On Gandhi, Mountbatten and Jinnah after 62 years.

India turned 62 this August 15, 2009, marking another year of highs and lows in the arsenal of the Indian experience. Of course, nothing drastic had happened – we were riding the slow horse of the recession just like every other nation. We had not jumped over it and continued to grow at the alarming rate we were once so proud of; we had the stock market rising and falling, droughts and floods wrecking havoc, innumerable bomb blasts leaving pock marks on our faces and the occasional sports victory. This take-it-in-your-stride attitude, however, went to hell come Independence Day. The first step, in my opinion, is when you see the beggars at the traffic signals when you stop your vehicle. They go from window to window, from rider to rider, selling flags and other green-and-orange paraphernalia. I was once sharing an auto with a software engineer while getting back from a friend’s place. He turns to me and asks, “What Independence Day are we celebrating! What independence do we have with bribery and corruption still giving the politician a dictatorial grip over the common man?” These questions are wispy, freely floating in the air, waiting to be asked. First the engineer next to me will ask it, then the auto driver, then a forgotten friend on Facebook. From their, it will jump minds and mindsets, asking and asking. What I don’t like about these questions is they don’t wait for an answer.

Often, arguments beginning on such notes end with something I have come to dislike over the years: Gandhi-bashing. If you were to prowl university campuses around midday and when the tea-stalls are fervently issuing glasses of tea and Gold Flake Kings, you can get a solid dose of “Gandhi was a bastard! He let India be split apart into two factions, and one Islam!” – good enough to make you wonder. I’m an Indian. I know of the infamous partition, and I know of the number of people who died that year. I believe no one can ever come to truly understand the losses of the nation – in terms of numbers, in terms of families, in terms of happiness. But we have moved on; Jawaharlal Nehru captured it in his landmark speech, ‘Tryst With Destiny’. One of our own killed the Mahatma before the nation attained republic-hood and with his demise commenced all that was a face of the Independence Struggle. After that, the early Indian political scenario was dominated by the Congress (INC) – that was inevitable because most of those in Parliament had been freedom fighters.

So yeah, Gandhi and Jinnah together had been responsible for the formation of India and Pakistan, but I don’t think India values Gandhi as much as Pakistan values Jinnah. The general consensus is that Pakistan values Jinnah because he convinced both Gandhi and Mountbatten to conceive those chasms of division that would give birth to the warring nations, while Gandhi succumbed to such pleas and proceeded to divide India of his own volition. Now, before I get down to the specifics, a small story. When Captain Jack Sparrow was detained by Commodore Norrington after saving Elizabeth from the waters, the officer finds out that he is, in fact, a pirate. The Governor subsequently orders Norrington to hang Sparrow. At this juncture, Norrington proclaims that “… one good deed does not excuse a man from a lifetime of wickedness.”

Sparrow: “… but seems enough to condemn him!”

That is the case with Gandhi! The India we all speak of today was because of his efforts. We think we can afford to see Gandhi as someone different from how the world perceives him to be, but in doing that, we go one step too far and condemn him. Yes, we are Indians just as he was and are blest with that kinship, but the truth does not expose itself differently to us and differently to the others. It is the same: Gandhi liberated us from the British  – and that is irrespective of whether it was his ideology or his actions. Gandhi made it possible for us, you and me, to speak of an independent India after 62 years. His efforts went into releasing the country from the relentless talons of the British royalty and he did just that. Blaming him for delivering an India enslaved by money exchanged under the table is like blaming Jack Welch for Dumbledore’s death. And by this time if you don’t already see the fact, you’re retarded.

Now, moving on to the ideological trangle of Mountbatten-Gandhi-Jinnah. As one of the foremost authorities in the Partition Council, Mountbatten was for the Muslim grouping – a solution where the Muslim and Hindu communities would be segregated into two different camps because of Jinnah’s rising demands for a separate Muslim state. Although these demands were not shared by the total Muslim populace nor by Gandhi, Muhammed Ali Jinnah cited the reason for his demands to be the steadily increasing threats of the radically rightist Hindu Mahasabha (popular members of which were Nathuram Godse and Narayan Apte). When he (Jinnah) noticed Gandhi’s reluctance to approve of the partition, Mountbatten was faced with the prospect of open civil war in the regions of West Punjab, Sindh, North-West Frontier Province and East Bengal – regions that fell under the political protection of Jinnah. The time soon came for Congress to make a decision on what had to be done – it could either go against Gandhi’s sentiments and partition India, or it could agree with Gandhi and suffer a civil war. Sardar Vallabhai Patel, the Iron Man of India and our first Deputy Prime Minister, decided to take a firm stand and ensured that Congress went ahead with the partitioning after convincing Gandhi of the adverse consequences of any other decision. A devastated Gandhi agreed.

Following this and the 1947 Indo-Pakistan War, the INC decided to deny Pakistan’s its due Rs. 55 crores as part of a deal brokered by the Partition Council. Sources of tensions within the nation included Patel, the Hindu Mahasabha and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. Patel was of the opinion that Pakistan would use the money to escalate the war against India, an idea that the Mahasabha and the RSS shared. The RSS, for its part, began to press for the deportation of all Muslims in India to Pakistan. Gandhi feared that if Pakistan wasn’t paid its share, agitation from across the border would spill over into Indian territories. Result: he undertook a fast-unto-death demanding that Pakistan be paid in full and the Hindu extremist groups recant their threats. This time, the INC had no choice but to listen to Gandhi. As an outcome of this incident, Apte was led to believe that Gandhi had betrayed Indian sentiments and subsequently instigated Godse to kill Gandhi, which he did. They were convicted and executed on November 15, 1949.

Now would you tell me, ye adrenaline-powered Gandhi-bashers, what wrong did Gandhi do?

10 Worst torture devices of all time

Although the Middle Ages did present some troubled times to the whole of humanity in terms of widespread religious reformation and a revolution in political beliefs, it may not be a surprise that there did exist a time called the Dark Ages. One read through the torture devices, and methods, listed below should convince you about the aptness of that name. They are a reflection of mankind’s darkest times as well as the convoluted desires we bear and seldom expose.

1. Punishing Shoes: The shoes were often used in conjunction with the standing pillory (a device that holds your head and wrists in place while you stand). How long do you think you could stand on your tippy-toes before you had to rest your heels on those iron spikes?
2. The Boots: The victim’s legs were placed between two planks of wood and bound together with cords. Between the cords the torturers placed wedges which they would violently hammer. Each time a wedge was thumped down, an small portion of the shin bone was shattered. The tormentors could hammer at least a dozen wedges up and down the legs. When the boots were removed, the bone fragments fell to pieces and the skin of the lower legs merely served as loose sacks for them.
3. Water Torture: The water torture was a favorite among Japanese POW guards during WWII. The victim was first bound with barbed wire and his mouth stuffed with rags. Next, the guards would snake a tube down the victim’s nasal passage and bloat his belly with water. Once that was finished, the guards would kick and beat the poor chap’s midsection until his stomach lining burst and and death ensued.
4. Cat’s Paw: This was simply used to slowly tear the flesh from its victim, often times all the way down to the bone, after being strapped face-front onto a wall.
5. Drawing and quartering: Quartering is the rack taken to the next level and was reserved only for murderers and those who attempted regicide. Each of the prisoner’s limbs were tied to a horse and the horses were whipped simultaneously so that each limb would erupt from the body in an instant. Exhibit A: Guy Fawkes.
   
6. Cleansing the soul: This was a “warm-up” torture, where the guy was chained down to a bed and made to swallow boiling water or coals. Or both. The names is because this practice was believed to cleanse the unfortunate’s soul of all evil before beginning the more actions packed stuff.
7. The Hanging Cage: I pity the guy, or lady, who ended up like this. First, the victim is stripped to nothing and then placed in a cage  – and not any cage. This is could be adjusted such that the bars completely constrained all movements of the victim. Next, the whole arrangement was suspended from a high point to die of starvation, thirst or exposure to extreme temperatures – which could take weeks.
   
8. The Judas Cradle: The victim was hoisted above the sharpened vertex of a small pyramid and brought down crotch first on it. The torturer could also decide how much of the person’s weight came down on it by pulling on cords and chains the victim was hoisted with.
   
9. Iron Maiden: The following is a depiction of the first recorded use of the Iron Maiden on August 14, 1515 : “A forger of coins was placed inside, and the doors shut slowly, so that the very sharp points penetrated his arms and legs in several places, and his belly and chest, and his bladder and the root of his member, and his eyes, and his shoulders, and his buttocks, but not enough to kill him; and so, he remained making great cry and lament for two days, after which he died.”
10. Impalement: You still here? You sick bastard! Anyway, a long spike, seldom oiled or greased, was thrust into the unfortunate fellow’s anus and pushed in until it jutted out of his mouth. What made it more gruesome was that after impalement, the victim could survive up to a day before blood loss and infection killed him. The most famous perpetrator of this method even incorporated this technique into his name – Vlad the Impaler.