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The truth behind history

M.J. Akbar's latest book is a history of India couched as a fascinating family chronicle

PHOTO: S. Subramanium

MORE THAN MEMOIRS M.J. Akbar points out that fiction is more truthful than a diary

It is still common to find well-meaning parents in India admonishing their children to stay away from novels, fearing such light reading might interfere with their `real' education. But even such hardliners would have to admit the genre acquires unarguable dignity in the hands of noted author M.J. Akbar, who, despite a long career as a journalist and historian, has turned to fiction with his latest book. Blood Brothers: A Family Saga — brought out by Roli Books — is actually a blend of fact and fiction, history and family memoirs.

It begins with the fascinating tale of Akbar's grandfather, Rahmatullah — "He who has been blessed with the mercy of God" — and continues into the author's generation. But this is more than a family chronicle. "I don't think any book is justified if it's just a story," says the author. "It has to be a macro story, not a micro story."

Thus it was necessary for him to place it in a precisely delineated historical context, from the late 19th Century to the era after independence. Then again, in writing the history of his family, he took the help of fiction. "Anyone who writes knows that truth is untidy," he says. Fiction, on the other hand, helps convey the truth with clarity.

"When we write we don't just write for ourselves," he continues. "It's not a diary. If the craft of the language is not there, it doesn't achieve its purpose," says Akbar who edits The Asian Age.

So fiction, in providing a clearer narration of events, "becomes a more important form of truth," he comments, adding, "In fact I believe fiction is more truthful than a diary." Considering the selective hypnosis memory is prey too, it is an unassailable argument.

As for craft, the author's prose certainly runs with a rare lucidity, his varied characters and their setting — village Telinipara in Bengal, dependent for its livelihood on the Victoria Jute Mill — made vibrant with delightful bits of description, conversation and a subtle wit.

It was reaching a particular phase in life that made him write this book, he says. "And as usual, death determines phases in life." So it was the death of his parents that spurred him to pen a story he felt needed to be told.

Running through the book is a constant undercurrent of tension between Hindus and Muslims. The British rulers were famed for their divide-and-rule policy, but India was fertile ground. "The British Government wouldn't have used us if we were not willing to be used," remarks the author.

Though the story spans a century and a half, some of the conversations could as well be taking place today, in pockets of India where electricity is yet to reach, where the women are unlettered and the men semi-literate, where diseases are feared as manifestations of an angered Goddess. But the rulers and the ruled are now fellow Indians. Is there no solution then?

"Of course there is a solution. It would be a tragedy if one were to be imprisoned by despair." India is making progress, he asserts, but we miss it when "we measure history by our lifetimes."

Surely, if we feel these are difficult times, our parents and their parents lived though even more difficult times. And if the media is often accused of not reaching beyond the urban, educated elite, it is because such is "the nature of the beast," since the media cannot survive without corporate sponsorship, and the poor are not consumers.

"All we can do is extend the reach. That's what progress is all about," he says, and this progress is being undeniably made. "The idea of India began with four million dead in famine."

Writing a book, he muses, leaves an impact upon the writer. "And this book has taught me not to be judgmental. We deceive ourselves when we become judgmental."

ANJANA RAJAN

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