Thoongathe Thambi Thoongathe: Thulasi Aiya Vandayar’s tease

During our first encounter, Thulasi Aiya Vandayar (whose family founded the Poondi Pushpam college) asked me about my most memorable college experience.  I told him I had always slept in the first morning period throughout my four years in Poondi College. In the mornings, before going to college, I had to work in the agricultural fields and cut and collect grass for the cattle. After this, I had to walk to the college four kilometers against the sun towards the east, along the river from the village to the college campus. It was not a leisurely walk. I had to run most of the times since there was very little time between the end of the work and the first class in the college. As soon as I sat and settled in the class room, the cool air from the ceiling fan would make me fall asleep. I had developed a special sleeping technique pretending as though I was deeply absorbed in the lectures. My sympathetic friends understood my problem and were kind enough to share their notes after the class.  They applauded me for my audacity to sleep even in the physics class of Prof MS Govindaswamy, who was the principal of the college at that time. My friends were obviously nervous when the Principal himself came to give lectures. Sure, I was also nervous but that was not enough to stop my tired eyes from closing. 

I could not sleep during the class of a soft-spoken and timid Tamil lecturer. The backbenchers would create ruckus and constant disturbance through pranks and noise during the class. So I had no option but to listen to the Tamil lectures. My classmates teased me saying that  I was the only one who took these Tamil classes so seriously. This endeared me to the lecturer who used to call me to meet him after the lectures to inspire me with poems and literary reflections. He instilled in me a passion for Tamil literature so much so that I had occasional dreams of becoming a Tamil poet. 

There was another class in which I had to stay awake. It was during the class of a Chemistry lecturer. When I got first mark in one of the exams, he became curious and asked me about my background. He noted my  inferiority complex and insecurity in front of the Thanjavur students who were well dressed and spoke fluent English. He started calling me as “ Mr First Mark” loudly in every class after that. Obviously, I never slept in his class thereafter.  He also took personal interest and pushed me to go in for post graduation and guided me to get admission. 

Thulasi Aiya Vanadayar ( called affectionately and respectfully as Aiya) could not contain his laugh at my sleep stories and started singing the the famous film song.. தூங்காதே தம்பி தூங்காதே ( do not sleep, brother, do not sleep)... He complimented me for becoming an exception to the line "உயர்பள்ளியில் தூங்கியவன் கல்வி இழந்தான்” (one who slept in the school lost his education). In all our subsequent meetings, he would always tease me with that song.

I compensated for the loss of learning in the first period with extra work during my return walk home from the college. I would walk very very slowly and  review the lecture notes thoroughly. I would stop at many places and sometimes sit down under the trees along the riverside with my eyes devouring the notes and books. By the time I reached home I had alreay mastered what was taught in the classes each day. I needed to do this because of another challenge. I had studied in Tamil medium in the school. So I had to cope with the English medium in the college. I had to work doubly hard to understand English before understanding the subject. 

My first encounter with Aiya was in the sports day celebrations ceremony  at the village school in Raramuthiraikottai in 1994. I had come on home leave from my posting in New York. The school had invited me to the prize distribution ceremony in which Aiya was the chief guest. The head master introduced me to Aiya as the village lad who made it to New York as an officer of the Indian Foreign Service. Aiya was impressed and asked where did I do my college studies. I told him it was in his own Poondi college. He was excited and started asking more details of my journey from Raramuthiraikottai to New York. I told him the journey to diplomacy started with the 4 km walk to the college from my village. 
When I finished SSLC in Mariammankovil high school, my illiterate uncle (who had adopted me since he had no kids) told me that eleven years of schooling was more than enough. He wanted me to stop further education and start working the land and looking after the cattle. He said he could not afford to pay for college education, in any case. I told him that Poondi College was just walking distance from the village, the same distance as the Mariammankovil school. I assured him that I would work during weekends and before and after the college hours in the morning and evening. As for funds, I told him I would get scholarship (to which I was entitled with my high SSLC marks) which would be more than enough to pay the tuition fees. He accepted the deal and let me go to the Poondi college. 

After the first meeting, I had met Aiya several times during my home leave from foreign postings. I visited him in his houses in Poondi and Chennai as well as in his parliamentary residence in New Delhi. He wanted me to share my story with the Poondi college students. He was in the front row of the audience during my two lectures in the college. 

Aiya took interest in India’s foreign policy and global affairs. He had acute intellectual hunger and thirst for knowledge . He was surprised when I told him that Pakistan was one of my most exciting and enjoyable postings professionally and personally. I had to get over my inherited Indian prejudice about Pakistan and make friends with Pakistanis and deal with their country to advance the diplomatic interests of India. Later, he was more suprised when I told him about my Latin America specialization. He admitted that he himself did not know the region well. He asked me how I got interested in the distant and lesser known Latin America. I told him that it was inspired by my literary journey from Malgudi to Macondo.  In the novels of R K Narayan, Malgudi is the fictional small town inhabited by typical traditional Indian folk known for simplicity, austerity and spiritualism. On the other hand, Macondo, the fictional town in the novels of the Colombian writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez, is filled with Magical Realism. I fell in love with this genre of Latin American Literature. After the novels, I started to read and understand Latin American politics, history and economies. But the region was mired in military dictatorships and economic crises in the last century. This was the reason for India not taking the region seriously. But Latin America had undergone a paradigmatic transformation in the twenty first century with democratic stability and economic prosperity. This had opened business opportunities and political partnership for India. Among the Indian diplomats, I had taken the initiative and lead to promote relations with Latin America with lectures, books, articles and through social media. I continue to do this even after my retirement in 2012.

Aiya believed in simple living and high thinking. He was a Gandhian in his personal life, eschewing luxury and embracing simplicity, although he had so much wealth.  He was an avid reader. We used to exchange reviews of the books we had read.  While he wrote books and pamphlets on education, social issues, personality development and spiritual upliftment, my writings were focussed on Latin America. He was a powerful speaker in conversations and in front of the mike. His articulation of ideas flowed from his creative mind and kind heart. During our meetings, I had seen him offering help, advice and financial assistance to underprivileged students and others generously and readily. He wanted to maintain the college fees low and affordable to the students from the poor rural families.

I guess Aiya was the one who dedicated the most time  and energy to continuous improvement and expansion of  the college. He used to tell me about his commitment and vision to making Poondi college as a premier institution.  During the time of his management, he ensured the introduction of new courses, opening of the college to women and building of impressive infrastructure and facilities. Thousands of boys and girls from the rural areas  of Thanjavur have benefitted from Aiya’s work and vision. The village boys and girls going to Poondi college these days are luckier than me. Since the college provides transport, they do not have to walk, get tired and fall asleep in the first period.

The Tamils: a portrait of a community - book by Nirmala Lakshman

This book, published in January 2025, brings out the fundamental fact that Tamil is more than just a language. It is part of the identity and pride. The ancient Sangam poetry, Thirukkural and poems of Avvaiyar and Bharathiyar have constantly reinforced this distinct and unique linguistic pride. This is the reason why all the official and cultural programmes in Tamilnadu always start with the singing of Thamiz Thai Vazhthu (invocation of Mother Tamil).

The book starts with the unique way of description of different parts of Tamilnadu named after flowers indigenous to each region: the kurinchi, a rare mountain bloom; mullai, the fragrant jasmine flourishing in the forests; the blue water lily of neytal, representative of the seashore; the desert flower of palai, emblematic of the arid lands; and marudam, also known as the queen’s flower, of the lowlands. Beyond representing physical attributes, these descriptions encapsulated themes of life and death, as well as the continual flow of generations. This landscape, etched into collective memory and interwoven with life, is luminously reflected in Sangam poetry—compositions that are over 2,500 years old, yet hold relevance today.

There is a comprehensive overview of the Tamils covering history, literature, politics, films, temples, Carnatic music, Bharatanatyam, art, culture, jallikattu, Kancheepuram silk saree and filter coffee. She has avoided the usual Tamil tendency of glorification and hyperboles. She has described events and personalities factually letting the readers to draw conclusions. She has highlighted the contribution of Muslim and Christian scholars to Tamil literature and the communal harmony. At the same time the author has pointed out the peculiarities, contradictions and problems in the Tamil society including worship of film heroes and caste conflicts.

The author says, “This book is largely subjective; it is a portrait rather than an academic study. It strives to provide an accessible account of the Tamils and their history for those interested in the subject but not necessarily familiar with it".

Nirmala Lakshman, is well qualified academically and as a cosmopolitan member of the historical and respected newspaper group The Hindu. She has travelled across Tamilnadu interviewing and interacting with common people besides sociologists, historians, anthropologists, archaeologists, actors, politicians and businessmen. She has quoted extensively from many books and authors. She is objective and unbiased when commenting on Periyar and DMK even though her community has been at the receiving end of the anti-Brahmin movement spearheaded by the Dravidian leaders.

This book, published in January 2025, is a useful read to understand Tamils for some of those beyond the Vindhyas who are often ignorant and prejudiced. This includes the Hindi chauvinists who are surprised by the Tamil resistance to the insensitive attempts for imposition of Hindi and my globe-trotting golf buddies in DLF Golf Club, Gurgaon who do not know the difference between Tamil and Malayalam or Swaminathan and Viswanathan.

Carnatic music flows into Cauvery river in Thyagaraja Aradhana at Thiruvaiyaru

I went to the annual Thyagaraja Aradhana music festival at Thiruvaiyaru, 25 kms from my village in Tamilnadu.

This year is the 178th year of Aradhana Festival and it is being held from 14 to 18 January on the anniversary of the death (1847) of the famous 18th century Carnatic music composer Thyagaraja.

This music festival is unique in many respects:

Nearly 250 musicians participate in the five-day festival every year. In this year's Aradhana, there are a total of 241 concerts from 14 to 18 January. The festival opened on 14th evening with 13 concerts from 5 to 11 pm. On 15th, 16th and 17th there are 61 concerts every day from 9 am to 11 pm. On the 18th there are 41 concerts besides the Pancharatna Keerthanas Koshtigaanam, which is sung by dozens of artistes as well as the audience together from 9 to 10 am.

The musicians are given slots of 10 minutes, 15 minutes and 20 minutes, according to their seniority. Here is a sample page of the program sheet with 36 pages

The organisers are very strict about the time limit. Five minutes before the ending of the performance, they make the next musician's group to get on to the second stage on the side and be ready. As soon as one concert finishes, there is a brief announcement of the names of the outgoing and incoming performers after which the next concert starts immediately.

Besides vocal music, there are also instrumental concerts with veena, violin, flute and Nadhaswaram.

Nadhaswaram, the wind instrument played during auspicious occasions such as weddings and temple festivals gets a special place of pride in the festival. In the 2025 Festival, there are 67 Nadhaswaram concerts, spread over the five days. In fact, the Festival starts and ends with Nadhaswaram concerts.

The Festival is held every year in January at the Thyagaraja Samadhi (memorial), on the banks of Cauvery river. The music is not performed in a covered air-conditioned auditorium. It is held under a Pandal (temporary roof covered inside with cloth like a shamiana) open on all sides. There are no chairs. The audience sits on the sandy floor, enjoying the cool breeze from the river and the aroma of the hot filter coffee served on the other side of the pandal.

To listen to the music, one does not even have to go to the pandal. One can listen while shopping on the roadside shops or walking in the streets through the loud speakers fixed on lamp posts for a couple of kms outside the festival venue. The soulful classical music is heard in the middle of blaring honking sound of cars, buses and the noise of the autos and motorcycles. But Nadhaswaram, with its high pitched loud piercing music, overcomes the street noises and is heard clearly.

There are no tickets for the concerts which are open to the public. The hall becomes full and overflowing for the Pancharathna event and when celebrities come to sing.

The musicians consider it a privilege to perform in the Aradhana and come here paying themselves for their travel and accomodation. They do not get any performance fees either. Some of them come regularly every year.Those learning Carnatic music worship Thyagaraja as a saint and perform pujas at his temple.

Thiruvaiyaru is a quiet small town with a population of around 20,000. It does not have proper restaurants or hotels for the visiting artistes and public. They have to stay in Thanjavur, 12 km away. 

Thiruvaiyaru is known as the land of five rivers (Iyaru means five rivers) namely Cauvery, Vennar, Vettar, Vadavar, and Kudamurutti rivers. The deity in the famous temple in the town is Aiyarappan /Panchandeeswarar which mean Lord of five rivers.

There is belief that those who die in Thiruvaiyaru, considered as the sacred equivalent of Benares, will go to heaven. Some old people come to stay in the Chattirams (charity accommodation) at their terminal stage waiting to die there. Sixteenth day Ceremonies as well as anniversary rites for the dead are done on the bank of the Cauvery river in the town. There are over fifty Brahmin families which live on the income of performing the rites for the dead. Cauvery is to Tamilnadu what Ganges is to Northern India in terms of giving material and spiritual prosperity.

Here is the photo of the Cauvery river next to the event venue.

The region around Thirvaiyaru has been historically prosperous, thanks to flourishing agriculture with the waters of the five rivers and the fertile soil. Rice, sugarcane and banana are the main crops. This material prosperity had given more time for the people of the region to pursue music, dance and other forms of arts and culture. Thygaraja and the other two famous composers (Trinity of Carnatic Music) Shyama Shastri and Muthusamy Dikshidar were born in Thiruvarur, another town in the same delta region, seventy km away from Thiruvaiyaru. Many of the Carnatic musicians come from the Cauvery delta region. Proud of this lineage, artistes use the name of the place as the prefix to their names. Examples: Umayalpuram Sivaraman, Sikkil Gurucharan, Papanasam Ramani, Thanjavur Raju, Kumbakonam Aravind, Mayavaram Pandian, Andankovil Sivakumar, Seerkazhi Sivachidambaram, Ayyanpettai Haridoss, Thruvaiyaru Murugan, Thirukkattuppalli Raja and Saliyamangalam Ramadass,

The region of Thiruvaiyaru and Thiruvarur was part of the Chola dynasty of Thanjavur which had patronised arts and culture and built historic temples. The Chola dynasty has a distinct place in Indian history. Cholas were the only Indian rulers who ventured outside India conquering overseas territories and colonising parts of South East Asia. After the decline of Cholas in the 15th century, Thanjavur came under the Telugu speaking Governors appointed by Vijayanagara empire. In 1675 the Marathas took over Thanjavur and ruled till they lost to the British in the ninteenth century. There is still a Maratha dynasty prince living in the Thanjavur palace surrounded by a small Marathi community. The Maratha kings promoted Sanskrit and before them the Nayaks patronised Telugu language. So this explains the Telugu and Sanskrit compositions of Thyagaraja although he had lived his whole life in the heart of Tamilnadu.

The legend of Thyagaraja, the history and culture of the region and the serene rural setting enrich the listening of Carnatic music on the Cauvery river side as a unique cultural experience

Biography of Elon Musk by Walter Isaacson

“Elon Musk” by Walter Isaacson is the second book I have read about Musk. I had earlier read the book "Elon Musk: How the billionaire CEO of SpaceX and Tesla is shaping our future" by Ashlee Vance. 
 
I am fascinated by the amazing achievements of Elon Musk. 
 

Elon Musk is an adorable nerd, extraordinary entrepreneur, audacious dreamer and inspiring visionary. SpaceX and Tesla are his crown jewels.  He dared to start SpaceX and Tesla as start-up ventures to compete against the huge NASA and the big car companies. He started the space venture after reading a lot of books on space technology. He learnt more by talking to experts, questioning and challenging them. He drove scientists and engineers to innovate and do what they thought was impossible. He gave them unrealistic deadlines and made them do incredible cost-cutting. They would not have achieved what they did, but for his push. Musk blends his visionary outlook with attention to details and hard work. He took plenty of risks and blew up many rockets to learn from failures.  He thrived on crises, challenges and risk-taking.
 
On the other hand, Musk has a dark side. As the boss he has no empathy. He drives employees crazy and hurts them. He makes extremist comments outside his domain expertise. He supports obnoxious people like Trump.  He has failed many times and made mistakes. His acquisition and management of Twitter is controversial.
 
Here is what Isaacson has to say, 
 
“One can admire a person’s good traits and decry the bad ones. But it’s also important to understand how the strands are woven together, sometimes tightly. It can be hard to remove the dark ones without unraveling the whole cloth. 
 
Sometimes great innovators are risk-seeking man- children who resist potty training. They can be reckless, cringeworthy, sometimes even toxic. They can also be crazy. Crazy enough to think they can change the world.
 
His life had long been an admixture of historically transforming achievements along with wild flameouts, broken promises, and arrogant impulses.
 
My previous blog on Musk
https://floatingweed.blogspot.com/2016/05/elon-musk-daring-techpreneur.html
 

Smoke and Ashes: A Writer's Journey through Opium's Hidden Histories - book by Amitav Ghosh

  
Smoke and Ashes: A Writer's Journey through Opium's Hidden Histories - book by Amitav Ghosh
 
The US Administration has been requesting China to stop the supply of fentanyl and the chemical ingredients for opioids which kill thousands of American addicts every year. The US blames China and the Latin American cocoa farmers and drug cartels for the supplies although the main driver is the flourishing domestic consumer and demand involving billions of dollars of business. In this context, Amitav Ghosh has reminded the world that the Americans, the Dutch and the British were the original drug traffickers. Many Americans made fortunes by trafficking opium illegally into China. The West went even went to the extent of waging wars (Opium wars) and forced the Chinese government to legalize opium. 
 
In his book “Smoke and Ashes: A Writer's Journey through Opium's Hidden Histories” Amitav Ghosh has given a vivid account of the criminal drug trafficking done by the American, British and Dutch businessmen in collusion with their governments. He has done extensive and meticulous research of British, European, American, Chinese and Indian sources and quoted from documents, statements and archives. 
 

While there is public knowledge of the British drug trafficking, the role of Americans in the dirty business is not that well known. Ghosh has filled this gap by documenting the smuggling of opium by American businessmen who made huge fortunes. According to his research, the Americans were, by some estimates, smuggling as much as a third of all the opium consumed in China at the peak time. There were the big opium-trading clans of Boston—the Perkins, Sturgis, Russell, Forbes Astor, Cabot, Peabody, Brown, Archer, Hathaway, Webster, Delano, Coolidge, Forbes, Russell, Perkins, Bryant as well as the families of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) and Calvin Coolidge. These families were all as intricately interrelated as the Sicilian Mafia. They called themselves ‘the Boston Concern’ and they became the single biggest opium-trading network in China. Many of the young Americans who became rich in opium trade had lived and worked personally in Guangzhou and boasted about the quick money they made.   
 
The Americans were responsible for several important innovations in the nineteenth-century illegal opium trade. They set up a steady transportation channel between China and Turkey through the system of ‘floating warehouses’ at Lintin Island to facilitate the smuggling of opium. They designed the vessels called as Baltimore Clippers which played an important role in the opium trade. These clippers were fast enough to elude British warships which tried to stop non-British opium carriers in order to maintain the British monopoly. The Baltimore clippers were much in demand for the transportation of opium from India to China. Before, ships would have to wait for the turning of the monsoon winds in order to sail that route. But the schooner-rigged Baltimore clippers were able to sail against the wind, and so the opium trade went from being a seasonal affair to a year-round commerce. 
 
The Opium fortunes were used by the Boston families to finance American railways, manufacturing, hotels and investment banking. Ghosh says,  ‘Opium was really a way that America was able to transfer China’s economic power to America’s industrial revolution with the wealth generated by Indian poppy farmers who were forced to grow and the Chinese opium users who were forced to consume”.
 
Much before the British entry, the Dutch traders and colonialists had established opium trade in South East Asia. Even the Dutch crown joined the illegal business. In 1815, the newly crowned Dutch monarch, formerly Prince Willem Frederik of Orange-Nassau, founded an enterprise called the Royal Dutch Trading Company (Koninklijke Nederlandsche Handel-Maatschappij or NHM). Using its royal sponsorship, this company became powerful enough to take over the opium monopoly. Their  opium business was consistently profitable and earned vast sums of money for the royal family. Ghosh says,“ it was the Dutch who led the way in enmeshing opium with colonialism, and in creating the first imperial narco-state, heavily dependent on drug revenues. Later British perfected the model of the colonial narco-state in India”.
 
The British started the opium trafficking to China initially to pay for the tea which they imported into UK. Chinese tea remained the British East India Company’s prime source of revenue. By the early eighteenth century Chinese tea was already an important article of trade for the British economy. The importation of tea was for centuries a monopoly of the East India Company and the customs duty on it was for a long time one of Britain’s most important sources of revenue. The duty ranged from 75 per cent to 125 per cent of the estimated value, which meant that the customs duty on tea fetched higher revenues for Britain than it did for China, which charged an export duty of only 10 per cent. The problem was that Britain had nothing much to sell to China in return. The Chinese had little interest in, and no need for, most Western goods. So the East India Company had a balance of trade problem with China. The company found the way to pay for Chinese goods with illegal supply of opium from India to China. 
 
The first pivotal moment in the opium story was East India Company’s takeover of the opium industry in Bihar in 1772. The second big move occurred in 1799, when the company’s leadership decided to set up the Opium Department, a bureaucracy that was devoted entirely to the production of opium. This Department oversaw every aspect of the production and sale of the drug, from the planting of poppies to the auctioning of the product in Calcutta. The department determined which farmers could grow poppies, how much they could plant and what they would be paid for their harvest. The company paid low prices but the farmers had no other alternative and were forced to sell their The entire production exclusively only to the Opium Department. Cultivation of poppies required the labour of more than a million peasant households, probably some 5–7 million people altogether. The department had two geographical agencies, namely the Benares Agency in the west and the Patna Agency in the east. Each agency was presided over by a British official known as the Opium Agent, one of the most highly paid and most coveted posts within the colonial regime.
 
The East India Company forced farmers to cultivate opium in the lands where rice was grown earlier. Opium Department had stipulated that nothing else could be grown on land that had been earmarked for that purpose. This large-scale conversion of paddy fields for poppy cultivation was one of the major contributors to the famine in Bengal in 1770 which caused the death of ten million people. 
 
China had officially banned the importation and consumption of opium since 1729. Because of these bans, the East India Company could not formally or explicitly acknowledge that its opium was intended for the Chinese market: doing so would have meant the loss of its trading rights and the end of its immensely lucrative tea business. So, the company resorted to an ingenious subterfuge. Opium from the Ghazipur and Patna factories was loaded on to heavily guarded fleets and sent to Calcutta, where it was auctioned to ‘private traders’. Thereafter the Company disclaimed all responsibility for its product, which was then transported by these traders to Whampoa (Huangpu) on the Pearl River, where they would sell the drug to Chinese smugglers. The money was collected from the smugglers secretly and transferred to London and India through agents. 
 
1839, the Chinese put their foot down to stop the illegal supply of opium. They demanded that foreign merchants surrender all their stocks of opium. When the merchants refused, they were put under house arrest. After this, the merchants surrendered about a thousand tons of opium, which were publicly destroyed by the Chinese authorities. This loss gave the casus belli for war to the British government which attacked China in 1840. This was the First Opium War in which China suffered defeat and agreed to sign the  Treaty of Nanjing in 1842. Under this, the Chinese were forced to compensate foreign opium traffickers to the tune of 6 million silver dollars. The other conditions included the opening of four other ports to foreign traders (and smugglers) and ceding the island of Hong Kong to the British as a colony. The island thereafter became the main hub of opium smuggling in China accounting for three-quarters of the entire opium smuggling into China. After this, the Opium Department in India got the poppy acreage increased six-fold. An article published at that time in the US National Defense University mentioned that “the English merchants, led by the British East India Company from 1772 to 1850, established extensive opium supply chains, creating the world’s first drug cartel”. Besides China, the westerners smuggled opium into Thailand, Indonesia and Vietnam also disregarding the ban in those countries.
 
Ghosh has concluded that “the British Empire’s opium racket was a criminal enterprise, utterly indefensible by the standards of its own time as well as ours”. 
 
He has brought out the Chinese lesson to the west. When the westerners forced opium down the throats of Chinese at gun point, the Chinese turned the tables and beat the westerners in their own game. Unable to stop the illegal western supplies of opium, the Chinese started to produce their own and succeeded in import substitution.  China’s domestic opium industry became the single largest producer and exporter of opium in the world, accounting for seven-eighths of global supply. The west has not learnt from this Chinese method and history. The western companies rushed into the Chinese market supplying products and technologies after the opening of the Chinese market in the eighties. The Chinese have simply repeated history by becoming the world’s largest manufacturer and exporter. The Chinese exports of 3.4 trillion dollars in 2023 is almost equal to the combined exports of US (2 trillion) and Germany (1.6 trillion). China has become the largest exporter of cars, solar panels and many other items, just as they became the largest exporter of opium. While the hubris-filled Westerners have failed to learn from the opium history, the Chinese have certainly learnt how to give it back to the west.
 
 
 

Economic Diplomacy of the English Ambassador Thomas Roe

“Courting India: England, Mughal India and the origins of empire” by Nandini Das (published in May 2023) is a fascinating read for those interested in the history of the British entry into India. 

As a former diplomat, I enjoyed reading about the experience of Sir Thomas Roe, the first British ambassador to India to the Mughal court of Emperor Jahangir. His mission is a case study for Economic Diplomacy.

 

When East India company started exploring India for business in India in the late sixteenth century, they needed approvals and favours from Emperor Jahangir. They sent to the Mughal court some merchants but they were not taken seriously. So the British decided to send an ambassador to reach out to the emperor. They nominated Sir Thomas Roe, a 35-year old,  as ambassador of King James I. His diplomatic Instructions clarified that while he represented his king’s ‘honour and dignity’, he had to use all means possible ‘to advance the trade of the East India Company’. Roe’s salary was paid by the East India company. He got 600 pounds as annual salary. He took some advance from which he spent over one hundred pounds to buy dress for himself and livery for his servants. 
 
Roe set out on his voyage on 2 February 1615 and reached Surat after six months of voyage. He had brought fifteen people in his retinue which included a chaplain, a doctor, cook, secretary and even a couple of musicians. 
 
His first challenge was to establish his authority as ambassador and get special privileges and protocol respect. He had to fight for these starting with the landing in Surat. When he reached Surat on 25 december 1615, they made an announcement to the local authorities about the arrival of an ambassador. But the locals laughed at the title and did not take it seriously. The customs authorities wanted to search his luggage. Roe put his foot down and refused to allow the search claiming special privilege as ambassador. He wrote to Zulfiqar Khan, the governor of the Surat area. Khan replied that customs search was standard procedure but he would make an exception in recognition of Roe’s status
 
The ambassador set foot for the first time on Indian soil, welcomed by a volley of shots from the cavalry. But there was another diplomatic tussle. The thirty cavalry men who were to lead the procession to his place of stay were sitting under an open tent and did not rise to greet him. Roe said he would not go until they stood up and did the honours. 
 
The governor invited Roe to pay him a visit. But Roe declined the invitation saying that according to protocol ambassadors could not visit a foreign official first before presenting themselves to the King. Then the governor wanted to meet the commander of the English ship. Roe wrote to commander Keeling, forbidding him from receiving the governor. Finally, Zulfiqar Khan visited Roe at the latter’s residence.
 
On 30 October 1615, Roe received Emperor Jahangir’s farmān acknowledging him as ambassador and inviting him to the court as well as commanding Mughal governors on the route to offer all assistance to the ambassador. On the way, Roe stopped in Burhanpur ruled by Parvez, the second son of Jehangir.  When he went to see him, the courtiers asked him to bow and offer the customary kurnish (ritual salute) or sijda (full ceremonial prostration).  Roe refused. Then they asked him to stand but he demanded a chair to sit. The courtiers then told him politely that ‘as a courtesy’, the prince granted him permission to lean against a nearby pillar.
  

Roe's biggest challenge was that the powerful, large and wealthy Mughal emperor and his court did not take England, the English King and his ambassador seriously. Emperor Jahangir was far more broadminded and progressive in his outlook in comparison to the protestant ambassador who was belittling the catholic Portuguese. 

Roe had brought gifts for the Emperor and the Mughal dignitaries. But these were looked down as insignificant and poor in comparison. Jahangir’s own ambassador to Shah Abbas, the ruler of Persia, had given gifts of elephants, gold and silver. The Persian ambassador gave gifts of horses and camels besides precious stones to Emperor Jahangir. Roe’s only gifts Emperor Jahangir and his son Prince Khurram (later..Shajahan) enjoyed were the wines.

During his posting for three years as ambassador, Roe had managed to get some trade concessions from the Mughals for East India company. Roe had attended Jehangir’s court regularly and cultivated some senior advisors and family members of the Emperor. He tried hard to advance the English interests at the expense of Portuguese and Dutch but the Mughals were ahead in the game. They made the Europeans to compete with each other for favours. 

 
Roe wrote about his daily activities, success and failures in his diaries as well as in his letters to the Company and to his friends. Some of these, reproduced in the book, are interesting.
 
 
 

My life as a comrade - Malayali Marxist Shilaja’s book

During my Latin America lectures in the Kerala University in Trivandrum in recent months, I found the students knowledgeable about the Pink Tide, Che Guevara, Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez and Gabriel Boric. It is not surprising given the Marxist roots in the state, which had made history by electing the first Marxist government in the world in 1957. Since then, the state has elected Marxists to power many times including in the last elections in 2021. During interactions with the students, I realized that Marxism in Kerala is more than a political ideology. It has become a way of life, good or bad. This is confirmed by Shilaja’s book, “My life as a comrade: The Story of an Extraordinary Politician and the World That Shaped Her”. Shailaja became famous as the health minister of the state who managed the covid crisis successfully setting an example for other states. 

Shailaja says, “I was – and still am – definitely an idealist, extremely interested in the theory of politics. I’ve always been curious about the systems that brought our society to where it is. I had skated over the principles of Marx but I thought I needed to understand those better. He spoke about dialectic materialism, where the pursuit of material wants causes conflict between opposing forces of nature. He believed we need to be catalysts for good. Marx said we must struggle for rights; it was right to do so”.
 
She asserts, “the spiritual guidance for my work, and indeed my life, has been provided by communist ideology. It has helped me work through doubt and indecision repeatedly during more than thirty years of public service. Having a philosophy or a belief that is larger than us helps us deal with the minute disappointments that pepper our lives.
In 2018, on my very first trip to London, I was asked what I wanted to see. The answer was simple: Karl Marx’s cemetery in Highgate Park. It had been a long-held dream, and the experience was perfect”.
 
To start with, she was dragged into politics because of her family. She says, “ I come from a family in politics but not a family of politicians. My life story is built on the history of many people, including my grandmother and my uncles. I stand on their legacy. It is they who taught me about politics – what it means, why it’s important”.
 
She says, “My journey into politics was made possible because of the socio-political milieu I was part of. I come from a family of people who get involved in problems, in struggles, who believe in working for change. But we had no clout, no connections, except for those forged on public battlefields. However, the structure of the communist Party, which has been our mainstay for generations, was rise of a dedicated Party worker, one rank at a time. Along the way, opportunities and encouragement from others, coupled with my tenacity and a belief that we can make a difference, have pushed me forward. This is my story. But it is also the story of the Malabar, and the growth of communism in Kerala.
 
She took to politics seriously after her family members and friends were subjected to harassment and suffering during the Emergency period.  She says, “Watching the injustice of many intellectuals, writers, politicians and others being incarcerated, the attack on India’s democratic and federalist ideals, made me aware of how fragile our system was. Observing the events of that year, especially my uncle’s ordeal during that time, and becoming more aware of the inequity of power and resources around me, communism and Marxian thought started to make even more sense. The unfairness of it hit hard. Deciding at that moment that politics was going to be my way forward, I became a member of the Madathil CPI(M) branch in 1977”.
 
She started from the bottom, working her way up through the disciplined hierarchy of the CPI(M). She started with organization of women’s groups in her area. It was a challenging assignment to get the women out of their patriarchal houses and educate and empower them. 
 
Shailaja extends her personal conviction to her state itself with a bold statement, “most Malayalis are socialists at heart and that is what makes Kerala exemplary. Socialism has made its way into our collective psyche through popular culture and literature”.
 
However, she admits, “I am not a scholar, and I don’t have high educational qualifications. I have a basic degree, and I am a schoolteacher, that is all. I studied Marxist philosophy and accepted it deeply, and that is what has impacted my life”.

Her husband, also a comrade, was a generous soul who took a back seat and let the wife shine.
 
Shailaja was dropped from the new cabinet formed after the 2021 elections by Chief Minister Pinayari Vijayan who saw her as a rival for his chair, especially after the popularity she had earned in India and the world during covid.

While Shailaja sees the world through Marxism, she is pragmatic and realistic. She respects the democratic rules and the opponents. She believes in working with civil servants and the existing system to get the best for the society.
 
She ends the book saying, “So, my life as a comrade continues”. future chief minister, for sure..

I guess, Shailaja’s story is typical of the life stories of millions of Malayalis who have embraced Marxism as a way of life.