When a book on a man as colourful and controversial as Alexander Haughton Campbell Gardner is the subject of a session, a bit of drama is to be expected. But more on that later.
In a conversation with academic Shiv Visvanathan in a session titled ‘The Tartan Turban: In Search of Alexander Gardner’, renowned historian John Keay admitted that “writing your first biography on a man who died 150 years ago may seem a bit perverse.”
But the main reason why biographers have fought shy of Gardner — a Scots-American and hired gun who “roamed the deserts of Turkestan”, explored the western Himalayas, fought in Afghanistan and married an Afghan princess — is because what is known about him is so suspect. “Most of his stories are so outrageously improbable as to be unbelievable. His critics have dismissed him as a plagiarist, a fantasist and a downright liar,” Keay said, adding that Gardner’s reputation plummeted quickly, and the few surviving copies of his memoirs were ousted from library shelves reserved for history and re-shelved beside books of fiction.
Keay has set this right with his 324-page biography, published by Kashi House, a London-based not-for-profit publisher of books on Sikh and Punjabi heritage. It is an exhaustive look at the maverick “who witnessed the death of the Sikh empire”.
When Visvanathan tried to pin the author down on why he kept the narrative so “antiseptic”, it started a back-and-forth — about unbiased writing, facts, and more. Keay’s final comment, which he later scrawled on books at the signing booth, said it best: ‘A historian never judges, he defers judgement.’
surya.kumar@thehindu.co.in
