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The story of love and war
Highlights
The Story Of Love And War.Raghu Karnad’s book, ‘Farthest Field’ is a personal story that reveals the larger context of the 2.5 million Indians, who voluntarily fought the Second World War for the British
Raghu Karnad’s book, ‘Farthest Field’ is a personal story that reveals the larger context of the 2.5 million Indians, who voluntarily fought the Second World War for the British
History has its strange ways, or should we say historians. So much has been written about World War II - usually associated with the victory of the Allied Forces over the Axis Powers - Germany, Italy, Japan, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria; Hitler and his atrocities, and the powerful alliance that finally saved the world. And yes, there is a mention of the Pearl Harbour event and not so much about the Hiroshima, Nagasaki fiasco.
Even as an entire library can be filled with just books on WWII from the European point of view, how many of us know that over 2.5 million Indians were in the British Indian Army and it was probably the largest voluntary force in the world? And this army of Indian officers and soldiers travelled to the farthest possible destination to fight war for British before returning to India, when the threat came closer home. The entire eastern belt was under threat of a Japanese attack and this included even the southern most parts like the Madras Residency. Such was the aggressive Japanese army that the largest empire, with the many colonies under its rule, feared defeat.
Against this backdrop Raghu Karnad, a journalist and son of the noted theatre actor, director Girish Karnad, wrote his debut novel, ‘Farthest Field’, published by HarperCollins. It is not just a war story; it is the forgotten story of the author’s maternal family - a Parsi family from Calicut, and of the three young men of the family, who served in the British Army - grandfather, and two of his uncles - Kodandera Ganapathy (“Ganny”), Godrej a.k.a Bobby and Manek Dadabhoy respectively. There was this old picture with three young men in uniform that was forever hanging on the walls of the family home that caught Raghu’s attention, one fine day. He saw that one of the gentlemen resembled him. He was Bobby who joined the British Army, travelled as far as Ehiopia and Libya, Egypt and Iraq before the war went North East involving Kohima, and later Burma, in the biggest engagement that has ever happened.
Raghu’s research revealed not just an interesting thread of family history, but the less-mentioned, yet fascinating portions of Indian history. His grandmother was still alive and she became a major source of information. He then travelled across the country to meet war veterans and read a lot of books and archives for reference. A year-long research and collating information followed, and towards the end, the story of a family, of love, rebellion, loyalty and uncertainty, became the premise to a larger story of a country at war that is not its own. The forgotten history found its voice.
“It is incidental that at a time when books like William Dalrymple’s ‘Return of a King’ that spoke of the lesser-known history were published, and there is renewed interest in World War I and focus on Indian soldiers in British Army, thanks to the milestone, the 100th anniversary – I decided to write a book on the three members of one family, who fought the war for the British. The difference with World War II and Indians in the Army is that by then the British Army recruited Indians as officers unlike the earlier times when Indians were usually kept in one company so that they can be controlled easily, and were usually enrolled in lower ranks.
It was during the WWII that the number of Indians in British army grew 10 times more, and a lot of them became officers. It was at the same time the Indian Nationalist Movement peaked and the middle class dilemma and one of their reasons to join Army was – the opportunity for engineers and doctors to get a white man to salute them,” shares Raghu, who is happy with the way the debut book shaped up.
70 years passed since the beginning of WWII and Raghu says that now is the right time for the book, “This means that there is a probability that you can still get in touch with people, who may have been in the war or knew someone who had been at war. On the flip side, most of their stories are based on memory and there is no way of confirming what they say.” That brings the question of genre to slot the book. Finally, the author decided he would call it narrative non-fiction.
The young author is yet basking in the glory of his first book. “I am still busy with my promotional tours, and I haven’t had much time to think about my next book. But, it is definitely not going to be based on history,” he shares. “May be a love story, why not?” he questions. Of course, why not - One would think, reflecting on the way he sensitively weaved the love story in his book. ‘Farthest Field’ is primarily a personal story for Raghu, yet the larger canvas of the Indian story of WWII makes it more than a simple family story, revealing many interesting facets of the times when entire India was in the throes of a war, literally.
By Rajeshwari Kalyanam
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