Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s antics on Kashmir are unlikely to profit his country or enhance his reputation by even a cubit. His roving delegation of MPs did the shopping rounds in western capitals, but attracted none of the political attention that was part of the exercise. The civilized world has roundly condemned the jihadi terrorist attack on an Indian Army camp in the Uri sector, Kashmir. Britain, France, Germany, Russia and the United States have done so with one voice. More embarrassing for Pakistan was the swinging attack by Afghan President Ashraf Ghani on Islamabad’s encouragement of cross-border terrorism and the loss of Afghan lives and property this was causing. Mr Sharif’s sound and fury at the meeting of the UN General Assembly signified nothing beyond the customary Pakistani malevolence and poor taste. The mob violence in the Kashmir valley incited by Pakistan and its Hurriyat surrogates will be seen off, as has been the case in the past, leaving Mr Sharif and his government and the country’s military rooted to ground zero.
It requires no surgical strikes by India, either from the air or on the ground to weaken Pakistan. It has been weakened already by the excesses of its homegrown zealots against those they perceive as wanting in devotion to the Cause of the true Believers. The promised hellfire is no longer confined to a scriptural hell, but is a living Pakistani experience. A shambolic state with few working institutions is as vulnerable to forces within the country as they are to those from without. Those outside are fully capable of stirring the pot to the desired effect.
The respected American academic, Christine Fair and her book, ‘Fighting to the End: The Pakistan Army’s Way of War,’ have been alluded to several times in the past. Her splendid article in the edit-page of a mass circulation Indian broadsheet will have been read across India and the educated community abroad. A couple of passages from the piece are worth quoting for the edification of readers. Referring to a recent act of violence in the valley and its consequences, Ms Fair writes: ‘But this incident reveals more than anything that Pakistan is willing to orchestrate the deaths of Kashmiris for its own political aims.
‘The vacuity of the so-called concern about Kashmir is reinforced by the complete omission of any mention of the Kashmiri Pandits who were ethnically cleansed by the Pakistan-backed terrorists in 1990. Why does the “Kashmir problem” only centre on Muslims in the valley and not on any other lawful residents of the state?’ Ms Fair dismisses Pakistani talk of a promised Indian commitment to abide by the results of a UN plebiscite in Kashmir, which she points out was predicated on the withdrawal of all non-Kashmiri persons from the area, including regular and irregular security forces. This document is in the public space and should be read by all interested parties.
Her concluding paragraph damns US policy. ‘By law the US is required to impose Leahy Amendment sanctions on any military unit engaging in human rights violations. The Pakistan military is waging this war with the subsidy of the US, which so far has shown nothing but pusillanimity in contending with Pakistan even though Pakistan is the root cause of American failures in Afghanistan.’
This is the brutal truth. All one has seen from President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry is finger-wagging and hand-wringing and mild protestations at ill considered behaviour. The multi-billion dollar packages of arms and financial aid to Islamabad continue apace. Consider the absurdity of once indictment of Cuba and Iran for the export of terrorism and one will appreciate how steep is America’s fall from grace. Pakistan is arguably the foremost among the many foreign policy failures of the Obama administration. If the truth be told, there have been no major successes. Mismanagement, ineptitude and folly have been on display most of the time, the warts visible for the past eight years and more.
Oxford University honours Cornelia Sorabji’s memory
Somerville College, Oxford, was where India’s first female student gained admission to study for the University’s most prized degree in law. That was way back in the late nineteenth century when women university students in Britain were unheard of. Cornelia Sorabji, born into a Parsi family in India, broke the mould and became the first female law student at Oxford in 1889, the first Indian student at then Somerville Hall for ladies, and the first Indian female student to study at any British university. During her time at Oxford she was part of an eminent circle of scholars and intellectuals, presided over by Benjamin Jowett, the great Master of Balliol College, among the foremost classicists of his age. She could count the poet Alfred Tennyson and the historian Arnold Toynbee as her friends. Cornelia’s name is mentioned in an essay on the period by the legendary economist John Maynard Keynes. ‘Essays in Biography’ was the title of his book, a work encrusted with jewels from an almost forgotten period, but well worth reading for style and substance at any time, in any age.
It took another remarkable woman, Kusoom Vadgama to produce this treasurable work of restoration, to bring Cornelia Sorabji’s life as an eminent barrister in India working tirelessly for the uplift and emancipation of her Indian sisters, significant numbers of whom were denied their social rights and dignity, to the attention of a new generation.
Kusoom Vadgama, although a busy professional, made time to visit the British Museum and research her book – An Indian Portia: Selected Writings of Cornelia Sorabji, 1866-1954.. This was clearly a labour of love, but in Kusoom’s case not Love’s Labour’s Lost. She perused the Sorabji archive with the utmost care and diligence and rescued her subject from near oblivion. Thanks to Kusoom’s untiring efforts, a bust of Cornelia Sorabji was unveiled at Lincoln’s Inn in 2012, while her old College, Somerville, has Cornelia’s photograph, most appropriately, in its Law Room.
The good news is that Oxford University has launched the Cornelia Sorabji Scholarship for an Indian law student. The announcement by Somerville Principal Alice Prochaska , was made on the day The Times Higher Education Supplement ranked Oxford the world’s top university. Divya Sharma, 27, a law graduate from Chandigarh University, has been selected as the first Cornelia Sorabji scholar. The authorities hope bright Indian students make Oxford their ‘university of choice.’ It is hoped that the Cornelia Scholarship strengthens the continuing link between Oxford University and India. Long may it endure.
Jewish community and early Bollywood
Few of the living aficionados of Indian cinema will know much about the early, emerging Bollywood’s debt to the Jewish community of Bombay. Take for instance, the careers of actresses Sulochana – born Ruby Myers - and Pramila. Both achieved stardom in an era when acting for most Indian women was taboo. Sulochana and Pramila had terrific dancing skills, their ambition was to part of the new India. Yet the Jewish community to which they belonged was perhaps the tiniest in this teeming metropolis.
According to Elisabeth Stevens, curator of the new exhibit ‘Baghdadis and the Bene Israel in Bollywood and Beyond at the Center for Jewish History in New York, ‘Sulochana was paid better than the Governor of Bombay at one point,’ a fact breathlessly reported in the Indian press at the time. She appeared in 72 films in a glamorous career that made her a household name. The Center explores the role of India’s two oldest Jewish communities: the Baghdadis who were the descendants of merchants who arrived in India from Baghdad (then part of the Ottoman empire) in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
The late General JFR Jacob, who died earlier this year in Delhi, aged 93, had commanded Indian forces in the assault and capture of Dhaka in December 1971, in the war with Pakistan, belonged to the Baghdadi community based in Calcutta.
Bene Israel arrived in India several centuries earlier. Sulochana’s films roles, viewed as saucy at the time, can be seen in hindsight as the first feminist themes to hit the Indian cinema. The same can be said of Pramila’s roles too. They were a liberating experience, as most of their Hindu and Muslim peers were confined to domestic chores. Stevens also relates the roles of Jewish men behind the camera or as script writers. After the creation of the State of Israel most of India’s Jewish population immigrated, leaving behind memories to cherish.
