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CHAPTER III

MANOHAR MALGONKAR’S HISTORICAL NOVELS

FROM 1959-1964

(I) DISTANT DRUM:

THE STORY OF AN INDIVIDUAL’S DEVELOPMENT

Distant Drum is a creative debut of Malgonkar, which deals with all

those devices which go into the making of a readable novel. The first novel of

Malgonkar, Distant Drum, filling the atmosphere with adventures of Generals,

Brigadiers, Colonels, Captains, Lieutenants and army men of other ranks;

analyzes the thrilling aspect of Army life in India at the critical juncture in her

history, when on account of the partition, the Hindus and Muslims were

involved in communal frenzy and madness. In the words of Agarwal,

“We see before our eyes the canvas of the Indian Army unfurl

itself and we see the way the officers live, love, like and dislike

each other.” (161)

Distant Drum is Malgonkar’s first novel and as the first novel usually

does, it tells the story and experiences of the author in a veiled way. The cover

jacket of the book says:

“The 4th Satpuras were just like any other battalion of the Indian

Army, which, they used to say, was perhaps the nicest club in the

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east run by the British… Then came the war, the stunning defeats

in the east and finally the battle of Sittang Bridge”.

Distant Drum tells the story of that Army and yet it is far more than a war

book. It is a sincere attempt to depict a generation of men against challenges,

typical of the time stresses, greater than war itself: the partition of country and

the breaking of this shining reborn Army and above all the sudden wrenching

away of life-long ties. Distant Drum is indeed a story about the Indian Army,

and Perhaps, more a documentary of the 4th Satpuras, than history or fiction.

Kipling and John Masters have all written and referred to life in Indian Army in

their novels, but none has been able to give the spirit of Indian Army patterned

on the British mode. Malgonkar is unique as he has been able to create the

correct atmosphere of the Indian Army in his Distant Drum. Most critics have

extolled the novel for this quality, but the most important thing is the

presentation of transition from the British Army to Indian Army and the story of

success and self-realization of a Satpura officer. Every experience in the

battalion is calculated to bend and mould the character of an officer to an ideal

man-the eighteen months of training, the life as a ‘Burn-wart’, regimental

customs and mess etiquette, training at the military academy and devotion to

duty are all meant to process a soldier into an ideal officer. This, together with

his life in Burma and Kashmir campaigns and a desk job at Army Headquarters

moulds him into successful officer. AK Sharma opines,

“The novel has dual movement, and the story moves forward and

backward in the present-past sequences of action” (23).




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GS Amur describes the characteristic dual movement of the story in

Distant Drum in the following words,

“The novel has a double movement, one in terms of present action

and another through the past reconstructed in memory. The first, a

circular and picturesque movement covers a period of about seven

months from the middle of August 1949 to March 1950”. (47)

Amur further elaborates the significance of the second movement

thus,

“The story of Garud’s initiation into the Army and his maturity

which forms the substance of the second movement.” (52)

Malgonkar has been able to create a very realistic picture of the Indian

Army in the throes of change, marked by the second world war, the dawn of

Independence, the vivisection of nation, the departure of many British Officers

of the Indian Army, the division of Army, the quick promotion of the Indians to

the higher echelons in the army, the Kashmir war, the emergence of nation

spirit in Army, But what is most important is not the description or narration of

Army life but the human touch to a normal scene of the defence services in

Indian life.

The novel is divided into three parts and runs into 270 pages in print and

dedicated to a group of three persons- Duggie Sawhney, Pattie Som Dutt, and

Pat Totterdell- and is based on Malgonkar’s own experiences in the Indian

Army as a colonel. The novel is mainly based on his personal experience as an




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Army officer. He is able to give an inside picture of army life as he served in

the infantry, in counter intelligence, and in the Army General staff during world

war II as Lieutenant Colonel. He dwells on the thrilling aspects of Army life in

India at the critical juncture of the partition days. He has chosen to depict an

ardent soldier’s fulfillment in living up to the code honoured by the Regimental

life. To quote James Y Dayanand,

“The novel is also an initiation story as it traces the growth of its

protagonist Col Kiran Garud through a variety of his encounters

with men and situations”. (44)

Kiran, the protagonist of the novel, imbibes the ethos and discipline of

British Army, almost becomes a symbol of the Satpuras and a vague symbols of

the Army itself and its code. As in the words of Indira Bhatt,

“The novel presents on one level the Indian encounter with the

British army life style and who have accepted the British Army

code.” (90)

Distant Drum is an exposition of a story of success-a narration of the

process of self-realization of the central figure and hero-Kiran Garud. Most

critics and reviewers have referred to the novel as an “Epitaph for the British

Army”’ “a symbolic presentation of Indian characters with the British in the

Army” and Indo-British relationships at the personal level, in short a

documentation of life in the army. It is, however, something more than this- a

human story of struggle and success and final achievement of goal. GS Amur

opinion of the book is most probably based on what Malgonkar himself says,




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“The book is largely a story of the success or failure of efforts of

one of the officers of the Regiment to live up to its code.” (10)

According to the elements of code, given in some years earlier, a Satpura

officer is, first and foremost a gentleman and he is not expected to do anything

against the Regiment’s Izzat. He should always finish off his tigers. When two

of them have a bet, only one should check up and the other should take his word

always. He should never say that he does not know; on the other hand, he

should say that he ‘will find out’ because he should take his professional

responsibilities very seriously. Though the code is a wide and elastic one on

many respects, it is a rigid one too. Every Satpura Officer is expected to try to

live up to the code even though it is not always possible to succeed. Being a

blend of freedom and discipline, it is a code of honour with no scope for

“Trilling’s “morality of inertia’ where cowardice in many form is considered to

be the irredeemable sin. It is essentially secular in nature, being a study in

attitude and not being a defence of any particular culture. According to DR

Sharma,

Distant Drum is not an epitaph for the British Indian Army for

does it abound in unblinking Anglophobia’.

Though the hero of the novel admires the British officers, he also

questions their behaviour when they go wrong. In the words of a reviewer in the

Times Literary Supplement,




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“Distant Drum is the Story of how he (Kiran) applies the principles

that he inherited from the old Army to the changed conditions of

modern India.” (5)

Malgonkar explains in the guise of love-story of Kiran and Bina the

working of Army in detail after independence and makes the drab and

humdrum existence of Army entirely engrossing and absorbing, throbbing with

life by creating human situations.

The novel is divided into three parts- Regiment, Staff, and Active Sevice.

Kiran is the central figure in all three parts. Using the techniques of flashback,

Kiran focuses light on various aspects of Army life. CL Proudfoot remarks that

Malgonkar

“recaptures the atmosphere of earlier days faithfully and right

through the whole book runs the golden thread of authenticity with

never a false note.” (57)

Much of the details of Army life are projected through action and

experience of the principal characters in the novel. The action covers not only

the period from August, 1949 to March 1950, but also, on a deeper level, an

earlier period from 1938 to 1949 when Kiran rose from the rank of Second

Lieutenant to that of Lieutenant Colonel after going through the Burma-war in

1942 and winning a Military cross for exemplary devotion to duty in the field of

battle. In the words of Agarwal,




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“The post-independence changes that are invading the Indian

military cadres are glanced at in the novel against the pre -

independence focus.” (160)

There are many themes in Distant Drum- such as the Indo- British

relationship at a personal level, the theme of loyalty and friendship, the love

theme of Kiran and Bina and chiefly the all - enveloping theme of self -

realization, the initiation of hero - Kiran Garud. Kiran, the hero of the novel,

joined Army in 1938 as a second lieutenant and rose to the position of

lieutenant colonel and became the CO of battalion at Raniwada. At the time of

his joining the Army, the CO of the battalion was treated like a god,

“a tin god, perhaps only a minor sort of deity with power to control

the destinies of more than a thousand men; but all the same god.”

(77)

But he could not maintain the style of the life of his predecessors as he

was paid only half since the cost of everything had increased three times. The

type of life led by the Army people is described in the words of Sonal,

“For one thing, these people in the Army nowadays are very badly

paid; you know very badly. Then they get shunted about all over

the country to many places where they can’t take away families.

They … they can’t afford to get married… err…live comfortably.”

(80)




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It is Kiran’s experience as a Bum Wart that is a Second Lieutenant that

really introduced him to Army life. Bum-wart was considered ‘dirt and less dirt’

and they should not speak at meal times unless they were spoken to. They were

insulted at every step and given extra parades even for the slightest, real or

imaginary, irregularity. The most important thing is that no discrimination was

shown between the Indian Bum-Warts and British Bum-Warts. It was not only a

matter of hard training but also a process of cutting on down to size, making

one learn how to ‘take it’ and realize that he was one among the soldiers though

he, as on officer was entitled to a salute and to absolute obedience from those

he commanded. As an officer, he had to carry the extra burden of responsibility

because of his upbringing, education and training. That was the only difference

between an officer and the other soldiers. Second Lieutenants were put under

the charge of senior subalterns who would like them in hand and teach them the

regiment’s customs and mess etiquette. They were supposed to see that the

second Lieutenants behaved themselves properly on all occasions. Once Bertie

Howard took Kiran to task when Kiran did not show interest in playing with

Fredda on a guest night. He told him that it was not a ‘bloody funeral’ and it

was his duty to sparkle at guest nights whether he liked it or not. On another

occasion, Kiran was not allowed by Hampton to sit down and drink a lemon

squash even though he was exhausted after marching miles. Kiran was asked to

go back to the other men marching along with him and inspect their feet. When

he came back after the foot inspection, he was asked again to go and water the

mules. Watering mules took Kiran a full hour and when he walked into the

anteroom of the men for the third time, he began to curse Bull Hampton.

Like all Bum-Warts, Kiran too used to feel angry and bitter in the

beginning about the treatment given to them, but later on, he realized that it,




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“was a process which, despite all its crudeness, had been proved

through the ages to achieve splendid results and had made the

regular officers of the British Army the fine leaders of men they

were.” (80)

Kiran learnt not only ‘to take it’ in the right spirit but also ‘dish it out’. It

is a part of the proud tradition of the Army whose motto is,

“The safety, honour and welfare of your country come first.

Always and every time; The honour, welfare and comfort of the

men you command comes next. Your own care, comfort and safety

come last, always and every time.” (80)

The training under the British officers at the regiment turned Kiran a

product of the Military Academy in Dehradun, into another British officer.

Kiran’s mentality and thought process were so moulded on the pattern of

a British officer that whenever confronted with a tricky problem he would think

only on the lines of British commanding officer. Thus about the inclusion of

tanks in the TEWT for brigade exercise, Kiran thought, if Ropey or Gigrut were

in his place, they would have fitted even an unwanted squadron of tanks in the

most appropriate role and proved their professional competence. Though an

Indian at heart he hero-worshipped the British officer and was wrongly assessed

by fellow officers like Shantilas as a ‘boot licking wog’ as he was preferred to

other Indian officers. Such was Kiran’s devotion to the British Indian army

code that he did not hesitate to check and chastise Colonel Manners when he

questioned the regimental loyalty. Kiran’s experience of serving under good




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officers like Ropey Booker and Spike Ballur was the foundation for his

emergence later as a fine officer. Ropey Booker was his ideal officer who was

‘like a stern and indulgent father of the Victorian era’ and who was always

proud of his ‘officer’ and man relationship and who became with his exemplary

behavior at the end of the Burma campaign a military colossus with the

unmistakable stamp of a great commander. He neither spared his men nor failed

to give them comfort and courage when needed. These characters seem to be

drawn out of Malgonkar’s personal experiences in the British Indian army, and

the Burma campaign where he had come into contact with brilliant British

officers like General Slim and General Wingate of the Chindits.

In the eyes of Kiran, Spike Ballur could be compared to Russel Pasha

who was the Director of Military training- a dedicated infantry officer but he

also worshipped Thimmayya who looked like a General even in his swimming

trunks. For Kiran all the qualities required for a successful career of military

officer were-personality, a strong faith in a personal judgement about any king

of military problem, a good deal of swagger, three rows of ribbons which

include both the DSO and the MC, with and undeniable attribute which makes

his men respect and dread him without hating him. People like Russel Pasha,

Spike Ballur, Ropey Booker and Thimmaya seemed to have outgrown narrow

nationalism and their concern seemed to be the discipline and human problems

of service. For Kiran, an officer like Kamala Kant is fanatic and he does not

subscribe to his views. Kamala Kant’s aversion to the British and his sense of

nationalism are such that he wants the English names of the roads and houses of

regiment changed and everything British destroyed. He does not like dances in

the club because he thinks that they would make their woman immoral. He

considers aping the ways of British as nothing but a legacy of British rule and




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betrayal of our part. He brands Kiran as one who grew with the old order, which

was nothing but slavery for Indians. Kiran, however, maintains a balance

between the old order and his sense of nationalism and such is his loyalty to the

army code that he does not believe in mixing it up with politics. When the

Satpura officers are brought together for the reunion of the Satpuras, Kamala

Kant expresses resentment of having a Britisher instead of an Indian as the chief

guest. In his opinion there are two types of Britishers- swines and bloody

swines. To quote Padmanabahan,

“Malgonkar takes up the moral and ethical problem of mutual

relations of the English and Indians in the colonial Army.” (69)

The character of Kamala Kant is a study in contrast to that of Kiran

Garud. As bigoted and intolerant is the attitude of Kamala Kant so tolerant and

understanding is that of Kiran Garud who maintains a beautiful balance

between the British and Indian social customs.

Malgonkar has been able to portray faithfully the typical Indian army

officer in Kiran Garud who identifies his life so much with the army that he

treats the mess life as his second home and life in the cantonment as part and

parcel of Army life,

“Reveille, retreat, last post even the kitchen call had their own

meaning to each soldier.” (54).

Of course, there is little change in the Army mess since the time of

Kipling. Very rarely Kiran takes liberty with the traditional rules of mess life




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because of his great love for tradition though some of them are meaningless and

few are even against the spirit of his own times. As Indira Bhatt points out,

“Kiran Garud is rooted in military code and nothing can shake him

from these roots.” (46)

He simply follows the established custom of regiment in giving his

officers an account of what he had learnt in the infantry commander’s

conference at Shingargaon after a special dinner. He himself is a considerate

commanding officer. He takes Rawal Singh to task when he finds him not

wearing proper military dress and wearing perfume when in uniform. Kiran

knows every inch of his regiment and has such a sense of identification with it

that he is moved to tears when he has to leave it.

The life at Army Headquarters at Delhi is different from that of Regiment

at Raniwada and it tatters the cosy illusion of the monolithic and glossy officer-

like character of Kiran. At Raniwada he is the chief commanding officer and in

Delhi he is one among others working in the office. In Delhi he has no

reception, no transport, no accommodation. Life at Raniwada as the CO

pampered his ego and increased his self-importance. His experiences at the

Army headquarters deflated he ‘armour proper’ and tech him to lose his identity

in the milling crowds of self-important officers at the Army Headquarters. He

says,

“Blast Army HQ: Here in New Delhi they make you feel like a

Bum - wart all over again.” (82)




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He is unable to get co-operation from Namdar the co-ordinator, for he

himself wanted to become the SQI Border planning. Thus Kiran’s life in the

Directorate of war planning, otherwise known as the ‘Monkey House’, begins

on a note of discordance but he has a friendly guide in Man Singh who

enlightens him about everything relating to the Army Headquarters. Kiran does

not find the work in the Headquarters agreeable either to his taste or mind. As a

matter of fact, there is not such work for him to do. It seems to come in sputts

and a week would pass with only a couple of hours of work per day and then

there would be some flags and everyone would be running in circles. Kiran has

no flair for such work. Pure military concepts have to be sub-ordinated to other

possible more powerful non-viewpoint of those who are responsible for making

policy decisions. Kiran is familiar with the purely military aspects like ground,

distance and fire power which do not always rule the plans. He has been trained

to deal with tactical problems in company, a platoon, or a battalion in attack or

defence, pursuit or withdrawal and, therefore, he feels inadequate to his task in

DWP in the first few weeks. In a way it shows how things are mismanaged and

right things are not put to right use even in the Army.

Kiran has only heard previously about the bullock-cart speed of the

secretariat procedure and he now comes into direct contact with it. The aim of

the elaborate, complex procedure is no doubt a good one, that is, to combine

efficiency with speed but in practice it could achieve only indecision and delay.

It is governed by baboo logic and it is not used to avoid mistakes but to avoid

decisions. When a decision could no longer be delayed, someone else would be

made responsible for taking it. The clerks and the lower officers develop a

negative attitude of finding out reasons why something should not be done

instead of why something should be done. The procedure, is, however most




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inviolable and Kiran is take to task by Namdar for short-circuiting the

procedure for getting necessary maps without a knowledge of Namdar for

preparing an appreciation of the communication requirements of Border Region

Three as instructed by the Brigadier. It is a surprise to Kiran to know how

people like Ramdev would bring in the name of the General to snub any

opposition to any proposal they made and claim equality with their superior to

impress their juniors. It is stated by Man Singh that,

“The Government of India has transformed delay into

science…It’s absurd, that no one can do anything about it, not even

the Chief or PM” (109)

The two wars bring out the active soldier in Kiran. Though Distant Drum

is not a war novel, Malgonkar has given a graphic account of Army in action by

describing picturesquely and effectively the war in Burma and Kashmir. The

whole Burma campaign in 1941 was ill fated from the beginning. In a killing

confusion prevailing in various units, the Indian, British and Burmese troops

kept up the fighting spirit though it was a fact that they could not fight on

courage alone. In the series of defeats, Kiran proved him a much disciplined

soldier and he had a piece of luck too. He along with Hanbir Singh attacked the

enemy in which he killed a man in hand to hand fighting. This is the only

successful attack in that war which gave him a sense of fulfillment, the

crowning achievement of an infantry officer’s life. Compared to the Burma war,

the war in Kashmir front does not seem real, and interminable wasting makes

the active and energetic soldier in Kiran feel uneasy. The war in Kashmir lacks

the feeling of exhilaration that a soldier experienced in Burma. In an objective,

Professional way, a soldier could enjoy a war, like that in Burma, in spite of its




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cruelty and horror and the constant companionship of death. The final test for

commanding officer is to handle a battalion in a battle. The success in the battle

is the only acid test of the capacity of a commanding officer in a battle. The war

in Kashmir left in Kiran a vague sense of sadness. In both the wars he has taken

his job seriously with professional single-mindedness. The character of Kiran

Garud is more or less based on the stereotyped pattern of an officer’s life in the

Indian Army. The experiences of Kiran are very much akin to those to any

Indian officer of that particular period-the transitional phase from the British to

the Indian. His experiences are novel to a civilian who has little knowledge of

life in the Army. What is important is not the faithful representation of army life

but the stage by stage development of the personality and individuality of the

hero. As Indira Bhatt opines,

“Malgonkar’s portrayal of Kiran as an ideal army officer who

comes up against situations calling for compromise of his code of

honour is admirable.” (92)

The Army’s encounter with civilian values is skillfully presented through

this conflict which Kiran experiences.

Malgonkar takes the opportunity of criticizing the red-tapism of the

government and various conflicts, especially between the personal code and the

political power. This is seen in the indictment of Lala Vishnu Saran Dev, the

District Congress President who tries to beat Kiran who in turn holds on his

strict code of Army morals. Kiran’s victory over Vishnu Saran Dev is a fine

contrast to an Army officer in all respects- in dress, speech, appearance, attitude

and ideas. Professor Iyengar very aptly comments,




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“Not that army has not its black sheep too- its bastards and its

boobies. But take it all in all; the Army is a cleaner thing than a

mere political party. At least the Army has ever to be ready to

undergo ordeal by fire; and the ballot box is a much tamer affair

compared to the modern battle field.” (424)

While politely and firmly rejecting the proposal of Vishnu Saran Dev,

Kiran proves to be sincere and senior officer who dislikes pleasing everyone

and would threaten him with complaints to the higher authorities. He is not

Kamala Kant-to mix politics with army affairs. It is only people like who, with

their unbending sense of duty and loyalty to the army, are responsible for the

survival of army in the heart rending partition and sinister political onslaughts

in the period of transition from political slavery to freedom. He rather wished a

transfer from Raniwada to Delhi than to give into the political upstart and to

keep up his self-respect and individuality.

Kiran’s confrontation with Sonal, the father of Bina whom he loves very

much, accentuates the clash between the army and the civilian codes. Sonal, the

senior civil servant, ‘that Napoleon of Red Tapu, the Generalissimo of files’

Secretary in the defence Department,

“Could be an odious and contemptible figure, but one must still

hope that men like Mr. Sonal are the exceptions and not the rule.”

(206)

But Sonal thinks that his primary duty as a father is to see that his

daughter is, adequately possibly sumptuously provided for. He apprehends that




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his daughter Bina, is in love with Kiran and, according to him, a military officer

is not a suitable match for his daughter since they are, these days, ‘notoriously

rootless and impecunious, but he would not have had any objection, had Kiran

and ‘private means’ or a ‘highly paid job’ with one of their foreign firms or

with Tatas. As a father he is justified in making every effort to remove all

hurdles for finalizing a good match for his daughter. But he is not justified by

any moral standard in trying to ‘rain half a dozen careers if necessary’. For

Kiran ‘the army, the profession itself, is a great thing’ although it might be the

meanest life in the eyes of Sonal,

“My career to me is more important than anything else, more

important than your daughter.” (207)

So he sets his career at higher level than his love for Bina. As Williams

opines,

“Kiran’s love affairs with the Army prove to be the strongest

impulse of his life-stronger than love of woman or even of life

itself.” (194)

Even his love for Army is put to test when Ropey Booker offers a good

job to him. Ropey is highly respected by Kiran as an ideal military officer but it

is he who quits the Army and joins ‘ Imperial Metals’, an American concern

which is spread all over the East mining manganese and iron ore and bauxite in

India, tin and copper in Burma and Malaya. Kiran had always considered his

old general as an ideal commander, so much so, that he wishes,




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“Ropey Booker had died in the war, at the height of his glory while

still a colossus.” (250)

He wants to appoint Kiran to head their sales organization in India and

offers two thousand rupees a month in addition to generous expense account.

Ropey is of the opinion that there is no future in Army whereas there is no limit

to business which is more exciting than any other profession. He tries to

convince Kiran saying that he had done his bit of service as a soldier and that he

has liberty to join the army when there is a war again. He explains that there is

no glamour in peacetime soldiering as it is just like any government job.

Kiran’s attitude to Ropey shows his idealistic attitude,

“Well Sir, joining the Army, becoming a soldier, had been an

ambition with me. It has not been merely a means of earning a

living; it has been rather an end in itself. If they kicked me out, of

course, I’d take on any job that I would get; but of my own will, I

don’t want to leave.” (250)

He feels that he is one of the proper grounding for all Army who have

had the advantage of the proper grounding for all Army officers and it is up to

the people like him, the old guard, to mould the new postwar officer just

entering into the Army. They would be failing their duty to young new officers

and as he proudly points out to Ropey,

“We would be failing in our duty to these youngsters and to the

future Army if we were to quit. Well, it is something like these

principles that the Satpuras live by, or try to live up to.” (250)




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Kiran’s rejections of the offer show him as one who has out frown his

ideal, Ropey. This is an indicative of the maturity of Kiran who has outgrown

his ‘Calf love’ and his blind imitation of Ropey. This is an indicative of the

maturity of Kiran who has outgrown his ‘calf love’ and his blink imitation of

Ropey. Imitation is the first step but assertion and self-realization is the final.

No material temptation can shake Kiran from his idealistic adherence to duty.

Just as he could not give up his Army code for the civilian code, Kiran could

not give up his code as a human being, his permanent code of honour and love

to that of the Army. Professor Iyengar opines,

“While the army-civilian clash of codes provides the background

Kiran’s love for Bina and his friendship with Abdul Jamal form the

human foci that holds the action together.” (242)

The friendship between Kiran and Abdul has provided Kiran secular and

free from religious and racial prejudices. In the words of Padmanabhan,

“The story of Kiran and Jamal is one of model friendship

melodiously portrayed,” (102)

Both were together at the military academy and Abdul was a term junior

to Kiran. Kiran helped Abdul several times to steer him clear of the mistakes

which made his senior sub- altern of Adjutant angry with him. But it is that

affair with Medley that made them real friends. Abdul saves Kiran twice-once

in an enquiry made about Bob – Medley’s suicide when Abdul gave evidence

and cleared Kiran from any involvement in the Medley’s affairs; second time at

the time of riots in Delhi in 1947 September, when Kiran was surrounded by a




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Muslim mob and about to be assaulted, Abdul threatened to kill the mob if they

did as much as touch a hair of Kiran. It is the irony of fate that these two friends

who together participated in the Burma campaign were separated by partition

and poised to fight against each other. But his debt to Abdul is only a private

debt as there is no room in the soldier’s code to his private loyalty or debt to

Abdul. When they helped the victims of riots in Delhi they had no awareness of

their different religions. The meeting of two friends, Kiran and Abdul, after the

ceasefire of 21st December 1949 under the bushy topped tree in ‘no man’s land’

area to celebrate New Year, is not purely impulsive but a reminiscence of the

friendship between them. According to a reviewer in the ‘Times Literary

supplement’ this meeting will remain unique in military literature as a symbol

of the human element in the face of a national confrontation between two

opposite communities but the loyalties of the two friends remain unruptured. Of

course, they did not attach much importance to their meeting in the beginning

but realized subsequently the folly of displaying emotion in such a situation. To

their superiors this was a serious irregularity on Kiran’s part though not a crime,

“A soldier could not remain friendly with someone who had now

become an enemy.” (240)

Kiran could not talk with his friend frankly which indicated that his

relationship with Abdul is subjected to new values. As Padmanabhan says,

“Malgonkar has strikingly portrayed the soul - stirring conflict in

the minds of two soldier friends whose friendship is going to be

subjected to new values exerted over them with confronted

limitations.” (103)




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But this confrontation finally results in shifting Kiran to the 4th Satpuras

which enables him to finalize his family affairs asking Bina to accompany him

to Raniwada where they could enjoy every evening, hearing the drums

sounding in the distance.

Kiran’s love for Bina may be described more romantic than sentimental.

Bina loves him only for his martial qualities. When he tells her about his

rejection of an attractive and most remunerative job offered by Ropey, she feels

happy and all the more admired him for it. Kiran does not allow his love for

Bina to ride roughed over him though he could not avoid the thought of Bina

from his mind even in the Kashmir front. But I it is always subordinated to his

sense of duty and devotion to Army. Bina’s love is also pure and is not tempted

by the shining gloss of money and power of Arvind Mathur in whose company

Kiran with his military background finds it difficult to feel at home.

Thematically, Malgonkar presents two aspects in the novel ‘the Indo-

British relationship at a personal level’, and ‘the education of initiation of Kiran

Garud’. As a matter of fact through the life of Kiran Garud, ‘officer and

gentleman’, the novelist has tried to give in Distant Drum in the words of GS

Amur,

“a symbolic presentation of Indian encounter with the British

Army and its value for India.” (122)

The novelist is overtly appreciative of the British morality imparted to

the Indians through public schools. Malgonkar’s treatment of personal

relationships between the British and Indian officers is one of the most




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interesting aspects of the book. He shows nothing of the skepticism that EM

Forster has presented in his A Passage to India (1924) about the possibility of

genuine friendship between Britishers and Indians. EM Forster’s concluding

comment in his novel was: “No, not yet “and the sky said,” No, not here”.

Rudeness, wickedness, arrogance, insensitivity of the kind shown by Mrs.

Turton or by Ronny Heaslop is not seen Malgonkar’s British officers. All of

them, except Colonel Manners, show friendliness, courtesy and respect for their

Indian colleagues. Indians too, except Colonel Kamala Kant, show friendliness,

courtesy and respect for their British colleagues; they hold them in high esteem.

Despite Colonel Manners and Colonel Kamala Kant, anti-British feeling and

anti-Indian feeling at a time when Indians were struggling to wrest freedom

from their British rulers were kept at the minimum. Malgonkar’s main purpose

was to celebrate Indian ‘Army life; a life without animosity and bitterness

between the rulers and the ruled. Indians and Britishers emerge from

Malgonkar’s novel as genuine friends, friends capable of sacrifice and love for

one another.

Though Malgonkar’s characters are very effective, they appear as types

the prototypes of officers and other ranks in the Army. His close association

with the Army life helped him to create a special dialect which is expressive of

the social life and philosophy of service officers.

Though Distant Drum has been described as a symbolic presentation of

the Indian characters with the British in the Army and its value to India, it is

mainly a story of self-realization - an individual’s growing awareness of himself

and his surroundings and the development of an assertive and practical

philosophy of life. The novel is more a record of the maturing growth of hero,




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Kiran Garud, than a simple documentary of life. It is relevant and important to

analyze the steady and gradual growth of Kiran from an inexperienced, shy and

awkward second lieutenant to a self- possessed and devoted commanding

officer of a regiment, a man who tries to live up to the code of ‘come on

Jawans, Tigers don’t live forever’. In Kiran, Malgonkar manages to show a

finished soldier and a man who, through the headway of life and experience, is

initiated in to realization of life. Thus Distant Drum can be considered not just

as an authentic picture of Army life or a conflict between the British tradition

and the Indian ideals but as a story of self-realization of the hero. Besides the

important theme of Army life and Indo-British relationship, the most relevant

one is that of initiation and the growing up of Kiran Garud, the hero. As to

quote James Y Dayanand,

“We follow the hero through his experiences, his attempts to prove

himself. This notion of maturing growth then can only occur

through encounter with experience is one of Malgonkar’s primary

themes.” (44)

It is also not too far-fetched to read a personal note, an auto-biographical

element in the novel. Having been in the Army, Malgonkar could give a very

authentic and personal account of army life with the required emphasis on the

growth and development of the central figure - the character of Kiran Garud-

who from a shy second lieutenant develops into an officer, who stands for

certain positive values in life and achieves a sense of self-realization and

success.

Kiran stands for all the values of the British Army code. The novel

presents on one level the Indian encounter with the British and also with the




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Indian officers brought up on the British Army life style and who have accepted

the British Army code. Kiran is more British than the British themselves. To

him, the army, the profession itself is the greatest thing and he cannot transgress

its code of honour. He is so well adjusted to this approach of life that he does

not even give us the impression that he faces any serious challenge-the Army

has trained him superbly and he never seems to consider the possibility of any

challenge. In the words of GS Amur,

“The Army code of honour provides him with enough stock

responses to see him through the minor crisis.” (48)

Distant Drum was dismissed as an ‘unblinking anglo-philia’, a desi

Bhowani Junction’. The comparison with Bhowani Junction appears to be not

well-founded as it relies heavily on thin fabric of common historical

background. KR Srinivasa Iyengar is emphatic in his remarks about the

comparison,

“Malgonkar is not an indigenous John Masters; nor is Distant

Drum an Indo-Anglian variation of the Anglo-Indian Bhowani

Junction. There is, on the contrary, an authentic quality about

Malgonkar and his novel that can stand scruting without reference

to the Masters’ recipe.” (425)

The experiences of Army life depicted in the novel however have a stamp

of originality, and warrant no extraneous comparisons. As HM Williams opines,




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“The story told in Distant Drum is indeed an unusual one

compared to the average Indo-English novel of the period.’ (194)

CL Proudfoot is right when he praises, “the golden thread of

authenticity” that runs through the novel with never a false note.

Far from being an “unblinking Angli-philia”, a desi Bhowani Junction,

Distant Drum is the novel of “unusual distinction” having

“racy but rather indulgent account of the Indian Army from an

officer’s point of view.” (18)

The novel recaptures, “the atmosphere of the earlier days faithfully and

right through the whole book runs the golden thread of authenticity with never a

false note.” In the texture of the basic story of a regiment that maintains the

equanimity in spite of crushing defeats and glorious victories, the author with

his masterly touch and sensitive handling, has successfully recaptured in his

book the spirit of Indian soldiers, their shortcomings, their depressions, and

their singular devotion and valour in the wake of crisis. The rigours of drill,

parade, life in barracks are not without some of the redeeming features which

add zest and spice to life and enchant the other-wise drab, humdrum existence.

It is down-to-earth real story entirely engrossing and absorbing a novel

throbbing and pulsating with sensitivity, written in fascinating and sparkling

prose.




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WORKS CITED

Amur, GS. Manohar Malgonkar - A Monograph. New Delhi: Arnold

Heinemann. 1973. Print.

Agarwal, BR and MP Sinha. Major Trends in the Post - Independence Indian

English Fiction. New Delhi: Atlantic Publishers and Distributors. 2003.

Print.

Bhatt, Indira. Manohar Malgonkar - The Novelist. New Delhi: Creative

Publishers.1992. Print.

Dayanand, Y James. Manohar Malgonkar. New York: Twayne Publishers.

1974. Print.

Forster, EM. A Passage to India. Harmodsworth: Penguin Books. 1924. Print.

Iyengar, KRS. Indian Writing in English. 2nd ed. Bombay: Asia Publishing

House. 1973. Print.

Malgonkar, Manohar. Distant Drum. Delhi: Hind Pocket Books. 1960. Print.




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Padmanabhan, A. The Fictional World of Manohar Malgonkar. New Delhi:

Atlantic Publishers and Distributors. 2002. Print.

Proudfoot, CL. Letter to the author. Nov 1962.

Sharma, AK. The Novels of Manohar Malgonkar: A Study. Delhi. BR

Publishing House. 1995. Print.

Times Literary Supplement. May 12, 1961.

Walsh, William. The Commonwealth Literature. OUP. 1973. Print.

Williams, HM. “The Doomed Hero in the Fiction of Khushwant Singh and

Manohar Malgonkar.”Explorations in Modern Indo-English Fiction.

Studies in Modern Indian Fiction in English. New Delhi: Bahri

Publications Private Limited. Print.




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(2) COMBAT OF SHADOWS:

REFLECTIONS OF A HUMAN’S DESIRE AND AVERSION

Combat of Shadows, Malgonkar’s second novel, published in 1962 is a

shilling, authentic and highly exciting novel- telling the fascinating story of

Henry Winton and his colleagues, officers in the Assam tea estates who are

driven into the ruthless twilight world of high society romance, adventure and

lust. Against the background of the British officers and the Indian coolies and

politicians working for the welfare of the labour, the two shadows of desire and

aversion have been shown to be combating with each other to take possession

of the man’s soul. The title and epigraph are from ‘The Bhagwad Gita,

“Desire and aversion are two opposite shadows. Those who allow

themselves to be overcome by their struggle cannot rise to

knowledge of reality.” (Quoted from Singh ‘Indian Novel in

English’ 217)

The scene in the Assam tea gardens is at once reminiscent of the one in

Mulk Raj Anand’s Two Leaves and a Bud, but the time is almost twenty years

later when mankind was fighting a second World-War, and personal

animosities, petty jealousies and small considerations of gain and loss were

ruling the minds and impeding the understanding of problems on human level.

It is a more ambitious and integrated novel than Malgonkar’s first novel. It too

has a double theme. Amur opines,

“On personal level, it is a study in moral decay and death, on the

public level, a statement on racial encounter.” (61)




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If Distant Drum is the account of an individual’s success, the

development of noble and heroic qualities, Combat of Shadows is a striking and

true painting of an individual failure and its final realization in the life of a

coward. GS Amur has described the novel as one that,

“tells the story of Englishman’s moral disintegration and death in

the Indian soil” (60)

In Combat of Shadows, Malgonkar endeavours to bring out in brilliant

colours the east-west collision distinctly, by creating a typical English character

of colonial vintage in Henry Winton, the central figure of the novel. Henry

Winton is one such character, who belonging to the ruling race of all white

pucca sahib, considers himself born to boss over the natives. Excessively vain

and snobbish, he suffers from many weaknesses that the flesh is heir to: pride,

jealousy, lack of selfishness, compassion etc. He puts on a strong exterior in the

beginning but miserably fails at the end owing to the racial prejudice, orthodox

thinking and the lack of understanding of complex human affairs.

The action of the novel is set at the tea gardens in the north-eastern

province of Assam and novel covers a period from 1938-40, the time when the

whole was engaged in a conflagration of the magnitude history had never

before witnessed. What was going on in Assam on a smaller scale was actually

being enacted on a larger scale when mankind was fighting a second World-

War. Personal animosities, petty jealousies and small considerations of gain and

loss rule even the biggest minds, and prove obstacles in understanding the

problems that concern others.




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The novel is very much in the tradition of Kipling, Forster, Paul Scott,

and Ruth Prawer Jhabvala who have all tried to portray the Englishman, the

‘Sahib’ in India. While they have more or less, concentrated on the same

problem of imperialism in India and their inability to master the vast problems

of the land they ruled, Malgonkar has focused on the single failure and the

degenerating defeat in the life of his main character in the novel, Henry Winton.

As Kai Nicholson opines,

“Neither Kipling nor EM Forster has managed to portray the world

of isolation with similar intensity,” (210)

It is quite obvious that the plot of the novel evolves from two themes -

racial encounter and the hero’s moral decay and death. The various incidents in

the novel eventually lead up to the final point, the hero’s realization of the

moment of truth. GS Amur praises the novel as

“a saga of the moral disintegration of a European on a foreign

soil”. (76)

Amur Praises the skillful treatment of the theme which he believes

compels comparison with Conrad. Malgonkar’s narrative technique in this

novel shows competence and confident ease. His creative achievement is

evident in shaping his personal experiences with the British and the Anglo –

Indian into validly realized fiction. Srinivasa Iyengar aptly points out that the

novel’s success lies in its ‘carefully plotting and the atmospheres.’ (428) Asnani

finds the interest of the book in




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“its high pitched emotional drama which intensifies its narrative

interest.” (82)

Besides its symmetry of form, the poignant human relations depicted in

the lives of Henry Winton, Ruby Miranda and Jean reveal Malgonkar’s great

depth of understanding.

The story of the Combat of Shadows has two stages. The first part

“Prelude to Home Leave”, tells of the establishing of relationship between

Winton and the Indians. This section also deals with Winton’s special

relationship with Ruby Miranda. Another episode that brings Britishers and

Indians together, revealing their fears and prejudices, is the hunting of one-

tusked elephant. The second part is primarily concerned with Winton’s personal

relationship and especially with the dark places in the human heart which make

for unhappiness and confusion not only among individuals but also among races

and nations. In this part is revealed Winton’s moral degeneration-culminating in

his lonely death in the game cottage abandoned by Britishers, Indians and

Anglo-Indians.

Henry Winton is a junior manager of silent hill, a tea garden complete

with a factory of the Brindan tea company. Somewhat cut off from the world,

silent hill is forty-two miles from Chinar, the headquarters of the tea-district

where the resident directors of the companies live. British officers often go to

Chinar because the centre of Chinar is Highlands Club; part hotel, and part

sports club, a place for the normal relaxation of an English way of life - boating,

trout-fishing, cricket, golf, tennis, squash, clay pigeon, shooting and dancing.

Winton, nearly thirty years old, has put in five years of service and is still an




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eligible bachelor. He has begun to like his way of life and has become used to

the Highlands Club, accepting its values without questions and sharing its

taboos. At the Brindian Tea Company, Winton’s immediate boss is captain

Cockburn, the senior manager. Sir Jeffrey Dart, the resident director of Chinar,

is the highest ranking tea - man in the district. Sir Jeffrey and Lady Dart invite

Winton to spend an evening with them during the Chinar week. On their way to

Chinar, Cockburn and Winton stop at Tinapur because the road was blocked by

a landslide. At the railway station at Tinapur they attend a gala night where they

meet Ruby Miranda, an attractive Indo-Anglian girl. Winton is struck by her

“lush overflowing loneliness”. (18)

Cockburn suggests that Winton should hire her for his tea-garden and

make her his mistress

“to stop you from going crazy in that antiseptic Bungalow of

yours.” (19)

Cockburn and Winton proceed to Miss Jean Walters, daughter of Colonel

and Mrs. Walters. Winton admires the

“slender and golden limbed, long legged, cherry lipped, blue- eyed

and golden- haired beauty. “(40)

At Sir Jeffery Dart’s home, Barloe, the district commissioner, asks

Winton to take on one-tusked Tista, a rogue elephant which had killed four

villagers. Winton had shot four elephants before and was considered a good




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hunter. From this point on Ruby, Jean and the elephant play a vital role in the

life of Henry Winton in his downward drift toward moral degeneration. Henry

falls in love with Jean Walters who often takes the initiative and encourages

him to love her. They spend evenings together – even a night, in the same

cottage, talking in whispers and catching each other’s hand tightly,

“Would you like to kiss me?”

“Ye-ess”

“Why don’t you.” (63)

Henry kissed her. He had known what to except, and yet it had made him

gasp. He felt almost embarrassed by its lingering, searching intimacy.

And yet Jean turns down Henry’s proposal of marriage a few weeks later.

This disappointment makes Henry turn to Ruby Miranda. He offers her a job in

a Silent Hill school to bring her closer to him. He makes her the head-teacher,

superseding Sarkar, his present school teacher, who had matriculated at

Calcutta University. Ruby herself had received very little schooling. Her

appointment brought protest from Jugal Kishore, the labour leader. When Ruby

arrives in Silent Hill, Henry finds it difficult to keep his thoughts away from

her, dreams of her physical charms, and looks forward to the nearness of her

body. He longs for her, picturing her,

“coming in to his bungalow in this evening, ultimately setting up a

beautiful relationship like that of a fictional French mistress: the

perfect efficient school mistress during office hours, the delicious

wanton companion of non duty hours.” (76)




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Ruby begins to come to the bungalow soon after dinner, slipping through

the pantry-entrance.

District Commissioner Barloe’s telegram that the one- tusked rogue

elephant has shown up again forces Henry to make plans to set out with his

shikari or tracker, Kistulal. He was embarking on a heady adventure, such as

comes to a hunter once in a life time. The farmed one tusker had become

something of a god to the villagers though it was known to be diabolically

cunning and revengeful. Kistulal, the shikari, had no pity for the animals. He

was proud of his profession. Unlike the villagers he was not afraid of the

elephant – god. It was his business to track an animal down and to get his

hunter within the range of a shot. He had been a shikari all his conscious life

and understood the jungle better than anyone else. Henry calls Kistulal,

“by far the best tracker in Assam ……… this fellow’s already

lame, one leg mauled by a bear; but he is still the best damned

tracker in the province.” (169)

Henry and Kistulal set out at crack of dawn. The elephant’s tracks were

already an over day old, and so they did not follow its track but decided to

move merely in the direction of the tracks. Henry carries his favorite gun, his

four-sixty-five double barreled gun and a box of twenty cartridges; Kistulal

carries no gun, late in the afternoon they reach comes over Kistulal’s face; his

perpetual grin disappears. The elephant had come unhesitatingly into the field,

huge and gray, wiggling the end of its trunk. Then it located the human scent

and charged. Henry, though nervous, raises his rifle, aiming it at the root of the

uplifted trunk, and presses the trigger but hears nothing but the cold snap of the




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hammer pin instead of the roar of the shell going off. He presses the trigger a

second time and hears another dead click. He remembered later loading two

more cartridges with the elephant barely twenty yards away. They, too, did not

work. He ran wildly with panic in his heart. Kistulal in the meanwhile was

crushed to death, stamped into the ground in a mess of mud and blood. After

walking miles and miles, Henry reached Cockburn’s bungalow, wet,

disheveled, numb with cold and fear. Cockburn gives him some hot grog and

puts him to bed. Next morning Cockburn sent one of his servants to collect the

dud cartridges that were dropped in the paddy field. Cockburn advises Henry to

make up a story rather than tell the truth,

“Well, it won’t do you a bit of good as a hunter; and it won’t do

you any good as a man – a career man, they’ll always say

damaging things; they’ll even say you got scared at the last

moment and ran away. Even the most sympathetic will always say

that you ere careless in not testing your cartridges before you went

out shooting an elephant, a known rogue – a killer.” (88-89)

The servant brought back only one of the two dud cartridges; he could

not find the other in the mingled mess of flesh and blood. Cockburn and Henry

agree to make up the following story: Henry was not at the scene of the accident

but two hundred yards away from the edge of the filed. Kistulal crossed the

field where the elephant caught him and killed him. Henry only managed to

wound the elephant with one of the cartridges. He did not follow him up and

finish him off because he wanted to report his shikari’s death. He missed his

way coming back in the dark.




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Everybody believes Henry’s story but he finds himself often in the grip

of a heady depression. Ruby Miranda visits him secretly at night and makes him

happy with her,

“flawless olive skin and counters of the harem favourite.” (97)

During one of her visits, Ruby tells Henry of her involvement with Eddie

Trevor. Eddie is in love with her and wants to marry her as soon as he gets a

job. Eddie had obtained the job of chief stockman when Jugal Kishore resigned.

His appointment led to a wave of protest from labour leaders who served a

formal notice of their intention to strike. Eddie, Henry’s rival for Ruby’s

favours, has also become the cause of a threatened strike. The strikers keep

shouting:

We want!

Jus - Tice!

Mister Trevor!

Never, never!

Winton Sahib!

Chale Jao (137)

Henry handled the tricky situation with tact and understanding; the

workers returned to work because they were afraid of the police firing. Henry,

no doubt averted the strike but the crises makes him ask for home leave

immediately.




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At the beginning of Part-II, ‘Return from Home Leave’, Henry returns

from England after eight months of leave. He is married to Jean Walters. Ruby

is given the job of housekeeper at the Highlands club. She was planning to get

married to Eddie Trevor, who was recommended for a announced before he

goes up for his training. But now at the Silent Hill, Eddie and Jean renew their

past friendship and friendship gradually turns in to sexual passion. Bitterness

and anger rise within Henry when Gauri points out Eddie and Jean at Wallach’s

Folly, lying side by side on a small blue rug spread under the branches of a tree,

“He could not bear to see what he saw, and yet he went on looking

as if spell bound; Just as he had gone on looking at the elephant

tramping down Kistulal. And what he saw now for more horrible

than the death of his Shikari ……, He felt a sudden, nervous shiver

run down his body.” (252)

At this time the elephant, the one tusker that had killed Kistulal, was

reported to be in the valley. Henry is once again asked to go after the rogue

elephant even though he does not like to do so now. Oscillating between the

extremes of confidence and despair he prepares himself for the hunting trip –

tests a box of fresh cartridges, checks his rifle. On the day, he finally locates it,

he has an accident at Wallach’s Folly and twists his ankle, and therefore cannot

walk to the jungle to shoot the elephant. Eddie Trevor wants to finish the Job.

He asks Henry to lend him his four-sixty-five and cartridges. Henry is perfectly

willing to let Eddie shoot the one-tusker,

“look, it you really want to go, I wouldn’t mind letting you have

my rifle and telling you exactly where he is going to be.”




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Oh, Mr. Winton! I shall be most grateful. Yes, I really do want to

go.” (260)

Henry plans Eddie’s murder carefully. The cards were falling just right.

He gives Eddie his big elephant gun and a box of cartridges, the very box from

which the faulty cartridges were taken earlier. The murder is full proof. Eddie

goes out for hunting with Pashuati and never comes back. He is killed by the

elephant, his body trampled and broken and gored. Sir Jeffrey later kills the

one-tusker with his own gun and cartridges. Henry is left alone; Jean leaves him

to live with her aunt at Poona. The Army does not accept him because of his

broken ankle. Ruby Miranda once again becomes Henry’s obsessions. He wants

to marry her, not simply to keep her as a mistress. When Sir Jeffrey asks Henry

to go up to the game cottage and to find out what is wrong with its artificial

moon, he thinks of the visit as an opportunity to invite Ruby Miranda to the

game cottage for a reunion. That is where he would ask her to be his wife.

Pashupati helped him to climb up the steps of the cottage. Henry asked

him to go to Miranda and bring back dinner for two. It was pitching dark. The

artificial moon blinks on and off for several seconds before it comes on.

Something was terribly wrong with it. Henry lies down after switching the

moon off and waits for Ruby Miranda and dinner. Hours later the forest was on

fire. A cold fear runs through him when he discovers even the ladder to climb

down is gone. Some one pulls out a fuse from the electric box and the artificial

moon goes out. There was a basket at the end of a rope. He pulls it up and peers

into it. It contains the shell of his four-sixty-five rifle and the sapphire and gold

ear clips he had given to Ruby Miranda,




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“And that ……. was the moment of truth…. the smell of paraffin

was strong in his nostrils, and the flames were leaping all about

him.” (289)

Sir Jeffrey, Ruby Miranda and Pashupati had planned Henry’s murder

perfectly just as he had planned Eddie’s earlier.

In this way, the story of Henry Winton forms the center and core of the

novel. He, a British tea-estate manager, is determined to make a success of his

job. It is through his character that Malgonkar has highlighted the relationship

between the Britishers and Indians and Anglo-Indians. There is deep seated fear

of failure in the nature of Henry Winton as very early in the life with the death

of his father he had experienced an economic crisis and had to give up all his

ambitions about his higher education, Oxford and Rugger. Later, as a salesman

in the used car business he ended up as a colossal figure. In the tea garden in

Assam, he was…

“desperately trying to repair the ravages ten thousand miles away

from the scene of his root, determined to make a success of himself

at all costs, living up to an altogether new sense of values aimed

exclusively at success.” (55)

Thus the motto uppermost in his mind, a philosophy which he wanted to

live up to is ‘this is no place for failures.’ However, the irony is that at the very

moment that he decided and concluded that,




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“He, Henry Winton, has chosen this life, and he was making a

success of it.” (6)

The life of Winton can be assessed on two levels, the material and

spiritual. What is success or failure is a moot point. It depends on the attitude of

the individual and his background. Considering him from the material side, he

is most probably a success where his predecessor Wallach had been a failure.

He has lived up to the reputation of a public school boy and “Pucca” Sahib and

made his career as a manager to the tea garden a success. Every forward step in

his material prosperity is a retrograde step in his spiritual life. The “Chinnar

Week” festival is yet another incident because this is where he saw Eddie

Trevor, the half-caste “Chi-Chi” breed he was so contemptuous of, who in the

end is going to be his potential rival. In the encounter between Eddie Trevor,

Ruby Miranda and Henry Winton, the author shows not only the implications of

the tragic racial situation but also the human situations of desires, prejudices,

pride and failure. If his is the pattern with the Anglo-Indians, there is the

parallel pattern with Gauri, Kistulal and Henry Winton where there is the

human situation of aversion, suspicion, contempt and failure. Thus Eddie

Trevor, the Anglo-Indian and Kistulal, the Indian are symbols of success in the

spiritual and material fields whereas Henry Winton who has the highbrow

attitude towards life ends up as a grand fiasco.

The episode of Henry’s cowardice and corruption reminds us of George

Orwell’s celebrated essay “On Shooting an Elephant” (1936) in which the real

nature of imperialism – the real motives for which despotic government act is

discussed. Henry’s fear of failure-his own and thereby the Whiteman’s failure is

stronger than his sense of guilt. This incident of elephant-shooting haunts him




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all his life- it becomes a sort of symbol, for the wounded animal like an insulted

Indian,

“is a deadly and cunning adversary, equally determined to seek

him out and destroy him.” (237)

The elephant also symbolizes the powerful destiny that is out to destroy

Henry. Henry’s failure to kill the elephant signifies, as SC Harrex puts it,

“his inability to come to terms with India.” (241)

If it were not for the false notion of race superiority Henry would have

owned his failure and could have saved his soul. His confrontation with the one

tusked elephant resulting in the defeat and failure is character – fate

confrontation and SC Harrex compares it to a

“kind of Lord situation in Conrad.” (24)

With Malgonkar fate is more powerful, since it is a one-tusked elephant-

Lord Ganesh, Indian itself that the Britishers have to face and then run away

from. Malgonkar makes Jugal Kishore say this very clearly,

“You’ll be running very soon, all you English men”. (113)

Malgonkar brings out here in this struggle between two individuals, the

conflict between the ruler and the ruled – the black or brown and the white and

it is significant that the period of history that is depicted in the novel is about




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1938 to 1940 when India’s freedom struggle was at its peak. To quote

Padmanabhan,

“Like Ronny Heaslop in A Passage relationships between

the English and the Indians, the only bond that he conceives is that

of the ruler and the ruled.” (59)

Kistulal’s death is, however, an accident- something which Henry

Winton has not expected, but which he has to cover up for his own survival. It

may also be considered a result of the failure of Henry Winton as a hunter

because it is his duty to check up arms and ammunitions before venturing on

the expedition. The death of Eddie, on the other hand, is a cold murder,

premeditated and preplanned - the act of a coward, a man who knew that he was

a failure when compared to Eddie Trevor. It is his sense of inadequacy and

failure both with Ruby and Jean that makes him wish to destroy Eddie Trevor.

He fails not only in the personal relations but also as a hunter. He fails

miserably to hunt the elephant and he could not do anything to get rid of the

python. Victory and triumph are on the side of Eddie as he managed to kill the

Python and would have succeeded in killing the elephant also, had not Henry

deliberately given him dummy cartridges. At every stage he is defeated and

Eddie could only with a minimum effort, gain a victory over him.

When Jugal Kishore leaves and substitute has to be appointed, Henry is

so prejudiced against Eddie that he turns down the appointment. He is,

however, made to employ him by the express orders of Sudden - a humiliation

which for Henry is difficult to accept. Racial prejudices are made to figure, to a

large extent, in Henry’s involvement with Eddie. It is because Eddie is an




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Anglo-Indian that Henry is contemptuous and callous in his attitude. This racial

prejudice also figures largely in his affair with Ruby. The story of Henry’s

relationship with Ruby is one of betrayal,

“that was how he remembered Ruby Miranda; and that was the

woman he now longed with all his being to get back to; the rare

mixture of submissiveness and surrender to oriental womanhood

with the freedom and gaiety of the west, and of course the breath –

taking figure and good looks and colouring which had been a gift

of both the east and the west.” (116)

Malgonkar’s treatment of Indo-British relationship offers a contrast to

Forster’s ‘A passage to India’. Forster, taking up the question of friendship

between the Indians and Englishmen, answers in the negative sense how the

two races were interlocked in political affairs. So in Combat of Shadows the

British are represented as ‘Sun-dried bureaucrats’ with a wide social gulf

between them and the Indians. Henry, like Ronny, believes that the British are

not to behave pleasantly to the Indians. Both are the products of the public

school system which Sahane observes,

“Created among good qualities, narrowness and a feeling of

superiority to make them blind to the value of personal

relationship.” (16)

Henry is living complacently in a “Whiteman’s world carried away by a

feeling of success and the bubble of his vanity is pricked by Ruby Miranda’s

confessions. The thought of a man like Eddie -raw, half-caste youth - as his




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rival, is intolerable to him. And the realization of failure becomes worse when

Jean, his English wife, prefers Eddie to him and finally announces that she

would like to marry Eddie. Henry has rejected the idea of marriage with Ruby

because she is an Anglo-Indian but Jean wants to leave him and marry a half

caste. This is an insult that is too hard to bear as it throws up the inherent

inveterate hatred of the ‘Colour Snob’, the ‘White Sahib’ Henry Winton. The

life of the Anglo-Indians has been dealt with some length in the novel by

Malgonkar with a sympathy and understanding which we do not find in the

writings of novelists like John Masters and Kipling.

The novel throws sufficient light on the living conditions, aspirations,

attitude and activities of Anglo-Indians and their role in the novel is important.

The railway institute at Tinapur is the centre of the life and activities of the

Anglo-Indians. There is all buzz and noise of a typical institute which has

provision for the young people to play badminton in the central hall and for the

elders to play bridge bezique, and rummy at table placed on the stage. Every

Saturday night the younger people dance while the elders sit on chairs and

watch. Galas are held once a month when the band plays till late in the night.

For those who do not dance there are games like housie and escaido and on a

gala night a rum bar is run in one of the back rooms though they do not possess

a license for it. The members of the Tinapur Railway Institute can dance any

dance from the hula to belly dance with great verve, zest, abandon and skill.

The whole thing reminds Henry of something cheap and noisy,

something unrefined and something like the romping of drunken sailors with

blind date girls in water from joints. Gala is something like ‘Chichi’ and ‘honky

tonk’ the currency of pidgin English. Anglo-Indian accent and speech are




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different from that of a Pucca-Sahib. It is true that Ango-Indians have great

difficulty with ‘th’ sound; most of them pronounce it as though it were soft ‘t’.

But Eddie is an exception to it. Of course, it is not an insurmountable linguistic

hurdle as Ruby, with great and hard labour, disproves it. Henry expresses his

horror and disgust of the social life of the Anglo-Indians at the Institute,

“The atmosphere; you could have cut it with a knife; the accent

and the chalk-powder and the perfume….. Anglo Indian at Play….

Ugh” (181).

Because of his prejudice he is not able to appreciate the beauty of Ruby.

While Cockburn, another Pucca Sahib, admires the girls in the Railway

Institute. The Anglo-Indians keep up appearances and try to hide their poverty

as well as their genealogy. They think of themselves as whole English and try to

seek living kinship with the west and desperately struggle against separation

from the sahibs and further assimilation with the Indians. Kai Nicholsan opines,

“Mr. Malgonkar has, at least, described the inner conflicts of the

Eurasian and in Ruby’s ardent with to become and live as an

English woman, the reader is in a position to notice a spark of

sympathy expressed by the novelist.” (237)

The racial conflict is brought out very prominently in Henry’s

confrontation with Ruby and Eddie on the one hand, Jugal Kishore and Gauri

on the other. Henry is a failure with the Anglo-Indians and he also fails with

Indians. Henry is a failure withy the Anglo-Indians and he also fails with

Indians. Malgonkar, however, stresses on the point that Henry’s failure is due to




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the fact that he insults the feeling of a woman. The novel starts with the insult

of Gauri followed by his betrayal and rejection of Ruby’s love and Jeans

womanhood. It is significant that both Ruby and Gauri threaten to kill him in

order to take their revenge on him. During the labour strike led by Gauri and

her brother, Henry hits her brother black and blue. She gets so angry that she

looks like a hooded cobra about to strike or ‘an outraged temple goddess’ and

hisses;

“I shall kill you for this, you white monster; I shall kill you.” (139)

For this, she is also beaten in the presence of the coolies. On another

occasion, when Henry is ready to strike her before she forces him to follow her

to Wallach’s Folly, Gauri deals a blow at his manliness within the most hard

hitting, bitter and ironical terms,

“Yes, that’s all you can do, hit a woman. That’s all your

Englishman is capable of - hitting woman, when they are

themselves being hit by the Germans and their own women - folk!

Then they come here and take it out on the Indians - Indian women

and children – and think how very brave they are.” (250)

The very name Gauri is symbolical of feminine strength and power in

Hindu mythology and it seems that the novelist chooses the name with a

purpose. Both Gauri and Ruby play a very important role in the destruction of

Henry. It is also relevant to mention that Henry’s downfall starts with the

elephant hunt. The locals treat the elephant as Lord Ganesh. Henry has come

into conflict with it. In the first encounter he is able to save himself by




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sacrificing Kistulal and the second time it appears again as it persuades him to

take vengeance. It is the instrument of fate, which causes Henry’s tragedy. The

first encounter renders him morally corrupt and the second encounter proves

him to be a prefect villain. But at the times there is a feeling that the character

of Henry is not entirely that of a scoundrel. His participation and involvement

in certain incidents is something beyond his control. The death of Kistulal is

genuine accident beyond his control but it leaves him with a sense of guilt and

this is increased when with the help of Cockburn he distorts the incident and

gives it a different colouring. This is done mainly for survival, as he knows that

the truth would unleash a whole world of hostility against him. Eddie Trevor’s

death, however, is deliberated and calculated. If Kistulal’s death is the

beginning, Eddie Trevor’s death is the end. The process of moral degradation is

complete and where Henry thinks that he has succeeded, he has really failed. By

death, Eddie became a martyr and won a victory over Henry who is proved to

be a criminal. Henry’s greatest failure is that he has degraded human values.

The quality of being human and understanding one’s fellow creatures - be they

Indians, Anglo-Indians, or English is more important than any material success.

Henry is the instrument of his own nemesis and fate like the characters of

Conrad and some of his own actions hasten him to his end. Malgonkar stressed

upon Henry’s relation with Ruby who is prepared to sacrifice her love for her

childhood friend, Eddie and live at Silent Hill and consent to become the

mistress of a man like Henry, because he is her ‘passport’ to the dream world of

an English lady. She does everything he wants and all the same, she is unable to

make him propose to her. Henry remains an enigma to her. In the privacy of

green room his behavior is




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“Possessive, demanding and at the same time willing to abandon

himself completely to her, readily giving into her own passion.”

(108)

But his behaviour outside is excessively cool and formal. She is never

successful in putting Eddie out of her mind and in this respect she resembles

Victoria in “Bhowani Junction” who also could not remove Patrick from her

mind even she moved freely with savage and tried to become a Sikh. But she

has a ray of hope when Henry asks her about her family and prays,

“Oh God, Please, please make him fall in love with me; please,

please make him propose to me.” (109)

Henry however, spurns her love. It is not because he did not reciprocate

it, not even because it is not the love of a white woman, as Jean taunted him,

but through fear, because Sudden warned him not to get involved with her, fear

that his career would have ended if he had carried on as he was doing. In their

concern about their careers both Kiran Garud of Distant Drum and Henry

Winton are alike but in their endeavours to stick to it they are unlike each other.

Henry, however, realizes the mistake he has committed in the case of Ruby

when he thinks calmly of the past after Jean leaves him. It is then that he clearly

comprehends how much Ruby has sacrificed for his sake offering to give up her

world for his, asking so little giving so much. It is he who has spurned, insulted

and doubted her and her love.

Henry’s main fault is that he is not able to understand Ruby’s nature and

he has gone against his natural inclination in his rejection of Ruby. The




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breaking point for Henry comes when he, instigated by Gauri, finds Jean in the

arms of Eddie Trevor under a tree from Wallach’s Folly. He is thoroughly

shaken by the sight. The taunts of the native Gauri regarding the character of

the white lady and his impotency to react like a man further aggravates him.

On the spur of the moment, he felt like putting an end to them by shooting them

on the spot, but he stops as he realizes that he may not be able to cover them

with the gun in his hands from such a distance. His jealousy transforms him into

a cool villain and he take the first opportunity to see the end of his rival Eddie

when he offers most chivalrously to hunt the rogue elephant as he himself has

been incapacitated by a sprain in the leg. He pretends to be magnanimous by

giving hem the gun but he makes use of the opportunity to get rid of his

potential rival by giving him defective cartridges. Such cool villainy is repaid in

its coin at the end of the novel by trapping Henry in the game cottage on the

Amavasya day on the pretext of repairing the false moon and letting him burn

along with burning cottage which has been used by Henry for satisfying his sex.

When the fire spreads and no one answers to his frantic call for help, he is

shocked for find in the basket that he pulled up, the two sapphire and gold ear

clips he had given to Ruby and the hard cigar-shaped shell which he lost at the

time of Kistulal’s death. He could then perceive the hand of Sudden in this cruel

trap,

“And that, as far as Henry Winton was concerned, was the

moment of truth; bringing it with a fleeting spasm of realization,

steadying his mind and restoring cold reason as though for a quick

summing up, centering his thoughts on essentials.” (35)




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Henry is no better than the Eurasian in the novel whom he detests as half-

caste ‘chi-chi. In a way, Eddie proves to be more chivalrous, bold and

charming, more fresh, open and helpful, more idealistic, dynamic and dashing.

Jean is found to be more reasonable than Henry in her attitude towards the

Anglo-Indians. Cockburn explains that Eddie is the sort of man whom women

find irresistible and this attraction is a source of jealously for Henry who has

always behaved according to Ruby, as though he were in love with somebody

else. Jean’s decision to entertain Eddie before he leaves for war, occasions a

discussions between Henry and Jean about the English man’s attitude to an

Anglo-Indian. Jean finds nothing abnormal about entertaining Eddie who is the

first man to go to war from Silent Hill as that is what people in England are

doing about those who have volunteered to go to war. But Henry does not

accept the proposal saying:

“But this is India; it is slightly different here. Besides Sahibs don’t

go getting all social with Eurasians; here Sudden would throw a fit

he got to hear of it.” (171)

The irony is that Sudden was the father of Eddie, and Henry never knew

it till the end. In his view Anglo-Indians are different fro the Sahibs- the ruling

class – and it is not considered well bred if one is familiar with them. But Jean

holds a different opinion. She says that war makes no difference whether the

blood spilled is English, or only half-English, nor not at all English. She, on the

other hand, expresses ger gratitude to ‘our Indian boys guarding the canal’

which enabled her to join Henry at Silent Hill most safely. This attitude of Jean

is perhaps a result of the army atmosphere in which she had been brought up.

Her father served in the Indian Army and she does not feel strange when she




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refers to the Indian soldiers as ‘our boys’; it does not sound right to Henry.

Though Jean is as ‘pucca’ as Henry she likes Eddie and is ready to marry him

and leave Henry. Love crosses all racial and colour prejudices. Here Malgonkar

shows himself something different from John Master and Kipling by

spotlighting the sahib in the depravity. Cockburn, Wallach, Henry and Sudden –

nobody is an exception. They could not treat either Anglo-Indians or Indians on

equal terms or at least as human beings. They have simply used them for their

pleasure and service. Morals have no place in their dealing with them. Sudan’s

statement that they are not growing moral in the tea-garden clearly proves to

what length the so-called sahibs can do to safeguard their own interest. They are

more worried about the image of their government in India than about other

considerations and they cannot tolerate any failure on the part of their man and

any cowardly talk about the capacity of the British in the war.

In the same way, in the novels of Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, we find the

theme of cultural clash of two modes of life, the Western and the Oriental. She

has depicted with discernment the impact that the West has created on the

Indian mind during the British regime. She, too, does not seem to believe that

the gulf between the Indians and the Westerners, and their cultures can be

adequately bridged, because of their inability to share emotions. According to

Jhabvala average westerner who works in the administrative services fails to

develop his heart adequately, because he remains a typical public school

product with developed physique and mind but undeveloped heart which is

solely responsible for their ignorance and bigotry towards the Indians. Combat

of Shadows has closer comparison with John Master’s Bhowani Junction, as it

presents the problem of rootlessness confronted by the Anglo-Indians. Victoria

Jones of Bhowani Junction is in an unenviable position as she fails to identify




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herself with the Hindus in spite of her favorable learning towards them. She is

also unable to find a peaceful union with the British. Similarly Ruby Miranda

too gives up her Anglo-Indian lover Eddie Trevor to fulfill her longing to

become a memsahib in the world of the British.

At the same time in Combat of Shadows, Malgonkar is more critical in

assessment of the emergence of new India and its political life during the

forties. Here Jugal Kishore, a trade union leader, serves the purpose of

Malgonkar. As in the novel Henry refuses to appoint Gauri, the niece of Jugal

as a teacher in the school, Jugal makes it a political issue by manipulating it in

the colour of racial prejudice. He contests the election and eventually wins with

a massive majority. But the irony is that the condition of the labours remains

unchanged. Malgonkar draws a complete picture of the nation in its political

and social aspects in the forties. In the words of Shankar Bhattacharya,

“The novel Combat of Shadows is a significant work, portraying in

detail chaotic period during the transition from one phase of the

Indian politics and administration to another.” (29)

Thus the novel clearly delineates that, in dealing with national

experience, Malgonkar does not remain content to be an observer only. He

sincerely attempts to point out the flaws and interprets the political and

historical events. To quote Shankar Bhattacharya,

“Malgonkar’s novels generally reflect the novelist’s dissatisfaction

with the Indian politics and the politicians.” (29)




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Another famous Indian novelist Nayantara Sahgal also shares the view of

Malgonkar. She too has no sympathy with those new leaders of our nation who

lack a firm ideal and have degenerated into Power-mongering opportunities.

The day in Shadow (1977) is a significant novel of Sahgal portraying in detail a

chaotic period during the transition of Indian politics. She, through her novel,

shows that the new minister in spite of his power in the political field cannot

bring any permanent change for the better in the country as he is more after

power and wealth.

While presenting the private world and the failure of white man in India,

Malgonkar has portrayed the weaknesses of Anglo-Indians and their virtues

also. Unlike John Masters and Kipling, he is able to depict their anxieties and

conflicts in such a manner that they are able to attract sympathy. This is

rendered possible because he has focused on the weaknesses of sahibs. The

sahibs are not paragons of virtue. The basic emotions and feelings like jealousy,

envy, anger, revenge, love and ambition are all common in any race or religion.

As in Distant Drum, there are various themes in the novel - the theme of

racial conflict, big-game hunting, the search for identity, and what is most

striking and important is the personal relationship, the combat of human values

and essentially the failure of an individual who is engaged in the Combat of

Shadows without realizing the truth. Combat of Shadows presents a panoramic

view of various types of human relationships but it finally shows the failure not

just of Henry Winton but of any man who cheats himself and lives in a false

world of moral depravity. In the words of Padmanabhan,




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“Apart from being an excellent work of art, the novel is also a

social document wherein the political image is marked by jealousy

and vendetta”. (61)

Therefore, it can be considered both as a sociological and a moral

allegory. The picture of wild Assam Hills, tea gardens, dreadful forests, is just

thrilling and in tune with the general atmosphere of the novel where

“passions rage, attitudes clash and wars are made aware of the

diverse background….the racial antagonism, the global holocaust

of the war.” (Iyengar 428)

But the end of the novel has been after described as melodramatic and

much too pat in the nature of poetic justice. The end of Henry in the forest fire

is a serious flaw of the otherwise well-contrived plot, as it is not only

melodramatic but also unnecessary from the artistic point of view. Malgonkar

can also be accused of distorting history to suit his convenience, for he has

failed to do justice to the spirit of Indian politicians of the period under stress.

He has recreated,

“the past in the light of present, and the attitude of the novelist is

determined by his prejudices more than his balanced appraisal of

the history of the period.” (Singh 49)

But the success of the book lies in his high pitched emotional drama

which intensifies its narrative interest, subtly suggestive phrases which make

whole scenes blaze or bleed with life, phrases, under-statements and even




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gestures though quite few acquire sinister significance as the story proceeds.

Another quality of the book is that it is neither crazy nor a plan-less contraption.

There is hardly any incident that the reader’s imagination refuses to believe.

The climax, with all its credibility, familiarity and thrill together, keeps

haunting the reader’s mind for hours and days after he has read it. As AK

Sharma points out,

“On the superficial level, it is a novel of just adventure, romance

and lust. But on deeper level, it is a study in illusion or Maya, in

which most of the human beings are fated to live.” (26)

Malgonkar has thus shown how the English man’s prejudice and hatred

against Indians disintegrate the white man and ultimately bring nemesis to him.

Henry’s relations with Jugal Kishore, Eddie, with Ruby and with the one tusked

elephant are all inter-woven neatly and they form a composite design which is

instrumental in bringing about his fail and cruel death. Indra Bhatt points out,

“Instead of life-enhancing relationships based on love, friendship,

compassion and sympathy, Henry allows himself to be led by the

ghostly shadows of prejudice, colour-consciousness, arrogance and

jealousy”. (103)

The novel is unique in a sense, for Malgonkar has an Englishman as his

central figure and has delineated him skillfully, making him an anti-hero. In his

portrait of Henry – Winton, it is cultural and racial conflict at its most

complexes that Malgonkar has dealt with. As HM Williams opines,




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“Combat of Shadows is a Novel that tackles the EM Forster’s

subject of a Britisher’s alienation from the Indians and the

corruption of the British by Imperialism and their own hatred and

ignorance of India.” (103)

It must be emphasized that Malgonkar here makes a strong indictment of

the British by projecting their hatred and ignorance of India, an attitude which

conflicts with the necessities of their own existence in the country. To quote

Indra Bhatt,

‘It is clear that Combat of Shadows depicts not only the internal

conflicts of desires but even more strongly, the external racial

conflicts.” (103)




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WORKS CITED

Agarwal BR and MP Sinha. Major in the Post-Independence Indian English

fiction. New Delhi: Atlantic Publishers and Distributors. 2003. Print.

Asnani, M Shyam. A Study of the Novels of Manohar Malgonkar. The Literary

Half - yearly. 1975. Print.

Amur, GS. Manohar Malgonkar. New Delhi: Orient Paperbacks. 1972. Print.

Bhatt, Indira. Manohar Malgonkar. The Novelist. Delhi: Creative Publishers..

1992.

Bhattacharya, Shankar.Manohar Malgonkar. The Study of his Mind and Art.

New Delhi: Creative Books. 1994. Print.

Harrex, HC. The Fire and the Offering Vol- I. Calcutta: Writers workshop.

1977. Print.

Iyengar, KRS. Indian writing in English. Bombay: Asia Publishing House.

1973. Print.




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Malgonkar, Manohar. Combat of Shadows. Delhi: Hind Pocket Books. 1968.

Print.

Nicholson, Kai. A Presentation of Social Problems in Indo - Anglian and The

Anglo - Indian Novel. Bombay: Jaico Publishing House. 1972. Print.

Padmanabhan, A. The fictional World of Manohar Malgonkar.New Delhi:


Singh, Ram Sewak. An Essay on Manohar Malgonkar in the Indian Literature.

New Delhi: March 1970. Print.

---. Indian Novel in English. New Delhi: Arnold Heinemann Publishers. 1977.

Print.

Sharma, AK. The Novels of Manohar Malgonkar: A Study. Delhi: BR

Publishing Corporation. 1995. Print.

Williams, HM. Galaxy of Indian Writings in English. Delhi: Akshat. 1987.

Print.




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(3) THE PRINCES:

FICTIONALIZING HISTORY

The Princes, published in 1963, is Malgonkar’s most successful novel. It

offers an absorbing account of princely life in India. Its success at home and

abroad, no doubt, is due to his skill as a story teller and the fertility of his

imagination. The Princes, viewed from certain perspective, may be regarded

both a document of contemporary history and as a work of conscious literary

art. It is part fact, part fiction. The book is replete with the events of princely

passions and personal tragedy, political history transmuted into realistic fiction.

It traces the history of the princes and shows how in the changed context of the

country of the princes and shows how in the changed context of the country

they had to fight a losing battle against the upsurge of democracy. It is a novel

in which the social and political developments of native states of India are

outlined against the background of the private life, glamour and tragedies of

Indian princes. Malgonkar knows the princes with the intimacy of first hand

knowledge. He knows their weakness and also their noble traits. That is why

this great novel is a very sympathetic picture of Indian princes so far drawn in

the pages of literature. Princes have been known for leading a luxurious life of

licensed debauchery and reckless waste at the cost of their subjects and no

writer has cared to see the good traits of at least some of these princes.

Malgonkar does exactly that and shows how the novel continues a harmonious

bleeding of social and political history of pre-independence Indian and post-

independence India vis-à-vis the native state rulers.

The novel evokes a vivid picture of partition days in India when the

aristocratic rulers of the princely states were put to untold suffering and




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hardship owning to the changing political scene. The rulers initially thought that

their interest would be safeguarded and promoted by the verbal assurance and

announcements of the British crown, but later they were disillusioned when the

British left them in the lurch, exposed to the whims and fancies of new

governing class. The title of the novel is actually a pointer to these rulers in

general and not to one single prince of Begwad whose life - story forms the

subject matter.

For a great many of Malgonkar’s readers, the pleasure he principally

offers is similar to that which the treatment of historical subjects in fiction and

on television provides today. It is the pleasure from the insight and

understanding he shows in his interpretation of historical conflicts, from his

ability to penetrate to the human reality underlying these conflicts and the

opposition of historical forces, and from the way he contrives and the

opposition of historical forces, and from the way he contrives to fuse in the

creation of his fictional characters, their personal characteristics with features

and qualities that make them representative figures of their times. One of the

most interesting features of The Princes is the fact that it is the portrayal of the

recent past and of which Lukas calls the “present as history”. It offers an

absorbing account of princely life in India. To quote James Y Dayanand,

“It is regarded as the most authentic novel of the predicament of

the princes, and is probably the most widely – read novel abroad.”

(Journal of Commonwealth Literature 21-28)

Grandson of the prime minister of popular Indian State, Malgonkar could

observe from inside the princely ways, their vanities and peculiarities. Here




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Malgonkar encounters the problem of fusion of art and history in fiction. The

historical consciousness of the novelist, present subtly in his earlier works,

comes to the fire in this novel and achieves cohesion with the fictional

technique. Malgonkar wants to uphold the thoughts and ideas of somewhat

tightly knot social group, the aristocratic world of the princes in India.

Malgonkar’s knowledge of the real princes combines with his creative

imagination to produce composite portraits with a sufficient amount of

camouflage. He has chosen an ordinary educated man, to be the last prince of

an imaginary state Begwad which is already in the process of disintegration of

the class; they emerge in the process as individuals. The novel is not a mere

historical record from within but the human exploration of an extincting race.

Malgonkar has nevertheless a clear perception of history in the making.

He was a participant - observer like EM Forster of a momentous phase in Indian

history. The Princes could be appropriately compared with EM Forster’s Hill of

Devi for its refreshing authenticity. Forster, who served in his younger days as a

private secretary to Sir Tuko Ji Rao III of Dewas State Senior, comments that

“the parallels in the Princes and his own experience are numerous

and heart rendering. (Quoted in On Author and Books, The

Literary Half - Yearly 99).

William Walsh praises it as,

“a more perceptive, a more personal and stricken on of the

withering of the princes’ hypocritical family lives, their

concubines, their tiger hunts and their political stunt to preserve




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their throne even at the cost of national integrity and independence

in the novel present an inside view of the princes. It gives the much

- needed documentation of a fascinating piece of social history.”

On one level, the novel presents in fictional terms the central drama of

contemporary history - of recent Indian history of the decline and fall of 565

princely states - in which the principal players were the British, the princes and

the Congress party. The characters are modeled on real people, incidents closely

resembles real events. When the British left India in 1947, these 565 states were

closely integrated into the Indian Union within a matter of months. Malgonkar,

the novelist, was a witness to this brief but dramatic chapter of history, and he

treats just that the student of history would like to know-what kind of people

were these ruling princes? How did they treat each other? What did they think

of British and of the Congress party – often extending his observations to

relationships inadequately documented elsewhere? On another level, it is the

story of His Highness Maharaja of the clan of the Bedars, Hiroji the fourth,

knight commander of the star of India, of his palace, tiger hunts, queens and

concubines, and above all, of his son, Abhay, who goes through ceremonies of

initiation and maturing and ceases to be a boy. Both the themes of Indian

Independence and of growing up of a prince interweave and find their fullest

expression in The Princes. Truth is skillfully interwoven with fiction; the

growth of nationalism and the decline of the princely way of India are

interwoven with the growth of a prince. In the interweaving of elements there is

increasing complication but no petty mechanical balancing. The world of the

Maharaja was crumbling as the world of young prince was born. Here we have

two opposite worlds or way of life and characters who oscillate between them:




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“He was the Maharaja with almost absolute power over five

hundred thousand people; I was his heir. Imperceptibly the certain

thickened and suddenly we were no longer merely a father and a

son, but a Maharaja and his successor …. I could not altogether

push away the awful thought that he was someone who would have

to die before I could come into my own …… within ten years of

encounter with my father, the state of Begwad was merged with

the vast totality of India. My father just missed being the last

Maharaja of Begwad. I was the last, and it fell to me to sign that

doleful document known as the Instrument of Merger, surrendering

all power as the ruler.” (23-24)

Perhaps one way of understanding what Malgonkar has done in The

Princes, as a preparation for assessing his achievement, is to concentrate in the

first place on his raw material that is, the historical facts on which the story of

The Princes is based. The historical content supplies the spine of its narrative

and the center of its interests. The novel evokes a contemporary recent period.

He is writing of events that took place in India between 1938 and 1958, the

years just before and after independence. When one considers the Princes in its

entirety and Malgonkar’s activities during these years as a professional big

game hunter proficiently tracking tigers for Indian princes, it is immediately

apparent that he has drawn upon his own personal experiences.

A historical record gives a brief summary of the events of the period. At

the time of transfer of power from Britain to India and Pakistan in 1947, the

only big question which remained to be resolved before August 15th, was the

future of 565 princely states, occupying two fifths of the land of the country and




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containing one hundred million people, just under a quarter of India’s total

population. On August 15, when British paramountcy was to lapse, what would

be the situation? Would the states become independent units even though they

had never enjoyed this status? Would the British Government had over

authority to their successors-India and Pakistani Governments? Or would the

princes decide whether they would continue as semi-independent states or join

either of the two Dominions? Most of the states were situated within or

adjoining Indian Territory. The Indian government naturally expected that the

princes would accede to the Indian union. A small number of princes, with

encouragement from political advisors, wanted to declare them independents,

but a large number of princes were undecided.

The British government in their statement of February 20th, 1947,

undertook not to hand over paramountcy to any government of British India. In

their view, on the lapse of paramountcy political arrangements between states

and crown would be brought to an end. If nothing was done before August 15 to

prepare for the situation, the result would be political chaos. Lord Mountbatten,

the Viceroy, persuasively urged the rulers a solution in nature of a compromise

between those who claimed that the states would become independent and those

who contended that paramountcy must pass to the success of governments. He

urged the princes to sign a document called Instrument of Accession thereby

surrendering to one or another of the new dominions their control over defence,

external affairs and communications.

On June 25th, 1947, a ‘States Department’ was created to deal with all

matters of common concern with the states, especially formulation of

agreements covering their immediate relations after the transfer of power.




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Sardar Patel and VP Menon, who took over this Department, evolved a scheme

for the integration of the states. The department pressed for accession before

August 15th with the direct and personal assistance of Lord Mountbatten. On

July 5th, VP Menon issued a statement in the name of Sardar Patel. It appealed

to the rulers to accede to Indians only on three subjects – defence, foreign

affairs and communications- and to come into the Indian union. July 25th was

fixed for a conference with the princes. On that fateful day, Lord Mountbatten

addressed the chamber of princes as crown representatives. Lord Mountbatten

made it clear that the offer made by the Congress was most generous. It urged

the princes to sign the Instrument of Accession before August 15. He would be

unable to mediate between them and the Congress after August 15. This was the

last chance. Lord Mountbatten continued,

“The states are theoretically free to link their future with whatever

dominion they may care …… May I point out that there are certain

geographical compulsions which can not be evaded? Out of

something like 565 states, the majority are inevitably linked

geographically with the dominion of India ……. Remember that

the day of the transfer of power is very close at hand, and if you

are prepared to come, you must come before 15th August. I have no

doubt that this is in the best interest of the states …… you cannot

run away from the Dominion government which is your neighbour

any more than you can run away from the subjects for whose

welfare you are responsible”. (Hudson: The Great Divide 373-374)




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The Nawab of Bhopal refused to attend the meeting. The Nawab had

headed groups of rulers who opposed accession calling themselves the third

force.

When the day for the transfer of power arrived, August 15th, 1947 -

barely three weeks after this masterly and momentous speech, everyone except

Junagadh, Kashmir and Hyderabad had signed “The Instrument of Accession’.

The Nawab of Bhopal’s ‘Third Force’ came to ruin. Later these three states too

joined India. The political and constitutional chaos that might have followed the

lapse of paramountcy had been averted. The Menon-Patel-Mountbatten team

succeeded in integrating 565 Indian states in less than three weeks. August 15th

1947, marked the end of the British Raj and the beginning of free India and

Pakistan.

What was true of most of the princes and their states is also true of his

Highness, the Maharaja of the clan of the Bedars, Hiroji the fourth, knight

commander of the star of India, and his son, the narrator of The Princes, his

Highness the Maharaja of Begwad, Abhayraj Bedar III. No Matter how

Malgonkar may have altered or condensed specific details, The Princes is

without doubt the fictional treatment of the plight of the princes who

disappeared from history. The Puars of Dewas Senior and Chhatrapatis of

Kolhapur shed a good deal of light of Malgonkar’s treatment of his raw

material in The Princes. What Malgonkar has done is to take the authenticated

facts of the state of Dewas senior, its Maharaja, and his son, and camouflage

them through the transforming power of novelistic imagination. In his hands,

facts become fiction. Perhaps this reshaping of fact into fiction can be clarified

by pointing to some examples. Malgonkar transformed his Highness Sir Tukoji




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Rao III, KCSI Maharaja of Dewas senior in to his Highness Sir Hiroji, the

fourth, KCSI Maharaja of Begwad, and his son Maharaja Vikram Sinha Rao,

later called Chhatrapatti Shahji in to Abhayraj Bedar III. There are, no doubt,

discrepancies in detail between fact and fiction but in essentials history looks

remarkably like fiction. Both Tukoji and Hiroji had feuds with Brahmin priests

regarding their caste status, financial troubles because of reckless spending and

difficulties with their wives. Chhatrapati Shah Ji Maharaja and Abhayraj, on the

other hand, have some similarities also - both were educated by English tutors,

both went to college, both made concessions to the rising tide of democracy in

their states, and both became officers in the British Army during the Second

world War.

Nevertheless, Hiroji and Abhayraj are not historical persons but creatures

of imagination. In The Princes Malgonkar recreates an historical situation,

places historical characters in it, and describes how they behaved. The novel

brings to life in very human dimensions the turbulent before and after

independence. Malgonkar does not tamper with the situation. The documented

facts, the dates, the conferences between the princes and the viceroys, the privy

purses and so forth are carefully handled without compromising history for the

sake of history at hand. The atmosphere of India is realized in masterly fashion.

While dealing with the historical situation of 565 princely states, Malgonkar

does not make departure from the factuality of history. The Princely states were

ceded to India in return for a few prerequisites and privy purses. The rulers

must have signed the instruments of accession and then signed the instruments

of merger, which resulted in the merger of small states into a larger federation

of states. All were finally swallowed into the belly of India. Malgonkar takes no

liberties with these and other facts connected with the princely states.




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The Princes can be summarized briefly. The scene is Begwad, a small

princely state in the Deccan plateau ruled by a Maharaja who upholds the status

quo,

“There will always be Begwad, and there will always be Bedar

ruling it - as long as the Sun and the Moon go around”. (13)

So he declared in the first scene his son Abhay, the heir apparent, in

1936, when the tides of nationalists’ feeling, anti-British and anti - royal were

sweeping over India. The first scene in which Maharaja and the son, Abhay,

confront each other is in the sense, the whole novel in miniature. We are

introduced in this scene to a situation that is to be remedied, a conflict to be

decided, and the themes to be developed. Abhay, not quite eighteen-year-old,

sympathizes with the nationalists; his father who lived in a world of his own,

remote from the twentieth century, has nothing but contempt for the nationalists

who, under the leadership of Gandhi, were conducting campaigns for complete

independence of India. Within ten years after this encounter the princely states

were no more; they were merged with the independent India. Abhay tells the

story of these ten years in first person,

“The map was red and yellow. The red was for the British India;

the yellow for the Indian of the princes…. For more than hundred

years, the red and the yellow had remained exactly as they were.

Then the British left, and in no time at all, the red had overrun the

yellow and colored the entire map in uniform orange. The princely

states were no more. We were the princes; no one mourned over




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our passing …… I realize that it could not have been otherwise,

and yet I cannot rid myself of a purely selfish sense of loss”. (13)

The novel opens with the Maharaja and his son Abhay at logger-heads.

The son delights in taunting his father on the latter’s proposal of some changes

in the constitution to satisfy the political department. He knows that it is just an

eye-wash measure. The father’s sole intention and cherished aim of life is to

preserve the integrity of the state at any cost. He says,

“But I would prefer the British to the Gandhities any day, so that

the integrity of our state is preserved for all times. It is more

important than anything else, more important than our lives: yours

and mine” (16)

The son, however, doubts openly whether they could separate the destiny

of Begwad from the rest of India. The angry father unable to put up with his

son’s audacity suspects his descent. A cold parting follows after a bitter

exchange of words. While the father is exposed as the reactionary, tyrannical

and arrogant, the son appears to be a bit more realistic and critical of his

father’s reckless disregard for the feelings of others. But the core of Abhay’s

personality reveals this same yearning as that of his father for the old order. The

son here takes great pleasure in contradicting the father, thus dramatizing his

own inner conflict. He later comments,

“I myself went a long way towards sharing his (Father’s) views

and values as far as our state were concerned. Indeed it seems to

me that with the passing of the years, I have come to identify




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myself more and more with those values, with the result that today

I feel myself as a spokesman for whatever the princely order once

stood for.” (18)

The son has finally come full circle in identifying himself with his

father’s hopes of false security. The state of Begwad was merged with the vast

totality of India within ten years of their argument and the prince had to sign

doleful document, the instrument of merger surrendering all his powers as a

ruler.

The imperial theme has inspired many authors to portray the glory of

feudal past but not many writers have been able to portray the inner story – the

inner life, the conflict within of a prince caught in an age of change and crisis.

Mulk Raj Anand’s ‘Private life of an Indian Prince’ E.M Forster’s ‘hill of Devi’

attempt at a depiction of princely Indian but has not been able to portray the

human story of the princes.

Malgonkar perhaps has an edge over other writers as he had quite a long

and deep association with the princes. We are aware of the genesis of the novel

from what he states in ‘The literary Guild Review’. He raced through the book

working for twelve hours a day and finished it exactly in forty-nine days,

“For that time I was a prince (an ex-prince if you will and,

indulging a whim, I made my hero rule his state for just that many

days.” (Quoted from Amur 79)




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He explains that perhaps in Dussera procession in Gwalior when he was

only five years old or another occasion, that is, in the coronation ceremony of

the heir apparent in Indore. In his interview with Prof. Dayananda, Malgonkar

spoke about his long and close contact with the princes:

“My Grandfather was the Prime Minister in one of the bigger

states in India and I grew up knowing the princely ways, knowing

their peculiarities, knowing the little things that they did different

from other people, and knowing their little vanities. But the contact

grew when I started my profession as a big-game hunter, and my

clients were the most moneyed one could think of, were American

millionaires of Indian princes and one of them offered me to write

the history of his family and their attitudes and with their

peculiarities to be able to write a book about the princes” (95)

A further proof of his intimate knowledge of the princely life can be

noticed in two of his straight histories - Puars of Dewas Senior and

Chhatrapatis of Kolhapur. With such a long, deep, and intimate association

with the princes, it is but just that Malgonkar was enabled to delineate the

princely life most strikingly and authentically from within The Princes. EM

Forster paid him a rich tribute:

“I have just finished The Princes and should like to thank you for

it. It interested me both in its account and because I am involved -

as far as an English man can be in its subject matter. I happen to

have been in touch with a small Maratha state Dewas Senior

during the years of its dissolution. The parallels are numerous and




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heart - rending. I am so glad that you have got down a record.

Otherwise all would be forgotten” (Quoted from Amur 78)

The Princes gives a bold, vivid, and precise picture of the last phase of

the princely state of India. It gives a representative picture of almost all the

princely states. Malgonkar has taken care to make it clear at several places in

the novel:

“What was happening in Begwad was happening everywhere else,

in Padmakoshal and in most Indian States.” (287)

Though a close resemblance can be seen between the characters in the

novel and real people, between the incidents in the novel and real events,

Malgonkar is able to camouflage the real people by creating imaginary

characters and he takes no liberties with the historical facts connected with the

princely states. Though there are many differences, the characters of Hiroji and

Abhay appear to be moulded on Sir Tuko Ji Rao Ji, KCS Maharaja of Dewas

state senior and son Maharaja Vikramsimharao respectively.

Hiroji Maharaja stands as the symbol of Princely India which is “feudal,

barbaric, impervious’ and at the same time ‘a repository of Indian tradition and

culture’ and he represents the old crumbling world. He is aged, reactionary and

taboo-ridden whereas, Abhay his son, the only heir to the throne of Begwad, is

young, progressive and righteous. If Hiroji represents one extreme of absolute

feudal powers, Kanakchand signifies the other extreme of democratic and

nationalist forces pledged to see the end of feudalism and bring in Freedom. In

between, the character of Abhay is found alienating himself from both the




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extremes and accepting situations in their natural order of the present but unable

to have the future he likes.

The first chapter constitutes the novel in miniature presenting the

problems that are going to be solved in the course of the novel. Hiroji and

Abhay are poles apart in several matters, especially in political matters. In the

first chapter, there is Abhay, not quite eighteen, in the last year of his college,

bubbling with enthusiasm and idealism under the influence of a liberal

education. He revolts against his father openly till he is forced to leave. His

father proposes to raise the number of members of his council from three to six,

one of whom is to be selected by him among a panel of five manes suggested

by the other five. The council has no power to discuss his privy purse except to

increase it and he always has veto power. Both father and son take extremely

opposite stands regarding the nationalist’s movement. Hiroji has nothing but

contempt for the nationalists, who are according to him, ‘goondas’ led by

lawyers and traders. As far as he is concerned they just don’t exit. In the

opinion of Hiroji the nationalists are the worst enemies because they are out to

grab the powers by subverting the loyalty of the people towards their rulers,

which even the British were not capable of doing. According to him, the

national movement is but a fight between the nationalist and the British were

not capable of doing. According to him, the national movement is a fight

between the nationalists and the British, and in this fight, the British would be

weakened and turn to the princes for help because they are afraid of

nationalists. He any way prefers the integrity of his state for all times and

returns it to the Bedars, for it is more important than anything else, more

important than their lives.




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But Abhay has sympathy for the nationalists and condemns all his

father’s political views. He considers princes to be ‘jest of history’ and is

convinced of inevitability of disappearance of the princely states form the map

of India. Somehow, he is unable to rise from a purely selfish sense of loss and

often catches himself longing for those old days. The suddenness with which

the change takes place stuns him as it does other princes. It is the only irritating

point in the great drama of the emergence of India as a republic after the

integration of states that causes a lot discontentment and disappointment in

Abhay.

On more than one occasion the reactionary nature of Hiroji can be

observed. He is against the spread of education because he feels that there will

be a greater danger if education is put in the hands of all and sundry. He

believes that education is responsible for all the trouble of the British in India.

His opposition to the construction of dam over the valley of Bulwara, which is

symbol of progress and prosperity, exposes nothing but his stark reactionary

attitude. His is a word of,

“silk turbans and egret plumes and brocade robes and velvet

slippers and the glittering life,” (11)

which is remote from the twentieth century. He is a maharaja with absolute

powers over five hundred thousand people of the Begwad State and Abhay is

his only heir. Hiroji, the Maharaja, is royal every inch and full of princely

instincts. The medieval is sure all around him.




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“He stood tall and powerful and handsome in his robe of rose and

pea-green brocade and the purple silver-worn slippers and the

purple three-cornered pagri of the Bedars. Even the costume of

long ago and the vulgar chains of pearls and diamonds did not

make him look as though he were dressed up for a part in a play.”

(30)

He keeps up the past glory of the old world. The past glory of royalty can

be seen at the banquet on Dussera, the most important festival in all Maratha

states. Hiroji’s prayerful trounce to the Goddess Ambica on Dussera for Her

protection in the ensuing campaign for wars – though it is unthinkable to have

such campaigns in twentieth century – is in keeping with old world tradition.

His boisterous and noisy religion and fasts, his lavish parties and dinners, his

costly tiger hunts and duck shoots and crocodile hunts, his concubines and

colourful costumes, authentically presented only to intensify the picture of the

princely India. The Bhils and the Ramoshis and Jamadarkahana at Patalpet have

added something mystic and aerie to the gothic and primitive medieval

atmosphere of the princely India in the novel. Hiroji’s offer of the Mahapuja

and the gift to twenty cows to the Brahims at the failure of Crips Mission,

another Mahapuja for grand son; the Bhils desire to set a Churrail on

Kanakchand, the absence of the princes at the marriage of princes who was

known as ‘a daughter of marks’ and ‘girl with a white foot’, and many more

such things heighten the superstitious nature of the atmosphere of the novel. It

does not, however, means that the novel does not reflect modern facilities like

motorcars, railways and other amenities.




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In matters of money and expenditure, one finds that Abhay could not see

eye to eye with his father for whom money is only to be spent and honour is

more important than money. Hiroji does not hesitate to pay twenty thousand

rupees to Amina, one of his concubines. He is prepared to spend thirty thousand

rupees on a tiger hunt in honour of Northwick, who is supposed to be the future

Governer General, and purchase a new ‘Rolls’ even though people have to walk

in the street without shoes. He has brought the financial affairs of the state to

such a sorry pass that the political department desires to appoint a committee of

enquiry. Of course, the committee is never appointed as the British would not

like to make a fuss about a prince who has been loyal to them in the context of

the wide spread national movement.

The tyranniacal attitude of Hiroji is not acceptable to Abhay. Hiroji flogs

Kanakchand in public and tries to suppress the national movement in his state

by introducing more repressive measures than in British India. He believes that

order can be maintained only by baton and whip and exemplary punishments.

The Maharani holds an entirely different opinion in this regard. She bursts out,

“Punishment, punishment! Is that all you can think of? You and

your father? Punishment is such a primitive way of resolving

matters.” (82)

The youthful Abhay could not accept his father’s cruel treatment of his

mother. According to him, all the good qualities of Hiroji are overshadowed by

his open infidelity to his mother and his infatuation for his concubines. In a way

his family background seems to be responsible for the wayward behaviour of




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Abhay. Only later in life, Abhay is able to understand how even the loveliest of

women can make themselves hateful to men.

Hiroji and Maharani hold the opinion that marriage in the case of princes

is not a private affair but a matter of duty. They dissuade Abhay from his

attempt to marry Minnie. Malgonkar comments on the system of marriage in

the princely families. Of course, it is not something different from what is

obtaining in the other strata of society. The Maharani most forcibly brings out

the most miserable situation of the princesses in the case of marriage. They are

not allowed to see the face of their husbands even in the ceremony of marriage.

As a matter of fact, it appears as though she accepts her marriage a failure; she

does not hold opinion against the traditional marriage. For youthful Abhay, the

whole thing seems that it is not the tradition that is at fault but the people who

are to follow it. If the people do not have basic human understanding, any

marriage, traditional or non-traditional, old or modern, breaks on rocks. In the

case of Abhay love appears to flow out of marriage.

Hiroji has never shown him weak, cowardly, and womanly. The one

thing he hates in himself and in others is squealing and breaking down like a

woman. He advises Abhay not to squeal at least when he is not alone. This is

not to say that Hiroji has no human tenderness and delicacy. He tells his son

that a man life has to come across many a whipping in his life. But he does not

make a show of it and if he suffers any agony, he weeps when he is alone.

Abhay has always regarded Hiroji as one who is more at home with the past

than with the present and interested in the failure though he also cannot avoid

nostalgically looking back at the past. He is unable to make his father realize

the hard facts of the times as Hiroji never tried to listen to him and he is never




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free from day dreaming about winning back past glory, and so he does not like

to lift the white flag between him and his father and disturb his peace of mind.

Abhay praises his father for his extraordinary courage and personality. Hiroji is

“some kind of superman born several decades too late to be

understood and appreciated by ordinary men and women, that he

was a giant caught in the snare of contemporary values but trying

to be true to the values of the lost world.” (53)

According to Abhay, the most salient features of the character of his

father, Hiroji, are his contagious high spirits; his pride in his heritage, his

misplaced kindness, his courage, his devotion to his values. The disdain for

danger, coolness under stress, readiness for taking any responsibility and his

stubborn and almost stupid refusal to bend under pressure mark the heroic

stature of Hiroji. His replacing of the flag of Praja Mandal by the state flag on

the administrstive building with dignity and poise is really a great and heroic act

of sheer physical courage. When his sense of values is found to be anachronistic

in the country, he goes unarmed and alone after a wounded tiger and gets

himself killed. Before his death he uses to contemplate the verse from ‘Gita’,

“‘I am rich and well born’. Who else is equal to me? I will

sacrifice. I will give; in that I shall rejoice.” (300)

He feels sorry for Abhay for he has lost the opportunity of the great

feeling of being a king and a part of the unbroken past. He does not want to

come in the way of Abhay when he is trying to salvage the situation as much as

possible and agrees to hand the government over to the elected representatives.




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Shrewd as he is, he could grasp fully the cunningness behind the promises

given by nationalists at the time of accession. He explains to Abhay that the

ruling party would take over the administration on one pretext or another as it is

a matter of interpretation how the promises of nationalists should be viewed.

Strange it is for such a man not to be able to understand the gravity and

magnitude of the national movement.

In the character of Abhay, we have a new type of prince, emerging from

the new developments and circumstances in the country. Malgonkar seems to

suggest that an enlightened prince like Abhay can be a substitute of the old

feudal Hiroji. It is true that one finds Abhay clashing with his father in several

ways besides the confrontation described in the first chapter of the novel,

Abhay has several other clashes with his father over the death of his pet Ram

Cannonball. Then his father took this opportunity to initiate Abhay into life by

asking him to grow into a true man by not showing his suffering in public.

Abhay, as a boy, feels offended when he suspects his mother’s relations with

Abdul Jan, the palace officer. But he considers Minnie as a symbol of the first

encounter in the war of sex and treats his first day with her as,

“a day of growing up, of coming of age, almost discovering

myself.” (143)

His father did not approve of his marriage with Minnie. The way in

which Hiroji gets out of the tangle of Minnie’s affair with the help of his chief

minister Lala Hari Kishore shows Hiroji’s act and understanding of the world

around him. Another clash with his father he has is about his involvement in

war. His participation in war serves not only as a maturing influence enabling




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him to understand the hard facts of life and death, love and hatred, the need of

the present moment and desire of the distant future; but also gives an

opportunity to get greater insight into his father’s personality. By observing his

officer in the war, Tony Skyes, who was also his rival in love, Abhay is able to

realize the real character of the prince. The war has helped him to grow up to

broaden his vision, and acquire a civilized tolerance for human frailties and he

has learned to free his mind from the petty loyalties of his childhood and youth.

Although Abhay’s character seems to be a striking contrast to his father’s

he is not altogether free from his father’s influence. His father figure always

hovers over the horizon of his vision. Even from his childhood he has attempted

to get appreciation of his father though there are always some occasions when

he wishes for the death of his father. He is fully aware of the backwardness of

Begwad and the lack of enthusiasm on the part of his father to bring progress

and prosperity to the state. He, however, comes back in the fold. Abhay’s

attitude towards his mother is not only conservative but also compassionate. He

finds something pathetically heroic about Maharani’s attempt to break the shell

of conventions, but the traditionalist in him overhelms the rationalist and he

could not condemn the action of his mother in eloping with Abdulla Jan. The

older he grows the more deeply rooted he becomes in the abstract values of the

princes. As an individual, he can pardon his mother because he knows that his

own life is in morass of guilt, but not as one who is the custodian of the family

prestige.

There is no doubt archetypal ambivalence, inconstancy and confusion of

values in the character of Abhay. It is not something absurd because it is in

keeping wit the basic artistic design of the novel. He is conceived to represent




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the princely order like his father but with a difference. His exposure to liberal

education, war, city, politics, and a love affair with an Anglo-Indian girl

mutually makes the reader think of Abhay as a rebel against the old order and

tradition. He can, however, never be rebel in the real sense of the word, as he is

never out of the magic circle of his class, the princes. That Abhay is an

extension of his father is proved in so many ways- the repetition of the flogging

incident, the beginning and closing of the novel in the same room with tiger

skins and choosing of the pistol from a pair. His education in the college at

Agra only secures him future in the princely code. War helps him come closer

to his father and satisfy his love for adventure. His affair with Minnie is nothing

strange for a prince. As a youth, he drew away from his father because he could

not feel normal in his presence. As he grows older he begins to realize that there

is outrain of formality rising between himself and his father and they are no

longer father and son but the Maharaja and his heir,

“In his presence I could not altogether push away the awful

thought that he was some who should have to die before I could

come into my own.” (22)

However, his father’s hold on Abhay has never slackened and it can be

seen at every stage in the life of Abhay. In the words of Padmanabhan,

“His depiction of their relationship is masterly as it is also a

reflection of the conflict between the outdated princely traditions

and modern democratic values.”




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Abhay shares with his father the love for riding and hunting; he is not

different from his father in making extra-marital relations. He is also possessed

by a desire to save the State. The irony is that he has desired that at the time

when the princely states were vanishing from the map of India. Agarwal opines,

“We can see him becoming more like his father in his amorous

involvements and in his cuckolding of his own wife, the admirable

Kamla. He frankly admits to be a spokesman for whatever the

princely order once stood for.” (144)

Both father and son have failed to estimate the political situation. If

Hiroji does not succeed in gauging the political situation correctly before the

accession, Abhay could not grasp the cunningness behind the promises given by

the nationalists at that time. When his father’s character is maligned by

Kanakchand and others of Praja Mandal, he feels insulted and finds him going

a long way towards sharing his father’s views and values,

“Indeed it seems to me that with the passing of the years, I have

come to identify myself more and more with those values, with the

results that today I feel myself spokesman for whatever the

princely order once stood for.” (18)

Malgonkar enforces the theme of the likeness between the two princes by

repeating the substance of the scene of horsewhipping of Kanakchand. As in the

first of the incidents, the Maharaja whipped Kanakchand, a poor untouchable

student, for cheating and wearing the white cap of the nationalists of the

Ashokraj. More than ten years after in a scene set very near the end of the




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novel, Abhay whips with a riding rope the same Kanakchand, now a minister in

the new administration at same school which is now called The New National

High School. At the same time, as in the words of Prasad,

“It also points out the impotent rage of the hero, who having lost in

the historical flux, flatters his ego with a trivial outburst which he

takes to be an act of vendetta against the new order.” (6)

Malgonkar manages a moving effect in which our memories of the first

incident mingle with our impression of the second. This revenge is also a trait

of the royal instinct. With this act of revenge, the process of his identification

with the old order becomes complete.

Thus, The Princes is a classic in more than one way. It portrays

effectively not only the struggles of the princes to retain their position, and the

ardent aspiration of the old Maharaja but also the emerging world of the young

prince Abhay; not only the conflict between the nationalists and Britishers but

also the clash between the Britishers and the princes. Though it seems to glorify

the princes, it is not blind to their weaknesses. Nor does it fail to recognize the

establishment of the supremacy of the historical forces to change over the

forces of stagnation, reaction and superstition. In this lies the greatness of

Malgonkar who is able to picture before us with his novelistic imagination the

princely India in its disintegration with all its glory and grandeur, inherent

follies and foibles, without resorting to any stylistic tricks and eccentricities. He

has deftly managed both the double movement and double vision and

successfully humanized his highly authentical, historical and intractable raw

material in The Princes. If the magnificence of the conception of the Princes




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gives it a rare distinction in Indian-English fiction, the artistic skill with which

Malgonkar executed the novel has enabled him to rub shoulders with the

greatest masters of the art of fiction.

But it is to be remembered, while Malgonkar has the historian’s

perspective, he also has the artist’s insight and the two blend beautifully to give

his novel a truly artistic design. Malgonkar’s distinctive characteristic is his

confident portrayal of the tensions between individual and the socio-historical

forces of the time. As Indira Bhatt opines,

“Malgonkar makes his mark by his strong sense of history and of

the tensions between the individual and the historical forces of the

time.” (126)

In his attempt to find an artistic fusion of history and fiction, Malgonkar

is aware that his faultless history may standout glaringly defying all attempts at

being done into a novel. He has ably overcome this problem by drawing his

characters into the vortex of experience with the intense quest for fulfillment.

To quote Padmanabhan,

“In this connection it must be said that the story can exist even if

the whole Indian political history is removed from it.” (84)

The title of the novel The Princes is different from the titles of other

novels of Malgonkar. It is plain and direct, unlike others which are descriptive

and symbolical. Malgonkar seems to sugest from his title that the novel deals

entirely with princes and that it is a direct narrative of the life of princely India.




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It is a fine artistic and dramatic document of human passions, feelings and

emotions in conflict with the world outside the inner world, with the changing

times. The novel takes a panoramic view of the life of princes on a larger

canvas. Palace life, school life, primitive life, domestic life, sport, hunting,

horse riding, intrigue, demagoguery, romance, promiscuity, extra-marital sex,

concubines, adventures, and violence keep crowding in narrative till the very

end but this does not in any way, exasperate the reader. Malgonkar’s knowledge

of the private life of Indian princes is as intimate as it is superb. Every detail,

good or bad, of the life of Indian princes has been artistically used by the author

in depicting before us the palace life and the background of Indian princes. One

finds the princes with their jewellery, their drinks, with their concubines, and

with their utter disregard for the welfare of the people in the pages of

Malgonkar. The background is faithful as well as realistic, and almost sounds

like an eye-witness account. Every character has a touch of authenticity and

seems almost drawn from life.

The general impression created by novel is that princes, despite their

glaring and obnoxious defects, were not the embodiments of evil as has been

depicted by Anand in The Private Life of an Indian Prince, and by Dewan

Jarmani Das in The Maharaja. On the contrary, they are much better than the

petty politicians of that time. The Princes clearly intends to stress the positive

erstwhile rulers, many prowess and physical dexterity (The Maharaja is the best

marksman and the son an excellent sportsman honoured with a high war

decoration) generosity for guests, chivalry (Abhay gives up his mistress- a

blonde Anglo - Indian, when she is found entertaining another lover more than

him), strategic intelligence, charity (Abhay writes an essay for Kanakchand, an

untouchable classmate, and thus enables him to win regular scholarship for his




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education), family loyalty, respect for ancient customs and valour. The adverse

side of their characters is also depicted with equal amount of honesty and

fidelity. The father and son embody innumerable human weaknesses: wildness,

temper, sensuality. They are vindictive, violent and fierce and commit adultery.

But the one remarkable point in their favour is that they are essentially men of

action and passion but not of intellect and contemplation. On the other hand,

Indian politicians of the age have been caricatured. They are coward, cunning

and immoderate. The Princes is compared rather favourably with The Private

Life of an Indian Prince and The Maharaja, for, the author with his

characteristic touch of authenticity and objectivity, does not caricature the lives

of the princes by,

“highlighting the perversities and their private life nor does he

whitewash their tyranny and debauchery by the acts of

suppression”. (Amur 84)

Malgonkar’s forte is his unique and powerful grip of the narrative.

Without resorting to stylistic tricks or eccentricities, he narrates in a very

translucent style the events in the young’s prince’s life and recreates the Indian

background in the Jungles, New Delhi, Shimla, quite brilliantly and vividly. He

is free from rancour and free from the intense party spirit of politically

committed novelists,

“he is free from caricature and exaggeration, self pity, posturing

and assuming of attitudes.” (Williams 174)




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Thus, The Princes can safely claim to be a milestone in the Indian fiction.

It stands out as a great novel of an age that is gone by and an epoch that has

ended. Marshall, A Best has rightly called it

“the most thoughtful and perhaps most distinguished work.” (826)




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WORKS CITED

Amur, GS. Manohar Malgonkar- A Monograph.New Delhi: Arnold

Heinemann. 1973. Print.

---. Manohar Malgonkar. New Delhi: Arnold Heinemann. India. 1973. Print.

Agarwal, BR and MP Sinha. Major Trends in the Post- Independence Indian

English Fiction. New Delhi: Atlantic Publishers and Distributors. 2003.

Print.

Bhatt, Indira. Manohar Malgonka r- The Novelist. New Delhi: Creative

Publishers.1992. Print.

Best, A Marshall. Manohar Malgonkar: Contemporary Novelists. ed. James

Vinson. London: St. James Press. 1973. Print.

Dayanand, Y James. Manohar Malgonkar. New York: Twayne Publishers.

1974. Print.

---. Manohar Malgonkar. New York: Twayne Publishers. 1974. Print.




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---. On Author and Books, An interview with Manohar Malgonkar. The Literary

Half - Yearly. 16 July 1955. Print.

Hodson, HV. The Great Divide. New York: Atheneum. 1971. Print.

Malgonkar, Manohar. The Princes. Delhi: Hind Pocket Books. 1963. Print.

Padmanabhan, A. The Fictional World of Manohar Malgonkar. New Delhi:


Prasad, SS. The Prince and the Commoners: An Analysis of Indo-Anglian

Novelists’ Attitude Towards the Feudal Rulers.”Indian English Fiction:

Readings and Reflections,” ed. Dr. Gajendra Kumar, U.D. Ahuja. New

Delhi: Sarup & Sons. 2004. Print.

Walsh, William. Natraj and the Packet of Saffron’, The Indian Novel in

English, Readings in Commonwealth Literature.London: Clarendon

Press. 1973. Print.

Williams, HM. Studies in Modern Indian Fiction in English, Vol –II. Calcutta:

Writers Workshop. Print.




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