Poets From India

"If any person, whether before or after marriage, shall keep a prostitute or a female-slave, you shall, after ascertaining the fact, take the slave for the Government,' and, if any person objects to it, he will be punishable"

"[It appears that circular orders for the conversion of the Hindus were issued to all the different detachments of his troops. The original of one of these orders found in the records of Palglmut fort, after its capture in 1790, ran as follows : — ] “It directed (all military detachments) that every being in the district, without distinction, should he honored with Islam, that the houses of such as fled to avoid that honor should be burned, that they should be traced to their lurking places, and that all means of truth and falsehood, fraud or force, should be employed to effect their universal conversion.”—"

"The temples are under your management; you are therefore to see that offering to the gods and the temple illumination are duly regulated, as directed out of government grants."

"A pearl fishery is being established on the Malabar coast. Expert pearl divers are coming to Mysore from foreign lands. They will be with us for a short while until our own people can be trained. Believe me, there is glitter and romance in those pearls—and there is wealth and profit in them. Government is prepared to subsidise your training the youth in this field of work. You will also be assisted in case you suffer any financial losses in the pioneering years. Can I count on your cooperation?"

"I have given detailed instructions for the establishment of silk industry in Mysore. Silk worms and men well versed in the art of rearing them have already arrived from foreign lands to train our people. Eighteen centres have been set up for development of the industry. Many more are needed. Every encouragement is being given to plantation of mulberry trees. I would like you to take direct interest in this developmental activity. My goal is clear: I want Mysore to be the foremost amongst silk producing nations."

"Agriculture is the lifeblood of the nation. This land, rich and fertile, will reward those that work on it. Famine and want are either the result of sloth and ignorance or of corruption. The 127 Regulations of this Revenue Code are intended for your immediate implementation. In particular, your urgent attention is drawn to the provisions which relate to cash advances to needy peasants for buying ploughs, steps for taking over derelict land and protection to the cultivator and his descendants. Non-traditional crops must be specially encouraged and the formula for tax concessions to those who grow crops such as sugar cane, beetle and coconut must be brought into effect without delay. Also essential it is to encourage the planting of valuable trees-mangoes and the like-at the rate of 200 per village"

"Looting a conquered enemy enriches a few, impoverishes the nation and dishonors the entire army. Wars must be linked to battlefields. Do not carry them to innocent civilians. Honor their women, respect their religion, and protect their children and the infirm"

"After you have made your arrangements regarding the capital of the Sultanut of Persia, it is my wish that you and I in concert with Zuman Shah should endeavour to regulate and put in order, (divide between them seemingly), the countries of Hindostan, and the Dukhun."

"In his letter to Zaman Shah, Tipu stated that Delhi, which was the seat of Mohammedan power, had been reduced to a state of a ruin, since ‘the infidels [Marathas] altogether prevail . . . it is incumbent upon the leaders of the faithful, to unite together and exterminate the infidels . . . the union of the followers of the faith [Islam] is necessary.’...In the second year, the Afghan army was to invade the Maratha dominions in the Deccan from the north, while Tipu was to attack from the south, raising ‘the standard of holy war and make the infidels bow under the sword of the faith.’"

"In early 1796, Tipu had dispatched ambassadors, Meer Habibullah and Meer Mohammad Raza, to Zaman Shah with valuable presents, elephants and messages of friendship to pursue the common cause of ‘carrying on the holy war against the infidels and freeing the region of Hindostan from the contamination of the enemies of our religion.’"

"The same strategy is revealed in Tipu’s letter to his favourite and loyal commander, Badr-uz-zaman Khan, on 19 January 1790 where he states: Don’t you know that I have achieved a great victory recently in Malabar and over four lakh Hindus have been converted to Islam? I am now determined to march against that cursed Raman Nair without delay. Thinking that he and his subjects would be soon converted to Islam, I am overjoyed and hence abandoned the idea of returning to Shrirangapattanam. Assemble therefore all the priests and other heads of the Muhammadan church, within your jurisdiction, and instruct them to exhort all true Musalmans to join prayers to the throne of God for the success of the holy cause in which he was embarked."

"In his letter to Syed Abdullah and three others of religious orders, he wrote on 18 January 1790: Through the divine favour and with the assistance of prophesy [Prophet Mohammad], the whole of the infidels inhabiting the districts of Farrukhi [Calicut] have received the honour of Islamism. There are only a few on this side of the country of Cochin who remain [to be converted]; and these also it is our firm determination to exalt and distinguish by bestowing upon them the happiness of the true faith. As this [then] is an affair of holy war [jihad], we write to you, among others who are conversant in sacred matters.40"

"In his letter dated 22 March 1789 to Abdul Kadir, the Talukdar of Kotungeery, Tipu boasts: ‘We have conferred the honour of Islamism on ten or twelve thousand infidels, of whom we have detained Lumboony Bhutmar [perhaps a generic name for the Nairs] and some of their principal men who were the instigators of the [late] sedition . . . you must communicate this to the unbelievers [in your quarter] and moreover, sending for them, make Musalmans of them, and then dismiss them to their homes.’"

"Tipu ordered that ‘40,000 captives, unhappy families of the Koorg country and other parts of the Mallabar Coast are to be circumcised [converted].’"

"He then ordered Bakshi to make a ‘repast of rice and beef, [which] you must feed the whole of the prisoners on the same day, and afterwards incorporate them with the professors of Islam. They are then to be given in charge to the Muhammadies, with the directions for their being all forthwith circumcised. This being done, let them be reinstated in their possessions.’"

"The holy war or jihad against them had led ‘to the spontaneous profession of the true faith by great numbers of infidels and their families . . . the positive duty of all Musalmans to take up arms for the advancement of Islam; and by expatiating on the favour which they will by so doing, acquire with God, with his Prophet, and with the Muhammadan world at large.’"

"‘Having circumcised them,’ Tipu ordered, ‘you must enroll them among the faithful [make them Musalmans] . . . if any of those should escape, you will come under our displeasure."

"Meer Husain Ali has been dispatched [to you] with two kushoons. With the assistance of Almighty God, and guided by the Divine grace, he will, with the [further] aid of the holy Prophet, [soon] join you. You must [then] in conjunction with the aforesaid Meer, make prisoners of, and slay the infidels [utterly]. Such of the males among them as may be under twenty years of age, are to be made prisoners. Of the remaining unbelievers, let five thousand be suspended to trees."

"It is our constant object and sincere intention, that those worthless and stiff-necked infidels, who have turned aside their heads from obedience to the true-believers, and openly raised the standards of infidelity, should be chastised by the hands of the faithful, or made either to acknowledge the true religion or to pay tribute, particularly at this time, when owing to the imbecility of the princes of Hind, that insolent race having conceived the futile opinion, that the true believers are become weak, mean and contemptible; and not satisfied even with this, but preparing for war, have over-run and laid waste the territories of the Moslems, and extended the hand of violence and injustice on the property and honour of the faithful. ...Whosoever shall refuse to give ear to these words, shall contravene their promulgation, shall be considered as destitute of [every particle of] honour [or zeal], as a stranger to [or no participator in] the bliss derived from [a steady]faith, and as deserving to be banished from the presence of God, to be excluded from the circle of the faithful and to be accounted as one of the accursed infidels."

"It is our constant object and sincere intention, that those worthless and stiff-necked infidels, who have turned aside their heads from obedience to the true-believers, and openly raised the standards of infidelity, should be chastised by the hands of the faithful, or made either to acknowledge the true religion or to pay tribute, particularly at this time, when owing to the imbecility of the princes of Hind, that insolent race having conceived the futile opinion, that the true believers are become weak, mean and contemptible; and not satisfied even with this, but preparing for war, have over-run and laid waste the territories of the Moslems, and extended the hand of violence and injustice on the property and honour of the faithful."

"In the hills the unbelievers of the land of the enemy have forbidden fasting and prayer; convert them all to Islam, so that the religion of Thy messenger may gain in strength."

"Oh! Almighty God! Dispose the whole body of infidels! Scatter their tribe, cause their feet to stagger! Overthrow their councils! Change their State! Destroy their very root! Cause death to be near them, cut off from them the means of sustenance! Shorten their days! Be their bodies the constant object of their cares (i.e. infest them with diseases), deprive their eyes of sight, make black their faces (i.e. bring shame and disgrace on them), destroy in them the organs of speech! Slay them as Shedaud (i.e. the Prince who presumptuously aimed at establishing a paradise for himself and was slain by command of God); drown them as Pharoah was drowned, and visit them with the severity of thy wrath. Oh Avenger! Oh! Universal Father! I am depressed and overpowered, grant me thy assistance."

"To begin the so much desired work of the conversion of the Hindoos and to seize on the Brahmins, ... and make them examples to the other inferior castes, in becoming Mussulmans, by suffering circumcision and being compelled to eat beef: accordingly many Brahmins were seized in or about the month of July 1788..."

"[ ….In a proclamation issued to the people in 1788 Tipu Sultan outlined his new scheme of social reform as follows:] 'From the period of the conquest until this day, during twenty-four years, you have been a turbulent and refractory people, and in the wars waged during your rainy season, you have caused number of our warriors to taste the draught of martyrdom. Be it so. What is past is past. Hereafter you must proceed in an opposite manner, dwell quietly and pay your dues like good subjects and since it is the practice with you for one woman to associate with ten men, and you leave your mothers and sisters unconstrained in their obscene practices, and are thence all born in adultery, and are more shameless in your connections than the beasts of the fields: I hereby require you to forsake these sinful practices and be like the rest of mankind; and if you are disobedient to these commands, I have made repeated vows to honour the whole of you with Islam and to march all the chief persons to the seat of Government.'"

"People who have sinned against such a holy place are sure to suffer the consequences of their misdeeds at no distant date in this Kali age in accordance with the verse: Hasadbhih kriyate karma rudadbhir-anubhuyate (People do [evil] deeds smilingly but suffer the consequences crying)."

"Who are my people? All of them – Yes those that ring the temple bells and those that pray in the mosque – they are my people and this land is theirs and mine"

"To live like a lion for a day is far better than to live for a hundred years like a jackal."

"Life is a slow suicide, and it is happening to every intellectual."

"In portraying a domestic life constrained, disrupted, and transformed by civil violence, Seth draws on the nineteenth-century historical novels of Scott, Alessandro Manzoni, Theodore Fontane, and Leo Tolstoy."

"The diversity and range of Seth's work makes him somewhat of an enigma. However, for a writer who counts such diverse figures as Pushkin, T'ang dynasty Chinese poets, Chaucer, the Elizabethans, Tennyson, novelists like Hardy, Austen, George Eliot, R. K. Narayan, and modern poets like Timothy Steele and Philip Larkin among some of his literary influences, Seth's wide-ranging technique is conceivably not so surprising."

"Like Midnight's Children, however, A Suitable Boy too is steeped in an awareness of and affection for indigenous literary and cultural traditions, most notably Urdu poetry, Hindustani classical music, the performed Ramayana, the Ramlila, Shia marsiyas or lamentations, Tagore's songs ('Rabindra Sangeet'), and, of course, Hindi cinema."

"In A Suitable Boy, Seth's traditionalism allows him to rediscover character. Mrs Rupa Mehra becomes too substantial, too vivid a presence to be confined within a novel: she is at once infuriating and endearing, a benevolent Indian version of Mrs Bennet in Pride and Prejudice, a comparison that Seth is typically careful to suggest by equipping her daughter with a Jane Austen novel to read on a train."

"A Suitable Boy (which burlesques poetic pretensions) reads like the offspring of an unlikely mating of Jane Austen and Leo Tolstoy, with its father's looks and mother's temperament."

"Vikram Seth's book A Suitable Boy (1993) that made history as a publishing phenomenon heralded the change from an economist-poet to a full-time writer, making millions in pounds. The media dwelt on its 700,000 words and 1,349 pages, the longest novel published in England since Richardson's Clarissa (1744-48) and longer than Tolstoy's War and Peace (1865-69) — and on Seth's advance of more than 2 million pounds. More relevant are the artistic comparisons made to Jane Austen, George Eliot, Tolstoy and Dickens."

"He writes with the omniscience and authority of a large, orderly committee of experts on Indian politics, law, medicine, crowd psychology, urban and rural social customs, dress, cuisine, horticulture, funerary rites, cricket and even the technicalities of shoe manufacture."

"How ugly babies are! How heedless Of all else than their bulging selves— Like sumo wrestlers, plush with needless Kneadable flesh-like mutant elves, Plump and vindictively nocturnal, With lungs determined and infernal (A pity that the blubbering blobs Come unequipped with volume knobs)."

"Ten hostages is terrorism; A million, and it's strategy. To ban books is fanaticism; To threaten in totality All culture and all civilization, All humankind and all creation, This is a task of decorous skill And needs high statesmanship and will."

"Killing is dying. This equation Carries no mystical import. It is the literal truth. Our nation Has long believed war was a sport. Unoccupied, unbombed, undying, While 'over there' the shells were flying, How could we know the Russian dread Of war, the mountains of their dead? We reveled in acceleration At every level of the race; And even now we're face to face With mutual extermination We talk as blithely as before Of 'surgical strikes' and 'limited war.'"

"Workers of Lungless Labs—when dying Will you be proud you were midwife To implements exemplifying Assault against the heart of life? If you had scruples, you betrayed them. What pastoral response acquits Those who made ovens for Auschwitz? You knew their purpose, yet you made them. Indeed, it's said that the banality Of evil is its greatest shock. It jokes, it punches its time clock, Plays with its kids. The triviality Of slaughtering millions can't impinge Upon its peace, or make it cringe."

"Catholic and Episcopalian, Lutheran, Baptist, Methodist, Jew, Muslim, Buddhist, atheist, We are all here; no one is alien Now radiation's common laws Impel us into common cause."

"They go to work, attend a meeting, Write an equation, have a beer, Hail colleagues with a cheerful greeting, Are conscientious, sane, sincere, Rational, able, and fastidious. Through hardened casings no invidious Tapeworm of doubt, no guilt, no qualm Pierces to sabotage their calm. When something's technically attractive, You follow the conception through, That's all. What if you leave a slew Of living dead, of radioactive "Collateral damage" in its wake? It's just a job, for heaven's sake."

"In life's brief game to be a winner A man must have...oh yes, above All else, of course, someone to love."

"What is the difference between my life and my love? One gets me low, the other lets me go."

"Is it not love that knows how to make smooth things rough and rough things smooth?"

"[T]hink of many things. Never place your happiness in one person’s power. Be just to yourself."

"'You too will marry a boy I choose,' said Mrs Rupa Mehra firmly to her younger daughter. Lata avoided the maternal imperative by looking around the great lamp-lit garden of Prem Nivas. The wedding-guests were gathered on the lawn. 'Hmm,' she said. This annoyed her mother further."

"Imagining the flower-pot attacked it The kitten flung the violets near and far And yet, who knows? This morning, as I backed it, My car was set upon by a parked car."

"Some men like Jack and some like Jill I'm glad I like them both but still I wonder if this freewheeling Really is an enlightened thing, Or is its greater scope a sign Of deviance from some party line? In the strict ranks of Gay and Straight What is my status: Stray? Or Great?"

"All you who sleep tonight Far from the ones you love, No hands to left or right, And emptiness above— Know that you aren’t alone. The whole world shares your tears, Some for two nights or one, And some for all their years."

"Most secularists pretend not to know [the] unambiguous position of Savarkar’s (in many cases, they really don’t know, for Hindu-baiting is usually done without reference to primary sources). Likewise, Savarkar’s plea for caste intermarriage to promote the oneness of Hindu society is usually ignored in order to keep up the pretence that he was a reactionary on caste, an “upper-caste racist” (as Gyan Pandey puts it), and what not. There are no limits to secularist dishonesty... [It] is just another case of secularist justice: Hindu are damned if they do, damned if they don’t."