoing of Hitler as well- The Russian Winter.

Once again the figures are staggering: 4 million German troops, stretching along the entire western border of the Soviet Union from Finland to the Black Sea.

With 3,350 tanks in twenty armoured divisions, 7,000 field guns and 3,200 aircraft, and 600,000 horses.

Against Hitler’s 180 divisions, the Red Army had 158 immediately available, along
with 6,000 combat planes and more than 10,000 tanks.

Dictator Stalin-the savior of modern democracy


After an initial hiccup, as Stalin was rather taken aback by the German onslaught, the supremo got into his element – His first command –and most sensible one in retrospect – was to mobilize every Russian male born between 1905 and 1918 – and 800,000 women . In all, five million people were called up immediately, and by December 1941 almost 200 new divisions – averaging 11,000 soldiers each – were considered ready for battle.

His second major decision - On 28 July 1941,a month into the German offensive, Stalin’s ordained a ‘Not One Step Back’ policy- that anyone who retreated without specific orders or who surrendered was to be treated as a ‘traitor to the Motherland’, and his family therefore liable to imprisonment.

Even Stalin’s own son, First Lieutenant Yakov Dzhugashvili was not excluded; his wife spent two years in a labour camp. (Yakov was shot in 1943, when he entered the perimeter zone of his POW camp, either in an escape attempt or, just as likely, as suicide-by-escape.)

The death penalty was imposed for panic – malingering, falling asleep on duty, cowardice, drunkenness, desertion, loss of equipment, refusing to charge through a minefield, destroying a Party membership card on capture ( even though carrying one meant a death sentence from the Germans), and so on and on.

Marshal Zhukov ordered retreating soviet troops to be machine-gunned, and even wanted to shoot the families of those who surrendered.

In the first six months after Operation Barbarossa, the Soviet Government moved 2,593 industrial concerns eastwards in 1.5 million railway wagons and trucks, at the same time that 2.5 million troops were being moved in the opposite direction. The operations has been described as an ‘economic Stalingrad’ in its sheer size and importance.

Industrial centers were being founded so fast that the Russians ran out of names to call them, and a town was actually entitled Bezymyanny (Nameless) in the outskirts of Moscow.

To shift a large part of Russia’s industrial base, along with food, tools, equipment and prisoners, as well as twenty five million Russians, so far eastwards, and then impose an eighteen hour working day with one day’s rest per month, probably required completely totalitarian power.

Factory production began behind the Urals even before builders had constructed the roofs and walls of the factories. Managers were given targets, and were made to appreciate that meeting them was a life and death matter, for them personally as much as for the nation. Of course conditions were often unspeakable; at one factory 8,000 female workers lived in holes bored into the ground. Every industrial concern that could be turned over to war production was turned over. A factory producing champagne bottles, for example, was appropriately enough reassigned to the production of Molotov cocktails.

Such was the efficiency and ruthlessness of the Soviet leadership- and at the heart of the Second World War lies this giant and abiding paradox: although the western war was fought in defence of civilization and democracy, and although it needed to be fought and had to be won, the chief vanquisher of the German fighting machine was a dictator who was as psychologically warped and capable of evil as Adolf Hitler himself.

During the battle of Stalingrad, the Red Army shot around 13,500 Russian soldiers – the size of an entire fully manned division – for treachery, cowardice, desertion, drunkenness and ‘anti-Soviet agitation’. The condemned men were ordered to undress before execution, so that their uniforms could be reissued ‘without too many discouraging bullet-holes’.

‘The only Extenuating cause for withdrawing from a firing position’, as the soldiers were told, ‘is death.’

Some 400,000 Russians served in the various punishment battalions that were set up to impose absolute obedience on the Red Army. Yet had the slightest backsliding been permitted, the Soviets could never have persuaded rational human beings to undergo the hell of the Great Patriotic War.

Probably only a dictatorship as savage as Stalin’s, and a people as inured to barbarism as the Russians, could have broken Hitler’s power,’ is Max Hastings’ verdict. ‘The story of how they did so has never been one for weak stomachs.’

Contrast this with Britain at the very same period - there were strikes over pay and conditions even in the aircraft production factories, something that in Russia would have been inconceivable ( although instantly resolvable).

‘Along came the Russian Winter’ - German Staff Ineptness

For all the celebrated German teutonic efficiency and General Staff foresight it is simply unfathomable as to why the German staff did not foresee the Russian winter and prepare themselves logistically for the same.

As the one thing that the German Army could have laid down with some exactitude was the certainty of a very cold winter in Russia, a matter of common sense and logistical foresight of the kind at which the High Command was supposed to excel.

The only answer is the gross miscalculation by Hitler as to duration of the campaign..he expected a brisk campaign, with the inferior Russian slavs capitulating without a fight and the battle to be over within a matter of weeks.

Hilter could have well taken a leaf out of history and learnt from the disastrous Napoleon’s Russian campaign undertaken in June 1812.

Napoleon had started his campaign with 6,00,000 men and he too expected a swift and decisive victory over the Russians and had made no plans for a winter stay in Russia.

But Czar Alexander had other plans and adopted a clever strategy: instead of facing Napoleon's forces head on, the Russians simply kept retreating every time Napoleon's forces tried to attack.

Enraged, Napoleon would follow the retreating Russians again and again, marching his army deeper into Russia. Thus the campaign dragged on much longer than Napoleon expected.

The Russians adopted a "scorched-earth" policy: whenever they retreated, they burned the places they left behind. Napoleon's army had trouble finding supplies, and it grew progressively weaker the farther it marched.

In Sep 1812 when Napoleon finally entered Moscow he found the Russians had simply abandoned the city, which was now on fire and in ruins in conformity with the scorched-earth tactics. It was only then that Napoleon, realising the futility of the campaign,ordered his army to retreat. Yet with a particularly harsh winter quickly setting in, it proved to be the cruelest foe for what was now an underfed, ragged army. Of the roughly 600,000 troops who followed Napoleon into Russia, just about 100,000 made it out.

So if it was the Czar’s cunning and the winter that proved to be the undoing for Napoleon, it was Stalin’s ruthlessness and the endless reservoir of manpower that the Russian’s possessed coupled with the Russian winter that meant the death knell for the Germans.

By Sep 1941, three months into the campaign, Hitler’s German army had occupied 6,00,000 square miles of Russian soil and decimated close to 3 million troops. But it seemed not to matter to the Russians. Divisions rose as soon as one got eliminated.

The Germans had been victorious so far, it was true, but as one German tank commander commented as they drove further and further into that enormous country: ‘If this goes on, we will win ourselves to death.’

In Jun 41, Stalin had 158 divisions. With its ruthless efficiency, the Russian state had raised 200 additional divisions by the end of 1941.

This affected Hitler’s ‘swift campaign’ idea, with defeat and capture not seeming to matter to the Russians, and then of course…Along came the Russian winter….

The Russians have a saying that there is no such thing as cold weather, only the wrong kind of clothing. The German commissariat had not transported anything like enough woolen hats, gloves, long – johns and greatcoats to Russia, and suddenly there was a desperate need for millions of such items, over and above what could be looted from the Russians and poles.

Hitler had no clue as to the grim fate he had set for his troops.

The consequences of this lack of warm clothing were often horrific. An Italian recalls watching German troops returning from the Eastern Front in Warsaw. He was puzzled as to strange appearance of some of the soldiers, who had a glazed look and zombie like movements.
He said ”Suddenly I was struck with horror and realized that they had no eyelids. The ghastly cold of that winter had the strangest consequences. Thousands and thousands of soldiers had lost their limbs; thousands and thousands had their ears, their noses, their fingers and their sexual organs ripped off by the frost. Many had lost their hair … Many had lost their eyelids. Singed by the cold, the eyelid drops off like a piece of dead skin… Their future was only lunacy.”

Churchill used the opportunity to mock Hitler by remarking caustically: ‘ There is a winter, you know, in Russia. For a good many months the temperature is apt to fall very low. There is snow, there is frost, and all that. Hitler forgot about this Russian winter. He must have been very loosely educated. We all heard about it at school; but he forgot it. I have never made such a bad mistake as that.’

In the end it was the Russian fighting man who had prevailed, defending his Motherland. The unbelievably dogged resistance shown by the ordinary Russian soldier had delivered victory.

Operation Barbarossa had indeed, as Hitler had predicted, made ‘the world hold its breath’ and it was only after the comprehensive defeat of the German forces that it could finally begin to exhale.

The 21 mile stretch of water that has changed the course of history (Part II)

The Storm of War -Andrew Roberts
The 21 mile stretch of water that has changed the course of history (Part II)

The British, most definitely in moments of candor, will easily admit that it was the English channel that allowed them with splendid isolation, and permitted them to move to all corners of the globe and build their ‘empire where the sun never set’.

When the home front is secured by a geographical accident, and has stood in wake of rampaging armies, time and again of Philip II, Louis XIV, Napoleon, Kaiser and finally Hitler, then you can go ahead and carry out the business of subduing the world.

On May 10 ,1940, when Hitler unleashed his blitzkrieg, huge swathes of Europe fell into German hands combined with the collapse of the French, Dutch, Belgian and Luxembourg armies. Then inexplicably on 24 may, when Kleist’s army was just 18 km short of Dunkirk, came the order by Hitler to halt all advance. This pause in operations enabled the British to evacuate close to half a million troops to their mainland.

This was the turning point of the war. Why Hitler did not allow his Panzers to take on Dunkirk and thereby almost 3/4 th of the British army is still a mystery.

The evacuation at Dunkirk to safety across the English channel is counted amongst the most successful logistical feats in modern history what with the German army and the Luftwaffe breathing down the neck, strafing and bombarding the port at regular intervals.

The serpentine queues that formed up to get into the boats that would get the troops across the channel were not always orderly. In an incident, a soldier unable to take the pressure, broke ranks and made a dash to the gangway. Without a moment’s hesitation, the lieutenant in charge took out his revolver and shot the man through his heart, who lay motionless in the jetty. The young officer then turned to the men and told them calmly that he only wanted fighting men with him. The effect was electric and undoubtedly prevented a stampede by other troops awaiting evacuation.

By 04 june,1940, once the evacuation ended, when the entire world trembled under the might of Hitler and only Britain stood before Germany and the rest of the world, (America had not yet joined the war) Churchill produced his most sublime passage in all his magnificent wartime oratory:

“we shall not flag or fail, we shall go on to the end….. we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.”

The above passage itself is well known but what is not generally known is Churchill’s comments after he sat down to thundering applause in the House Of Commons. He whispered to his colleague : “ I don’t know what we will fight them with- we shall have to slosh them on the head with bottles-empty ones of course.”

Churchill of course understood the power of oratory. But he also knew its limitations- oratory was for the masses, they do not win wars. You need to get down to brass tacks, get involved in the minutiae of war-making.

Churchill constantly got into the details of conducting the war business. He buggered his staff peppering them with questions like:-

Why has he not received a report on how to counter the 4½-pound projectiles that German tanks could fire?

Would there be brass bands playing when the troops returned home?

Were the men getting their post on time?

Will the troops ‘will get decent cooked bread and meat.’?

Britain, and indeed the world, got the right man at the right time at the right place to see them through the war.

National Character In Trying Times

It is interesting to see how nations fared under duress, when the world trembled under Hitler. We are often critical of our own Maharajas & their cronies who collaborated with foreign forces , subjecting our nation to repeated invasions and reducing us to the status of a ‘colony’.

Turns out that the war record is not very clean for some of the European nations when they were faced with tough choices.

France

The speed with which France collapsed in May–Jun 1940 was a large surprise to everyone – including Hitler. But the state of France needs to be understood prior to the commencement of the war. In the first world war, of the 8 million men mobilised for the war, nearly 5 million causalities occurred. And that meant that “ Patriotism…… had lost much of it magic”, when faced with the brutal attrition of war. In 1939-40, Fascists & communists were trying to take control of France and secretly many upper and middle class French preferred the Nazis to the communists.

There was no other occupied country during the second world war which contributed more to the initial efficiency of Nazi rule in Europe than France. ‘Vichy Frances’ or occupied France under Nazi control, collaborated actively with the Nazis and millions and millions of French made their private accommodation with the occupying Force. The Vichy Government interned 70,000 suspected ‘enemies of the state’ (mainly refugees from the Nazis), dismissed 35,000 civil servants on political grounds and put 135,000 French on trial.

The German soldiers made good their station in France, by courting and charming the French women and as a consequence almost 2,00,000 babies were born. This surely must represent a tiny fraction of the sex that took place without such visible issue, considering the humiliation undergone by the mothers in many communities.

The Vichy Govt was ruthless in transporting scores of Jews to concentration camps of Auschwitz. Also there were no fewer than fourteen military engagements between the allied and vichy France during the war.



Switzerland

There were other countries who by maintaining neutrality tried to preserve their freedom. Chief among them being Switzerland and Sweden.

Churchill summed up the neutral’s position : ‘Each one hopes that if he feeds the crocodile enough, the crocodile will eat him last.’

Switzerland declared neutrality, but allowed German and Italian military supply trains to pass through their country. A Swiss state subsidized company also built a concentration camp (at Dachan) for the Germans where Jews were butchered.

It was inexplicable as to why the Swiss refused to accept Jewish refugees into their country, who were fleeing Nazi/Vichy France oppression. Scores of Jews were stranded at the borders by the refusal and some of them who gathered at the Swiss borders, committed suicide in front of the border guards, but to no avail.

Annihilation of Germany – for the Good of Mankind (Part 1)

The Storm of War – Andrew Roberts(2009)
Annihilation of Germany – for the Good of Mankind (Part 1)

The book is about the Second World War.

It is an amazing book, as the author has been able to cover the entire canvas of the war in his concise 700 page book. Roberts does not accept any dogma or hearsay. All facts are checked and sources confirmed and only balanced opinions expressed.

But you know what they say – the book is after all the ‘victors’ version. What would history read like if Hitler or the Japanese had subdued the allies? Its difficult to say- but it is not too far fetched to believe that in all possibility, before the turn of the 20th century we would have had the mother of all wars –‘the Third World War’ with nuclear pyrotechnics thrown in for our entertainment.

Amongst the multitude of figures churned out by the author, the one figure that stuck my mind was this- a staggering 50 million people perished in the war.

27 million Russians alone died in the conflict – more than the population of present day Australia.

The first world war saw a mere trifling 16 million deaths in comparison.

For the good of mankind- annihilation of Germany

The root cause of the war was not Hitler alone as one has been brought up to believe – but the state of the German nation since the mid 19th century.

Germany/Prussia had unleashed no fewer than five wars of aggression since 1864.

Under Bismarck’s policy of ‘Blood and Iron’, first it was Denmark(1864) then Austria(1866) and finally the humiliating loss of France of its territories Alsace and Lorraine(1871).

Kaiser Wilhelm goaded the Military commanders and the aristocracy into the Great War in 1914, followed by Hitler –the prime architect of the Second World War.

Why did Germany produce so many war mongerers?

Post the Franco-Prussian war of 1871, the Germans came to believe themselves to be a “Civilization superior to all other civilizations; and hence it was the duty of Germany to civilize and Germanize the world”

"God has called us to civilize the world," declared Kaiser William "we are the missionaries of human progress."

So for people believing themselves to be superior beings, they found it hard to digest the fact that they did not possess colonies like France and Great Britain.

Systematically they began preparing for war. Post 1871, the German schools mutilated facts of history and taught their children that :-

France was a nation of weaklings;

Russia a nation of slaves;

England, a nation of tradesmen, where war was not glorified, a "colossus with feet of clay," whose world empire would crumble before the German might.

America, peace-loving, idealistic, defenseless America, was to be taught her proper and subordinate place in a world ruled by German power.

The powerful military leaders, aided by the German press, preached the doctrine that war is a necessity, "an ordinance of God for the weeding out of weak and incompetent individuals and States."

In 1918 even after the surrender of Germany in the First World War, the German Army (at the lower level) and the German people strongly believed that the surrender was a sellout by the Kaiser and the German nation was not defeated.

This aspect was carefully cultivated by Hitler to cultivate the myth of the supremacy of the German race. The roots of militarism had not been weeded out and the German people thirsted for a war to avenge their humiliation in 1918. Hitler understood this and he nurtured and stoked this thirst.

The only way to have a lasting peace would be a total, comprehensive and humiliating defeat to be inflicted on Germany.

And that is exactly what happened when the end came for Germany. They had their backs to the wall with both the allied and the Russian forces at their doorsteps when Hitler committed suicide. Almost all German towns were pulverized in air raids and a million civilians perished. After six long years the people who carved for the war were saying ‘enough is enough’.

The hunger for power and war had been extricated from the roots and the defeat was total in all respects. And that is the reason we see the Germany of today – a pacifist, democratic and peaceful Germany- who are saying no to bombing Libya and other adventures undertaken by US & co.

If you have seen the movie ‘Valkryie’ starring Tom Cruise, then you would have been amongst those who bemoaned as to how Hitler escaped the assassination attempt by Strauffenberg (portrayed by Tom Cruise) in 1944 and how peace would have reigned if Hitler had been assassinated.

Actually, in retrospect, it was good fortune that Hitler survived the assassination attempt in 1944 by Col Von Strauffenberg. If Hitler had not survived the attempt and a negotiated peace reached with Germany, the myth that the German nation was not defeated but been sold out by a clique of Aristocrats, Capitalists, Jews, defeatists etc would have been propagated as had happened at the end of the first world war. It would have laid the foundation for a third world war, which would have finished all of mankind.

In any case Strauffenberg was hardly the ‘ideal democrat’ or the ‘bravest of the best’ as Churchill believed. Far from it – he despised the lie that ‘all men are equal’ ,believed the polish to be ‘an unbelievable rabble of Jews and Mongrels’. He even got married carrying his steel helmet. He would have been an ideal replacement for Hitler and we would not have noticed the difference.

Its times like this ,when you read history, when you actually start believing that maybe ‘God does not move in mysterious ways’ and everything is a part of a grand design revealed only in retrospect.

Read history and not religious books, I say , and maybe you will have a more healthy opinion on the existence of the almighty.

The storm of war

The Storm of War – Andrew Roberts(2009)
Annihilation of Germany – for the Good of Mankind (Part 1)

The book is about the Second World War.

It is an amazing book, as the author has been able to cover the entire canvas of the war in his concise 700 page book. Roberts does not accept any dogma or hearsay. All facts are checked and sources confirmed and only balanced opinions expressed.

But you know what they say – the book is after all the ‘victors’ version. What would history read like if Hitler or the Japanese had subdued the allies? Its difficult to say- but it is not too far fetched to believe that in all possibility, before the turn of the 20th century we would have had the mother of all wars –‘the Third World War’ with nuclear pyrotechnics thrown in for our entertainment.

Amongst the multitude of figures churned out by the author, the one figure that stuck my mind was this- a staggering 50 million people perished in the war.

27 million Russians alone died in the conflict – more than the population of present day Australia.

The first world war saw a mere trifling 16 million deaths in comparison.

For the good of mankind- annihilation of Germany

The root cause of the war was not Hitler alone as one has been brought up to believe – but the state of the German nation since the mid 19th century.

Germany/Prussia had unleashed no fewer than five wars of aggression since 1864.

Under Bismarck’s policy of ‘Blood and Iron’, first it was Denmark(1864) then Austria(1866) and finally the humiliating loss of France of its territories Alsace and Lorraine(1871).

Kaiser Wilhelm goaded the Military commanders and the aristocracy into the Great War in 1914, followed by Hitler –the prime architect of the Second World War.

Why did Germany produce so many war mongerers?

Post the Franco-Prussian war of 1871, the Germans came to believe themselves to be a “Civilization superior to all other civilizations; and hence it was the duty of Germany to civilize and Germanize the world”

"God has called us to civilize the world," declared Kaiser William "we are the missionaries of human progress."

So for people believing themselves to be superior beings, they found it hard to digest the fact that they did not possess colonies like France and Great Britain.

Systematically they began preparing for war. Post 1871, the German schools mutilated facts of history and taught their children that :-

France was a nation of weaklings;

Russia a nation of slaves;

England, a nation of tradesmen, where war was not glorified, a "colossus with feet of clay," whose world empire would crumble before the German might.

America, peace-loving, idealistic, defenseless America, was to be taught her proper and subordinate place in a world ruled by German power.

The powerful military leaders, aided by the German press, preached the doctrine that war is a necessity, "an ordinance of God for the weeding out of weak and incompetent individuals and States."

In 1918 even after the surrender of Germany in the First World War, the German Army (at the lower level) and the German people strongly believed that the surrender was a sellout by the Kaiser and the German nation was not defeated.

This aspect was carefully cultivated by Hitler to cultivate the myth of the supremacy of the German race. The roots of militarism had not been weeded out and the German people thirsted for a war to avenge their humiliation in 1918. Hitler understood this and he nurtured and stoked this thirst.
The only way to have a lasting peace would be a total, comprehensive and humiliating defeat to be inflicted on Germany.
And that is exactly what happened when the end came for Germany. They had their backs to the wall with both the allied and the Russian forces at their doorsteps when Hitler committed suicide. Almost all German towns were pulverized in air raids and a million civilians perished. After six long years the people who carved for the war were saying ‘enough is enough’.
The hunger for power and war had been extricated from the roots and the defeat was total in all respects. And that is the reason we see the Germany of today – a pacifist, democratic and peaceful Germany- who are saying no to bombing Libya and other adventures undertaken by US & co.
If you have seen the movie ‘Valkryie’ starring Tom Cruise, then you would have been amongst those who bemoaned as to how Hitler escaped the assassination attempt by Strauffenberg (portrayed by Tom Cruise) in 1944.
Actually, in retrospect, it was good fortune that Hitler survived the assassination attempt in 1944 by Col Von Strauffenberg. If Hitler had not survived the attempt and a negotiated peace reached with Germany, the myth that the German nation was not defeated but been sold out by a clique of Aristocrats, Capitalists, Jews, defeatists etc would have been propagated as had happened at the end of the first world war. It would have laid the foundation for a third world war, which would have finished all of mankind.
In any case Strauffenberg was hardly the ‘ideal democrat’ or the ‘bravest of the best’ as Churchill believed. Far from it – he despised the lie that ‘all men are equal’ ,believed the polish to be ‘an unbelievable rabble of Jews and Mongrels’. He even got married carrying his steel helmet. He would have been an ideal replacement for Hitler and we would not have noticed the difference.
Its times like this ,when you read history, is when you actually start believing that maybe ‘God does not move in mysterious ways’ and everything is a part of a grand design revealed only in retrospect.
Read history and not religious books, I say , and maybe you will have a more healthy opinion on the existence of the almighty.

Arthur Freeman- Gandhi and Churchill

A book of Epic proportions.

Arthur Freeman’s book on ‘Gandhi and Churchill’ seeks to unravel two mighty colossus’s of a bygone era. Churchill’ persona has been unraveled to a great extent, but Gandhi still remains an enigma to me, inspite of 600 plus pages on him.

Churchill’s personality appeared to be a rather uncomplicated one.

A die-hard imperialist ,he believed in the ‘White Man’s Burden’ and the racial superiority of the Anglo-Saxons, and was totally unapologetic about it. If he had his way India would have still been part of the ‘empire where the sun never set’.

But we can thank the World Wars, Hitler, Pressure from USA and of course Gandhi for our freedom.

Gandhi’s contribution to the freedom struggle, I believe is essentially two-fold.

Firstly, his genius in evolving the concept of ‘satyagraha’ or ‘truth force’ for which the colonial masters appeared to be clueless to deal with.
How do you deal with ‘Non-violence’ if you have been brought up to believe in the British sense of fair play and justice?

Secondly, his instinctive belief that ‘if enough Indians stood up and said ‘Go home, white man’ then the public opinion in Britain will sway in favour of granting India Independence.

And that’s what happened, and Churchill could only stand and watch his empire disintegrate.

The ‘information Warfare’ unleashed by Gandhi in driving the message home that ‘India is for Indians’ was in the form of spectacular mass movements like ‘the Non cooperation Movement’ of the 1920’s,the Salt Satyagraha of the 1930’s and the Quit India movement of 1942.

Yet, all these movements failed spectacularly to achieve their objectives, as brought out in the book . The non cooperation movement whittled out due to lack of public support after a while, the salt tax was never scrapped, Dandi march notwithstanding and Quit India movement only sizzled to deceive.

But Gandhi had achieved his objectives. He got India united (Hindu’s, Sikhs, Muslims and most importantly the Untouchables) to speak in unison and the message was driven home to the Empire that the time had come for them to pack their bags.

Of course its always debatable and a ‘what if’ whether Gandhi would have succeeded ‘if’ Britain had not been visibly weakened by the Wars and ‘if’ our colonial masters had been Germans or Japanese.

But that’s unfair. Given an enemy ‘X’ (Britishers) -Gandhi’s formula worked. Period.
Whether it would have worked against ‘Y’ -we can keep debating till cow’s come home.

But what has been mentioned above is the popular image of Gandhi……

There’s definitely more to him….and that’s why he remains an enigma to me. Sample a few cases as brought out in the book.

Gandhi’s take on Indians , Blacks and Anglo Saxons.

In South Africa Gandhi fought hard to get the Indian elites the same status as whites. He reminded his masters that ‘ Anglo Saxons and the Indians sprung from the same superior stock i.e ‘the Aryans’ and hence were entitled to same status as the ‘whites’ unlike the Indian laborers(mostly Tamilians) and Native Blacks. (the 'superior stock' opinion was echoed by Hitler later on)

His ‘Green Pamphlet’(1896) talks of the woes faced by the Indian elite in south Africa; how they were forced to use to use the same lavatories and entrances to buildings as the Blacks.

In ‘Indian Opinion’ Gandhi wrote ‘if there is one thing that Indians cherish it is the purity of the races.’ Blacks and Indians should not be forced to live in the same Johannesburg suburbs as ‘it would be unfair to the Indian population’.

In repeated interviews given to ‘London times’ and other press, Gandhi appealed that Indians be not treated as a barbarous race, as they were an ancient civilization.

So what does one make of that?

Hind Swaraj(1909)

Gandhi’s only political & moral treatise- ‘Hind Swaraj’ –crystallizes his beliefs.

The way forward for India ,Gandhi believed was to go back to the roots ,to ancient India,with its idyllic villages and Rishis and Fakirs. We did not invent machines ,not because we did not know how to ,but because our forefathers realized that if we set our hearts to such things then we will lose our moral fibre and become slaves to these machines.

Indians, as per Gandhi, needed to reject all modern influences to move forward. This included rejecting modern medicine, avoiding schools, closing textile factories and wearing only hand spun clothes made at home and avoiding railways.

In addn, as proponent of non Violence, During the period when Hitler was carrying out his pogroms against Jews, his message to the Jews was ‘to pray for Hitler’.

Gandhi remains an enigma to me. But if we discount the written/spoken word of Gandhi and just see his political achievements then he appears as a genuine master political strategist.

The book is however a great and inspiring read. The travails that Gandhi and Churchill had gone through would have broken an ordinary man. Its their firm belief in their ideals that stood them apart and changed the course of world history.