India-Burma
2 April 1942–28 January 1945

“We got a hell of a beating,” Lt. Gen. Joseph W. Stilwell told the crowd of reporters in the Indian capital of New Delhi. It was May 1942, and the American general, who had only recently arrived in the Far East to assume the position of chief of staff to Chinese leader Chiang Kai-shek, was chafing at failure in his first command in the field. Following the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor the previous December, the Japanese had won victory after victory, extending their empire from Wake Island in the Pacific to Malaya and Singapore in Southeast Asia. When Stilwell had arrived in the embattled Chinese capital of Chungking in March, the Japanese were already driving into Burma, capturing the capital of Rangoon on 6 March. The American general took command of two Chinese divisions and, in cooperation with the British and Indians, tried to stem the Japanese onslaught. Defeated, he and his staff endured a rugged, 140-mile hike over jungle-covered mountains to India. By occupying Burma, the Japanese had not only gained access to vast resources of teak and rubber, but they had dosed the Burma Road, 700 miles of dirt highway that represented China’s last overland link with the outside world. The reopening of an overland route to China would be the major American goal, indeed obsession, in the theater throughout the campaign.

A colleague at work bought some currency from pre-colonial India. His Dad (an American Soldier-not related to the extract above) had been in India during the second world war, stationed as an aircraft spotter around the time when Japan was officially into Burma – which was also a British colony.

Here are some  pictures of what I saw today would like to share -

Uber Coin

Pre-colonial Indian currency (flip side of above pic)

Burmese Rupee in 1942, issued by the Japanese.

The language on the coins is fascinating, I can identify Hindi, Urdu and Telugu (apart from English) on the coins – the fourth is somewhat confusing for me, could be Gujarati or Punjabi. Some of the shapes, the four sided 1/2 anna and the wavy circle shaped 1 anna are very similar to 5 paisa and 10 paisa coins that I was used to in late 80’s. They soon lost any real monetary value and I haven’t seen them in a long long time. The donut shaped 1 pice is a unique shape though.Also growing up, the terms like charana (char-4 anna ~ 25 paisa), attana (aat-8 anna ~ 50 paisa) and barana (barah-12 anna ~75paisa) were quite common, when that amount of currency actually could get you something, like a bunch of fresh cilantro, or a couple of pani puris on the road side.

Almost all coins are either King George V or VI, a more detailed history of King George V and King George VI coins can be found here and here, for the numismatists among you.

And here is the Rupee, just after the amount of silver in the alloy used to make it was reduced (source: from links above)

One Rupee in 1944

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The Ghost, and the Darkness. Source: Wikipedia

New research suggests that the number of victims may have been much lesser than previously thought.

Over nine months the two voracious hunters claimed 35 lives _ no small figure, but much less than some accounts of as many as 135 victims.

It was 1898, when laborers from India and local natives building the Uganda Railroad across Kenya became the prey for the pair, a case that has been the subject of numerous accounts and at least three movies. Link.

Also, the scientific technique takes into account only the number of victims eaten by the beasts, and obviously not the victims that were killed but not eaten.

Researchers led by anthropologist Nathaniel J. Dominy and Justin D. Yeakel of the University of California, Santa Cruz, report in Tuesday’s edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

They noted that estimates of the death toll reported at the time ranged from 28 reported by the Ugandan Railway Company, to 135, claimed by Lt. Col. John H. Patterson, a British officer who killed the lions in December, 1898.

The researchers did note that their study covers only the number of people eaten, while the number killed may have been higher. They said the death toll may have been as high as 75.

More than a century and 10 years later, science can figure out how many people two lions ate. Isn’t science amazing?

And not to forget, regional Indian cinema had their own versions of the historical account, not necessarily set in east Africa, but same rail road in forests of Andhra Pradesh. Ladies and gentlemen, watch Chiranjeevi  below  (at least the part that has jay jay – j j j , can anyone suggest the original American movie/song  name?)

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Post tags: ghost and the darkness, man-eaters, Om Puri, Tsavo

Courtesy: Wikipedia

One most important thing that is inherently Indian, is the respect given to Gurus in India. The first question as a graduate student the first week in Amrika was do I stand up when the professor walks in? I mean, logically I would follow what the rest of the class does, assuming there were non-Indians in the class . And from what I understand this is not the normal practice in American schools. But as a kid growing up (and fully grown up),  students in schools were expected to stand up in silence when a teacher walked in and out of the class every hour. And add to that there are Sanskrit verses like Guru strotram -

Gurur Brahma gurur Vishnu gurur devo Maheswarah
Gurur sakshat parambrahmah tasmi sri gurave namah”

Teacher’s day is special in India because of many reasons. Depending on the type of school you went to – you may have been accustomed to different traditions. My school, would follow teacher’s day every year with a speech or two about Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, first vice president and second president of independent India, Oxford fellow and knighted by the british empire and a  Bharat Ratna awardee (just in case you missed the point, his birth anniversary is celebrated as teacher’s day every year in India on September 5), and then an usually long speech about why teachers deserved respect and what they do for us, which regretfully I remember yawning about and trying to focus hard on staying awake (while standing). The worst nightmare of course was, in middle school when on that day, seniors one grade higher would enact the role of teachers and come to your class (doesn’t help if you have two elder sisters who might turn up as fake-teachers for your class ).

What’s also interesting about Sarvepalli Radhakrishan was he was one of the early philosophers who made a deep effort to bridge the eastern and western cultural concepts that we still discuss about, to this day. What we can appreciate is the idea that cultures can be bridged and his work on objectivity and theology. Looking for online books on his philosophy I found the following paragraph on Google books (Radhakrishnan: his life and ideas – By K. Satchidananda Murty, Ashok Vohra), page 192 where the authors talk about Radhakrishnan’s views on infidelity, the provision for divorce under Hindu marriage act and his disagreement with Mahatma Gandhi’s views on self-restraint as the ‘moral way of birth control’ (pretty sure they didn’t teach this in my middle school).

And here’s a quote attributed to Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan -

It is not God that is worshipped but the group or authority that claims to speak in His name. Sin becomes disobedience to authority not violation of integrity. link

– Sir Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan

Hope you learned something new today. Happy Teacher’s day!

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Post tags: india, Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, teacher's day

Also of interest is this news clip from the Times published in 1959. [News Clip]

The article talks about Chinese troops crossing the border into Tibet and occupying a fortress. Among other reasons, the article cites a rising suspicion by China of Tibet being used as a based against China by “imperialistic U.S. and U.K.”. Another reason seems to be the “loss of face” suffered by the defeat of North Korea, forcing China to beat up on Tibet just to stress its supremacy.

At that point, India was supposedly so concerned with maintaining peace with China that India was actually urging Tibet to accept some measure of Chinese suzerainty. India had even gone as far as campaigning for China’s permanent spot on the U.N. Security Council. New Delhi’s reaction to the Chinese occupation of Tibet was one of shocked resignation. It would be worthy to note that this was the same reaction expressed by New Delhi when China invaded India.

Subsequently, Dalai Lama accompanied by a few armed guards fled Tibet and plodded his way at a whopping speed of 12 miles a day through the Himalayas seeking refuge in India, angering Mao Zedong, perhaps sowing the seeds for China’s 1962 invasion of India.

It is indeed fascinating to read a news report from the past. Far from the businesslike language used in modern day news reports, the writer doesn’t seem to shy away from mixing news with opinion, making it read like a, you guessed it, blog, albeit an über polished one. Given the slow demise of newspapers, maybe they can still reverse the trend?

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King Jr., who arrived in India on on February 9th, 1959 along with his wife, spent a month understanding Gandhi’s mode of non-violent protests and his teachings, nearly 10 years after Gandhi’s death.

MLK Jr., Image source: pace.edu	MLK 3 with Mahatma’s grand daughter.Image source: LA Times

Earlier this week, the U.S. senate passed a resolution comfirming Gandhi’s influence on King Jr.,

MLK III visited Rajghat and other places of significance in India on this trip. CNN has a more detailed report of King’s son’s visit here, which besides other things mentions a music concert in honor of King Jr.,.

The U.S. delegation also brought a rare treat to India to commemorate the historic visit in ‘59. The delegation included some celebrated American musicians who put on a concert. Grammy Award-winning singers and musicians Chaka Khan, Herbie Hancock, George Duke, tabla player Ustad Kazir Hussein and Dee Dee Bridgewater were among those who brought a special sound to India for the occasion.

The tabla player mentioned is most probably – Ustad Zakir Hussein.

An interesting description of King’s visit to India in 1959 is here.

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Post tags: Gandhi, Martin Luther King