The past is a contested battleground. The past is the stories our textbooks tell us. The good and the bad guys, neatly organised on the shelves of our mind, to make bleeding-heart patriots out of us. So essentially, official history has usually been a propaganda tool rather than a discipline that could provide some deep insights on human nature and how we can avoid making the same mistakes as made by the ones who came before us.

At first glance, The Courtesan, the Mahatma and the Italian Brahmin: Tales from Indian History would not strike you as a conventional name for a history book, but its author — up and coming historian Manu S. Pillai — isn’t your traditional type of historian either. He carved out his niche with his previously lauded books, namely The Rebel Sultans: The Deccan from Khilji to Shivaji and The Ivory Throne: Chronicles of the House of Travancore. His newest offering — instead of focusing on one single subject — provides numerous vignettes into the rich, complicated and contested beast that is the history of the Subcontinent. Treat this book as a grand mansion, where the author has placed many windows from which the reader can peek in.

Take, for example, Pillai’s account of the Babri Masjid debacle. In one of the many stories contained within the book, he narrates a forgotten episode of how both Hindus and Muslims used to worship in harmony in the complex and, in the mid-1850s, a nawab of Awadh fended off an angry horde who wanted to vandalise the Hindu consecrated area in the complex. Contrast that episode with the rulers who looked on idly as the Babri Masjid was destroyed brick by brick by the Hindutva brigades in 1992.

A well-respected historian presents brief historical stories told in lucid prose that counter generalisations and that can whet the appetite for further study

Tales of Muslim sultans in the Deccan who venerated Hindu deities to the point of suspicion, Portuguese missionaries taking on Brahmin customs and garb to appeal to the locals and Dara Shikoh, the most beloved son of the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan, commissioning the translation of Hindu sacred texts, all make for gripping accounts of a past that was a far cry from the communally charged environment of today.

Each story in the book, written in lucid prose, is no more than a few pages long, which would be welcomed by readers with commitment issues, and there are quite a few illustrations of events, personalities and objects thrown in for good measure.

There is Jim Morrison on the premises, the American rock legend whom trains of tourists come to pay homage to ... Edith Piaf, the waif who sang her way to greatness ... Frederic Chopin, the composer whose pickled heart waits in Warsaw but whose body dissolves in the French capital. Benjamin Franklin’s grandson rests here, and in the vicinity is a man believed to have been sired by Napoleon. Oscar Wilde’s sculpted grave competes with Marcel Proust’s neat bed of stone, and many more ... crowd the hillside cemetery that is Père Lachaise in Paris. And amongst them all, under a platform of rugged rock, lies this tragic Indian woman. Her name and cause have been largely forgotten, but since 1858, she has been here, longer than many of her revered neighbours. Tourists walk by with cameras, oblivious to her unmarked square existence. But every now and then, there is a stray visitor who arrives on a quest: to locate the final resting place of that remarkable woman, the last queen of Awadh. — Excerpt from ‘Looking for the Last Queen of Awadh in Paris’

There are two broad sections to the collection of stories: the ones that take place before the Raj, and the ones that take place after. So, perhaps, it’s a good entry point for anyone who is interested in the study of history, but told like a story, instead of a dry, academic account. Judging by the prose, tone and simple language Pillai employs, the lay reader will not be disappointed, and maybe neither will the sceptical academic. And in that vein, the critique of the book would only serve as its selling point for many: the brief accounts may lead you to pining for more. All the more reason to use these chronicles as a springboard for further study.

The common thread that goes across the many stories Pillai narrates is that history doesn’t adhere to simple generalisations, personal biases or narratives which the media or textbooks build for us. There has been, in particular of late, renewed interest in the study of Indian history with titles such as The Anarchy: The Relentless Rise of the East India Company by William Dalrymple, Empress by Ruby Lal and Jahangir: An Intimate Portrait of a Great Mughal by Parvati Sharma to name just a few. Part of this may have to do with the fractious times we live in.

In an age where a fabricated past is presented as fact, faith is weaponised and the issue of identity divides rather than unites — not just in India but in Pakistan and South Asia in general — it is important to be reminded of the glorious history that belongs to everyone in the Subcontinent, regardless of colour, caste and creed. And Pillai is just the right person to convey that.

The reviewer has worked as a producer in news media, an analyst in the NGO sector and is currently a lecturer at SZABIST University

The Courtesan, the Mahatma and the Italian Brahmin: Tales from Indian History
By Manu S. Pillai
Context, US
ISBN: 978-9388689786
394pp.

Published in Dawn, Books & Authors, May 10th, 2020