Delhi Darshan by Giles Tillotson

 Political Pamphleteering

Political Pamphleteering

This book is sub.-titled: The History and Monuments of India’s Capital. The jacket describes the author as someone who has taught at the University of London (discipline/School/ Department not specified) and one who currently “writes and lectures on a wide range of Indian art and architecture, from the sultanate and Rajput period to the colonial and modern eras.” What the jacket does not mention is that he is also a political pamphleteer. Because this is what he does in the opening pages of this, his slim book.

From pages 4 to 11, he makes repeated references to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and to its nationalist politics. Consider these illustrations:

[1] “It is ironic that nationalist politicians, eager to cleanse the country of traces of colonialism, have changed the hybrid but euphonious names of many other cities, such as Bombay, Calcutta and Bangalore, replacing them with pedantic transliterations from the original languages, but they have been content to leave the name of the national capital in its mangled form.” (Page 4)

What then should we do? Change ‘Delhi’ to the Hindi version ‘Dilli’ or the Urdu version ‘Dehli’ and continue to be charged with the guilt of pedantic transliteration. Or should we celebrate our colonial past by going back to ‘Cawnpore’ for Kanpur, ‘Oudh/Oude/Oudhe’ for Awadh, ‘Seringapatam’ for Srirangapatna, and a million other vulgarized forms introduced by the British to not only place names but the entire vocabulary of our myriad languages? Why not instead refer to the British resident in Afghanistan, Sir (later briefly Lord) William Hay Macnaghten as ‘Lat-e-Jangi’ as he was known in Afghan circles, while writing British history of the period? Why go back to his pedantic name which conveys nothing about his skull duggery? The Afghan synonym for this gentleman which translates roughly to ‘Big Boss of the War’ surely describes his predatory character better.

[2] On the site of the Purana Qila, the author writes (Page 7), “At its heart, perched on top of a rather uninspiring interpretation centre, is an enormous bronze equestrian statute of Prithviraj, bow and arrow at the ready, all set to reconquer. Even the pigeons-its most numerous devotees- look restless. The whole complex was inaugurated by L.K. Advani, at the time minister of home affairs in the central government, and a prominent member of the Bharatiya Janata Party, which was then (as now) widely perceived as adept at harnessing Hindu religious sentiment.”

All this in a chapter which supposedly describes the architectural features of the remains at Purana Qila. In the paragraph which precedes the one containing this sentence, the author makes the following admissions. (i) There is a traditional scholarly view that the first fortification wall in this area was built by the Tomar Rajputs in the eleventh century. (ii) Some time in the twelfth century this fort was captured by the Chauhans. (iii) Prithviraj, who also goes by the name Rai Pithora, the most well-known of the Chauhans doubled the size of the fort and renamed it after himself as Qila Rai Pithora. (iv) Subsequently, he lost the fort to the invading armies of Muhammad of Ghur.

If this indeed is the scholarly view, why is this author objecting to the Prithviraj statue? More importantly, Prithviraj Chauhan is a hero to all Indians, not just the Hindus.

[3] Referring to the destruction of 27 Hindu and Jain temples of the Tomar period to provide material for the building of the Quwwatu’l-Islam mosque, the author goes into a long sermon about the nervousness in academic circles in “building up episodes of this kind”. This is because, the violent demolition in 1992 by “Hindu fanatics” of a mosque in Ayodhya has caused the “Hindu-Muslim relations has itself become a battlefield”. He refers to L.K. Advani again in the context of the Ayodhya movement, and then goes on to give sage advice to devout Hindus to desist from any actions now.

There are three printed pages of this nonsense out of a total of 17 pages meant to explain the architecture of this period.

[4] There is a somewhat detailed description on the use of the spoilage from temples in the construction of the mosque referred above. Now hold your breath, suspend your belief. Go to Page 18 and read what this author writes.

“From the outset, the architecture of the Delhi Sultanate was an act of syncretism and assimilation.”

Going by this standard, the discovery in July 2023, of the rubble of a synagogue destroyed by the Nazis, and used for construction of a dam, is a sign of the syncretic architecture of Nazis and the assimilation of the Jewish community in the development projects of Germany.

A conclusion such as this in a German publication will send the author to jail for holocaust denial. However a similar conclusion in the Indian context earns the author plaudits printed on the back cover from his peers.

It is only fair that the Author is made to realize how his book sounds to an ordinary reader in India. For instance, in a book on classicism in British architecture, if the (Indian?) author were to make the following observations on the Conservative Party, how would it sound? Read on.  

London under Mayor Sadiq Khan of the Labour Party has been reeling under waves of protest led by pro-Palestine groups. These Islamist groups crowd into all the public places in London showing scant respect for the symbols of liberal British values. They have made little effort to cloak the antisemitic nature of their protests, and have repeatedly desecrated the war memorials that are so sacred to the British citizens. To counter this aggression, the Conservative Party, has made concerted attempts to coopt the British Hindus. This effort started quite some time ago. During her state visit, the then PM Theresa May, padded up in a green and gold saree, complete with red tilak, and visited an ancient Hindu temple in Bangalore. In a departure from the old hyphenated India-Pakistan or Hindu-Muslim policy, she kept away from the holy Muslim sites. It was a calculated move knowing that the photo-ops provided by the temple visit made a favourable impression on the well connected Hindu citizenry of this technologically advanced city which has traditional family links with various cities in the United Kingdom.

When her re-election gamble failed, her successor Boris Johnson, made a temple run of the prominent Hindu places of worship in the United Kingdom, and gained the Conservative Party nomination for the prime minister’s post. This included the support of the most prominent Hindu politician, Rishi Sunak. However, Sunak soon brought down the Government by resigning from the cabinet, and offered himself for the leadership of the Conservative party. Sunak, who is reportedly wealthier than his king, garnered the support of a majority of Conservative MPs, although the wider party membership chose Liz Truss over him. On his second bid however, Sunak was successful and moved into the PM’s office. He celebrated Diwali at 10, Downing Street, and served a vegetarian meal to his party supporters, in a powerful symbol of the consolidation of the Hindu votes under the Conservative Party. The Party hopes that the Hindus will decisively move into British public life, and rein in the hard core Islamists, in a repeat of what has happened within India.

Factually accurate, does this sound convincing? Well, not quite, would say any British citizen. Tilloston’s book makes a similar impression on his Indian readers. But then we are too polite to tell him so.

In conclusion, this book only adds to the cacophony of book publishing in India. It can be added to the Avoid List of book lovers.