THE GREAT INDIAN PARADOX

THE GREAT HINDU CIVILISATION

- Rajmohan Gandhi

Achievement, Neglect, Bias and the Way

Forward By Pavan K. Varma

WESTLAND

This book confirms the breadth of the author’s interests. Whether it is the paintings, dance or sculpture of ancient India, the wonders of the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, the wisdom of the Upanishads, or something else, Pavan K. Varma’s The Great Hindu Civilisation provides confident observations. What also comes across is Varma’s pride in Hindu civilisation. However, rage is this book’s strongest note. Rage at the under-appreciation of this civilisation by Indians themselves.

Offering, too, a hurried tour of Indian history, the book contains surprising errors. Varma writes (p. 196) that Aurangzeb “assassinated the last Sikh Guru Gobind Singh”. Aurangzeb had died in February 1707, 20 months before Guru Gobind Singh was stabbed to death in Nanded. After correctly quoting Gandhi to the effect that even if all other Hindu and non-Hindu texts in the world disappeared, one short verse in the Isha Upanishad would suffice for his soul, Varma gives us (p. 320) the wrong verse!

Not many will agree with Varma’s description of Ram Mohan Roy as “an important ally” for the British, or with the book’s downplaying (pp. 250-52) of the pernicious sati custom, against which Roy had applied his fearless mind and all his energies. Indignant at the success of Macaulay and company in “anglicising” the minds of the Indian elite, Varma underestimates both the pioneering greatness of men like Roy and the unfortunate prestige that was given to