The sub-continent of Durga
By Manohar Malgonkar

THE word ‘Raj’ is, paradoxically, a post-Raj coinage. The sahibs who ran its affairs never used it to describe what, to them, was reverently iconic; ‘The Empire’, a word to be spoken with a catch in the voice.

Raj is a makeshift word, pressed into service by the spin-doctors of the BBC in a calculated bid to sugarcoat the arrogance and condescension implicit in the word ‘Empire’ — a sop to the sensitivities of its erstwhile subjects. Phillip Mason, servant of the Empire who later became one of its most vociferous spokesmen, has no such qualms. "I cannot bring myself to use the expression ‘Raj’, he blandly declares.

Oh, well. Raj, Empire, white men’s burden, Ma-Baap Sarkar of the model Indian citizen of Rudyard Kipling’s tales — call it what you will. It had lost much of its glitter before its inglorious end and has ever since been seen as a colossal failure, an embarrassment — as John Morris (who, after undergoing a sex-change, became Jan Morris) tells us in what is positively the most brilliant portrait of the muddled grandeur that was the Empire.It was an idea that was so "utterly discredited" that when, at long last, the sahibs decided to drop their burden and run, they did so with "a sigh of relief".

Its sheer dimensions were forbidding. What was proudly hailed as "the Jewel in the Crown" not only filled out the entire subcontinent but spilled over mainland Asia. At its demise, it was carved into as many as four nations which, after a further splintering, have become five: Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Burma and Sri Lanka.

That a handful of high-spirited, resolute Englishmen should even attempt to govern so vast a domain as a sort of corporate business enterprise (which, God knows, the Empire actually was for more than a hundred years) was an absurd notion. No wonder they made a hash of it. And when, realising that it was a hopeless task, they decided to abandon the ship; what they left to their successor governments was if not a sinking ship, certainly a hopelessly grounded one — a land in the grip of mounting chaos.

The sad truth is that, those who took over the running of these countries in a spirit of lofty idealism have not done any better either. After 50 years, and much to their shame, all five countries are still mired in grinding poverty, still looked upon as ‘developing’ countries, still embedded in the ThirdWorld.

But there is something on the plus side too, a social advance that has not been equalled in the most affluent democracies: the emergence of women as dynamic political leaders, to hold the highest political offices.

Nirad C. Choudhary, himself a fiery advocate of the Empire and all that it stood for, wrote a book about India which he called The Continent of Circe. Circe, Itook the trouble to find out, was the daughter of the Sun himself, who had become a sorceress. She murdered her own husband and was punished by being banished to an island. There, too, she busied herself luring unsuspecting visitors to drink a cup of her own brewing: and this had the effect of turning them into swine.

All of which was enough to make me give up any attempt to fathom how, precisely, India could be called The Continent of Circe. Had Pax Britannica the effect of turning all of us into hogs? At that it was consoling to reflect that the India Nirad Babu had in mind was an India of 50 years ago, because soon after the British themselves left, Choudhary too left India to settle down among the people he admired and liked. It is just that this title serves me to make the point that, since his days, what may have been the Continent of Circe has been transformed into a ‘Continent of Durga’.

Because what used to be the Empire has become the land of iron-willed women. All five nations that once formed part of it have produced their own avatars of Durgas. Burma, Sri Lanka and Pakistan all have their own iron ladies, and Bangladesh has two of them, taking their turns as Prime Minister. And India, which was ruled by its own Durga for some 20 years before she was assassinated, now has a whole crop of them at the forefront of its political affairs.

It is Burma which somehow exemplifies this phenomenon. Ever since anyone can remember, Burma has been ruled by a military junta on the pattern of Cuba or Pakistan before Zia-ul-Haq died in a plane which exploded in mid-air. Yet how many people outside Burma so much as know the name of Burma’s military dictator, let alone those of his henchmen? No matter who governs Burma, it is Aung San Suu Kyi the gentle, soft-spoken, frail-looking lady who holds the pride of place in the nation’s affairs. Her infrequent pronouncements are given the widest publicity, as are her grievances. So dedicated is she to the cause of her country that she chose not to leave her post even to visit her husband, Michael Aris, as he lay dying of cancer in a London hospital, because she feared that the junta would not let her return.

All this we know because world’s news services, including BBC, and the CNN, have their camera crews camped at her doorstep to instantly convey whatever she has to say to the world.

No matters who rules the country, to the outside world Aung San Suu Kyi is Burma.

In the same manner as, in the seventies, Indira Gandhi became India. Indira is India; India is Indira! became the war cry of her party. And during the emergency when she turned ‘dictator’, she began to be seen as Durga, the personification of wrath. That was how M.F. Hussain portrayed her: Durga riding a tiger, and Indira Gandhi for her part showed that the role of Durga was so uniquely her own, that a family friend who suggested that her daughter-in-law Maneka, might also lay claim to it, suddenly found himself to be her ex-friend’.

Since Indira Gandhi’s assassination 15 years ago, Durga’s throne here has remained empty. But there are several contenders for it what with a Jaya and a Maya and a Sonia leading the field. In every single nation that once formed the Raj, Durga prevails. Sri Lanka is a shining example. Its first Durga was Srimao Bandaranayake, a woman to fear. And of late the role has fallen to Chandrika Kumartunga who has emerged as the most masterful Prime Minister Sri Lanka has had. She has done for her land what few even believed was possible: not only brought an end to the civil war and a substantial measure of stability, but somehow revived its economy, too. Bangladesh has two women who can both be acclaimed as Durgas: Begum Sheikh Hasina and Begum Khalida Zia. In a land known for its volatility and its propensity for swift military coups, no other person, male or female, has emerged who could be their rival.

And finally to Benazir Bhutto a Durga manifestation in an unlikely setting, Pakistan. Born in a family of great wealth, brought up in a broad, international culture and soundly educated, she is a classical beauty to boot. That such a lady should want to make a career in politics at all would be unusual in any country. In a land in which for a woman to so much as show her face in public is thought to be a violation of decorum, Benazir went out canvassing, addressed vast all-male rallies, declared strikes and led protest marches to finally win acceptance as Prime Minister. This is nothing short of a miracle.

Down and out now, Benazir who was so fittingly her country’s First Lady, is fleeing from country to country to drum up sympathy for her and her husband’s plight. And yet, true to Winston Churchill’s wartime motto, she is defiant in defeat. Those who saw her on BBC TV, arguing her case will long remember her poise, her earnestness, and above all the masterly skill with which she presented her case. Likely to face imprisonment once she returns home, Benazir Bhutto still remains the subcontinent’s foremost Durga.