Book Review: The End of India by Khushwant Singh

The End of India is a thought provoking book about the crisis which continues to haunt India even today. Based on five chapters, this book includes the problems of Gujarat, communalism and religious fanaticism in India.

Singh writes that he won’t be surprised if the Muslims living in Gujrat start paying jaziya which medieval Islamic rulers imposed on their non-Muslim subjects. Ahmedabad, Gujrat’s capital was built by a Muslim ruler in the middle ages. In 1998 the author observed that milestones on the main highway leading to the city had changed and turned into Amdavad, with state-sponsored help.

In the second chapter Singh says: “Both speech and silence are pregnant with hate…” This sentence has a very strong and deep meaning which I cannot refuse to mention in this review. According to the author Hindu nationalism’s birth took place in Renaissance Bengal in 1886 with the Hindu melas. The main objective of these melas were to train young Hindus in martial arts, use of swords, daggers and lathis. Non-Hindus were not allowed to participate in these events. Soon after the British overthrew the Mughal empire, the rise in Hindu separatism began to accelerate. Hindu and Sikh warriors like Prithviraj Chauhan, Guru Gobind Singh and Shivaji who resisted the Muslim rulers, were portrayed as national heroes.

Later, after the death of Gandhi the RSS, VHP, BJP and RSS offshoots like Bajrang Dal and Vanasvasi Kalyan Ashram have been implicated in various communal riots all over the country. Discussing communalism, the author believes that BJP is more dangerous as it uses democracy to camouflage its fascist agenda. Tracing the history of communalism Singh mentions that after Buddhism when Brahminical Hindusim gained favor again with ruling dynasties, especially in the ninth and tenth centuries, Buddhists were persecuted and their places of worship demolished. Later, in the reign of many Muslim rulers, Hindus were discriminated against and their temples destroyed. He further adds that when the British came to power they divided people not on religious lines, but on racial lines.

The author of this book mentions his personal experiences at the time of partition. He writes that in Lahore gangs from nearby Mozang had started marking out Hindu and Sikh homes for loot and forcible occupation. Discussing Indian politics Singh argues that the communal problem perfected by the BJP began under the Congress. He believes the Congress party won its landslide victory on a wave of anti-Sikh sentiment generated by it. Writing about political parties he suggests that “One should not judge political parties by the labels they wear on their lapels of by the high-sounding manifestos issued by them, but by their actions.”

Moreover, Singh believes that the first step towards securing the Indian future would happen, once the villain within themselves is identified. He says: “The need of our times is to revive the Nehruvian notion of secularism”. The author writes that after Gandhi and Maulana Azad respect for all religions was a mere display of religiosity. He stresses that if you were a devout Hindu you went to a Muslim dargah or threw an Iftar party to prove you were secular. If you were a Muslim, you celebrated Diwali with your Hindu friends. Secularism was reduced to a sham display.

The last chapter tries to present a solution to the looming threat of Indian society. Making his case for the creation of a new religion Singh mentions Bernard Shaw in the last chapter. Bernard Shaw had said that every intelligent man makes his own religion though there are a hundred versions of it. Singh says that our religion should make provision for the future. It should incorporate family planning. He espouses that permanent graves should not be allowed. The author says that: “good life is the only good religion”.