In this book, Yudhishthir Raj Isar, a cultural analyst and professor of Cultural Policy Studies at the American University of Paris, compiles material from 2,000-odd pages of a memoir left by his father Raymond Francis Isar. This volume of over 260 pages, while being essentially autobiographical, narrates the political and social history of India during the most important period. Raymond Francis Isar, as a civil servant having served on either side of Independence, had a ringside view of the establishment that ruled the country and the cabal that emerged in the political scenario at critical times and changed the fate of the country. Added to the experience gained by the author professionally, both in civil and foreign service, his own hybrid upbringing — his father a converted Christian from Brahmin stock and mother from a second generation converted Christian of Sufi background — has helped the author view things dispassionately and objectively. It is also interesting to note that though born in a highly religious Christian family and brought up by a strict disciplinarian father, Isar himself became an atheist!
The first three chapters deal with the author’s school and university days that laid the foundation for his convictions and ideology that developed later. While studying in England, Isar embraced Marxism and became a full-fledged member of the Communist Party. These chapters detail the background of his domestic life, and of his getting posted as Assistant Collector and Magistrate in Tanjore and his life there as an administrator. However, once posted in Delhi his observations become more sharp and interesting.
The chapter that engages keen attention of the reader is ‘Midnight of Freedom’. While the books on the aftermath of the fateful day in August and the following bloodshed, after the amputation of Pakistan, are many, the narration of Isar is from the point of view of a civil servant having arrived at the centre from southern districts, is more specific. His statement that while the bloodshed in north was horrible, “the rest of India was managing to stay quiet – precariously, ominously quiet.” When the condition was absolutely out of control in Delhi, the leaders felt helpless. It was sad that Nehru and Patel did not have a solution in hand.
Indeed Mountbatten did come back from Simla, according to the version of yet another writer on Mountbatten — David Butler, on information given by V.P. Menon. However Isar categorically says, “Lord Mountbatten’s version of the actual words of Nehru and Patel to him on his return from Simla can hardly be regarded as anything but 99 per cent his very own invention.”
Isar asserts, “Most commentators (with the exception of V. Shankar) have remained either silent or extremely discreet about the heart of the matter: What was the need for Mountbatten to descend from Simla and get involved in executive action that, as he himself correctly explained, was no longer his business?” According to Isar, the top executive proved that they could control the situation, headed by H.M. Patel the then Cabinet Secretary
‘Discovering Delhi’ is another chapter that draws riveted attention of the reader. When India became independent, nothing changed, as far as the administrative and legal structure was concerned. Indians merely occupied the rooms, chairs and benches of the British.
Of the more recent past, the last two chapters give the best description of the political scenario of the times. Having reverted back to his cadre in Tamil Nadu, after he was relieved from his foreign service that was allotted to him after independence (because of his marriage to a foreigner) the author says of Rajaji, “There was a taciturn ruggedness about him, a sturdiness of character rare among Indians to be an object of respect and admiration.” He regards Kamaraj as an effective Chief Minister, unwittingly drawn into the Kamaraj Plan as devised by Nehru to be a devious manipulation directed against his rivals. He considers it bad luck for India that Patel was older than Nehru; Patel the bête-noire of the staunch Nehru-ites could have achieved much more as a Prime Minister. Unfortunately, Kamaraj, the author asserts, known as the king-maker twice — once when Nehru died in May 1964 and next when Shastri died on January 10, 1966 — ended by preparing a thralldom for the country, much beyond his own imagination.
The book captures the political manoeuvrings of the last years of Nehru as well as the prime ministerial life and times of his undervalued successor, Lal Bahadur Shastri.
He explains how corruption set in: “Backstairs influence with key politicians of the Congress party and the higher bureaucracy was established and maintained by payments in cash or kind or in both.” The Little Sparrow as he was named by a Bombay editor, Shastri, according to official reports, died of heart failure in Tashkent, but on December 26, 1970, his widow declared in an interview that her husband had been poisoned. The author is sceptical; he ends the story with “Either way, the result of that particular death, … was the return of the Nehru dynasty.” Indira Gandhi scuttled the demand for an enquiry.
Chronicles of Time and Chance; Raymond Francis Isar, Primus Books, Rs.1195.
