India and Iraq

In Alan Moorehead’s The March to Tunis (so rarely burrow into reading these days – spend more time pacing about or doing tiny bits of this or that) there’s a period of respite when he’s in India just as Britain’s representative, Cripps (apparently not the Viceroy) is presenting the blueprint for Indian independence after the war (not now please, I just want you to hold off the Japs for us first). He manages to interview many of the principal figures, including Ghandi, Nehru and the Moslem nationalist, Jinnah. By far the most interesting figure, to my mind, was Nehru, whose fine writings were liberally quoted. Interesting I suppose because he was the most secular of the leaders, but also the most open-minded and therefore the most aware of complexities (such people don’t usually become leaders). His descriptions of riots and the nasty magnificence of the police ironically reminded me of Rohinton Mistry’s descriptions of similar events under the state of emergency proclaimed by Nehru’s own daughter (or granddaughter, or niece?), Indira Ghandi. More interesting still is the comparison between ‘pre-democratic’ India under a largely hated colonial power and ‘pre-democratic’ Iraq under occupation from the old arch-enemy. Trying to manage the different religious, political and cultural factions, wondering if they can fit under one banner or if separate states will have to be created. The British quickly saw the need to allow a separate homeland for the Moslems – nobody seems willing to allow such a separate identity for the Kurds, especially with such fierce hostility from Turkey. Yet democracy, of a sort, did get going in India, and most importantly they avoided, largely, becoming a client state, so the Indian example is one worth exploring. I mean, it’s probably no more of a basket case than it ever was.