The World by Simon Seabag Montefiore

 

The World by Simon Seabag Montefiore

This is not so much a Review, as it is a preview, written in response to the Author’s introductory comments about his book, made at an author book signing event (7 PM, 24 January 2023, Bookworm, Church Street, Bangalore, India).

Biography is intensely personal, while history writing is largely impersonal. The author in this, his latest work, takes a sort of middle ground, by narrating history through the biographies of families.

As an illustration, the author sees the recent history of India through the biography of the Nehru (later the Nehru-Gandhi) family. Self-consciously, in the manner of an apologia, he spoke of Prime Minister Modi as a ‘self-made man’ (his words)- clearly an anomaly. This betrays his own preference- he would rather India be ruled by the current scion of the Nehru family, even if it means to dump the democratic will of the people of India. Unfortunately for him, and his theory of world History as history of families, the current scion of the Nehru family is trundling along the length of the country in Forrest Gump style complete with a beard and is showing no interest in the country’s power play. Horror of horrors, in a much forgotten press interview given years ago, he vowed like Bhishma, that he would not marry, and would not be Prime Minister. In the author’s newest paradigm, this is the end of History for India!

But if this was not enough, the Author went into the Moghul family and validated the fratricidal blood-letting that attended each succession as a mechanism of choosing the most competent individual to rise to Kingship! This took my breath away. Then why crown the untested Charles King? He should prove his competence by slugging it out with his brothers on the grounds around the Tower of London. The victor can seize the treasures within and dump the vanquished in the dungeon beneath. We might move a whole generation forward by asking Harry to join the slugfest, by inciting a sufficient number of Lords to support him. Would the author prefer this? Or should the cultured, anglo-saxon, christian white World be governed by one set of rules, and the brown washed, heathen, by another?  Is it that the latter, can only be tamed/controlled by a bit of oriental despotism?

It is time Historians called out oppression, and despotism wherever they see it, and desist from the dangerous game of validation/negation. Islam does not recognize the right of primogeniture (Gribble, The Deccan Sultanate), and at the same time does not lay out any rules of succession. Islamic rulers uniformly ran an extractive state, and the hapless ruled did not really care who taxed them- the Nawab or the East India Company (EIC), both foreign to them. This made the Company’s takeover of the country that much more easy. And what of the families of these despots? Tippu Sultan- a minor footnote in the history of Islamic despotism, had a harem 3000 strong (Hoover, Men Without Hats). After the fall of Seringapatam (Srirangapatna), the EIC had a difficult time moving this humongous “family” first to the Vellore Fort, and subsequently to Calcutta. Would the members of this harem have even known one another? Even seen themselves as belonging to a family?

I will go no further lest this Preview become as long as the book. However I cannot desist from narrating the one inevitable question that every Briton in India faces today. The author was asked if the Narayana Murthy (the billionaire founder of Infosys) family gets a mention in the book. Initially the author was lost, unsure of the name. On being reminded of the Sunak connection, he somewhat blandly replied that World covered events only till February. The implication is obvious. Murthy’s contribution to history begins only when he becomes the Father (in Law) of Britain, however transitory the connection could eventually prove to be. As the parent of a very sullen, determined, and fiercely independent, foster daughter myself, getting her to marry a chappie who would in the distant future worm his way into the Prime Ministership of a country- whether Britain or the DPR Congo, would require superhuman astrological skills. In this sense, Murthy’s achievement on this score is truly peerless and he deserves a few paras in the World.