Picto Diary - 16, 17 February 2016 - Going, going, gone!

Above: Going....

TIMDT on Mountaineer ski run. Deer Valley, UT. 16 February 2016.

Above: Going....

Above: Gone.

(DV 47)

Above: Bishop looks north to steep Silver Ski ski run. Park City Ski Area. 17 February 2017.

Silver Ski, a black diamond, was groomed today. Here, the Bishop skis it for the 2nd time, this time on his descent to the F350.

The Bishop, today, was designated by FeeBee to pick up Mynduveroan from climbing camp and then to take her to lunch. A worthy task justifying getting off the mountain forty-five minutes ahead of normal.

(PC 48)

Completed this book, "Freedom at Midnight," by Dominique LaPierre and Larry Collins, today, 17 February 2016. 2nd reading... read first in the early 70's when I was living in India.

Gandhi launched movement for Indian independence from British Raj in 1920's... after returning from apartheid South Africa where, as a British trained barrister, he had successes, using his formula of non violence, advancing rights for "coloreds"... Indians.

For 20 years Gandhi was a thorn in the side of Raj authorities as he used non violent methods to resist British authority throughout India. Most famous, perhaps, was Gandhi's salt march to the sea near Ahmedabad in March of 1930.

Notwithstanding, Gandhi understood that good relations with the Raj trumped an alliance with the axis in WWII. He was supportive of sending Indian troops to fight under British command. Indian troops distinguished themselves in fighting for the allied cause.

After the end of WWII, Churchill and the Conservatives were upended by Atlee and the Liberals. Much to Churchill's consternation, Atlee signaled that it was time to transition India, the crown Jewel of the Raj, to independence.

Atlee approached a political opponent, Louis Montbatten, a prominent political conservative... a successful naval officer... and a grandson of Queen Victoria, and asked him to become India's last Viceroy... to oversee the transition of India to independence. Mountbatten considered the assignment to be a career breaker. After all, who wanted to be the Viceroy who gives up Britain's crown jewel? But, Mountbatten, after trying various maneuvers to avoid taking the position, was talked into the job.

The book chronicles the foregoing and India's path to independence... orchestrated by the four great men shown on the cover of the book above. Gandhi, Jinnah, Nehru, and Montbatten. Nehru's number two... and oft time rival, Patel, might have also deserved to have his image on the cover of the book, but, for its upsetting balance. Notwithstanding Patel's key role in the independence process, there was no "number two" of note to Jinnah amongst the Muslim leaders who inherited Pakistan.

Muslim Jinnah insisted on partition. Muslims, he felt, could never live safely in a majority Hindu nation.

Gandhi, non violent avatar of independence, abhored the idea of partition of India into separate Muslim and Hindu countries.

Hindu political leader Nehru (also Patel) acquiesced to partition even if he didn't desire it.

Montbatten, the last Viceroy, tried his best to preserve "one India," but saw intransigent Jinnah's writing on the wall and worked to broker the best partition deal possible... one that tried minimize the possibility of significant communal violence. Haste became a watchword as signs of communal conflict grew.

Conceptually, the idea was to separate predominately Muslim sections of India from the Hindu sections and form two separate countries. Montbatten called in a British map maker, who knew little about India, to determine the new borders.

A date of Independence was announced: 15 August 1947. New borders were announced. A mass migration was begun... Muslims in "Hindu India" and Hindus in "Muslim Pakistan" went by foot, train, bullock cart, bicycle to areas of where lived their respective majorities. Over the course of six months 10 million people were uprooted. Best estimates were that 500 thousand were killed in communal violence, mostly in Punjab, between Sikhs, Hindus and Muslims.

Communal violence began in West Bengal and Punjab... areas of large Muslim populations torn away from Hindu India with new borders established.

Gandhi, throughout, worked tirelessly, sometimes successfully, sometimes not, to maintain communal peace. He had significant success in Calcutta while Punjab erupted in violence despite 50 thousand troops assigned there to keep the peace.

The authors write vividly about the interaction of the major players: Gandhi, Jinnah, Nehru, Patel, and Montbatten. Lady Montbatten was also an important and tireless aide to her husband.

A level of trust and respect by the Indian leaders (less so Jinnah) towards the last viceroy, Montbatten, grew to levels that could have hardly been anticipated considering everyone's desire to rid India of the British. All parties agreed that India and Pakistan would remain members of the British Commonwealth. Montbatten accepted the position of British Governor General, a nominally powerless position, as Britain's senior representative in India.

Post independence, governing the torn India proved very difficult. While Pakistan emerged as an entirely Muslim nation, India retained large numbers of Muslims and communal violence continued. Gandhi, roaming the new India, often by foot, worked tirelessly to mitigate the communal violence. A byproduct of Gandhi's plea for communal peace in the new, multicultural India, was a rising Hindu nationalist sentiment that viewed Gandhi's efforts as seditious.

There is little question that the British were, at that time, the world's greatest administrators. Their pulling out of India left an administrative vacuum that resulted in chaos for the new Indian government. In a secret effort, Nehru and Patel, overwhelmed by the challenge to bring order to a new government to a country the size of India, asked Montbatten to head an unofficial committee responsible, temporarily, for running the new nation. Post independence, Montbatten, for several months, was the clandestine head of the country. He was highly effective in coordinating efforts to reorganize the Indian army and various Indian bureaucracies. Montbatten's continuing loyalty to India's new leaders, Nehru and Patel, and his success in bring the top administrative elements of the government under control during this period, further solidified the already growing friendship between Nehru, Patel and Montbatten.

Meanwhile, what about Gandhi? He had no formal role in the Indian new government, but, he was viewed as the father of the Indian independence. Post independence, Gandhi's relations with Nehru and Patel remained solid... but, less and less did Gandhi have influence over the direction of the new government. He was 78 at the time of independence.

The book ends with an account of Gandhi's assassination by Hindu nationalists who viewed Gandhi's ongoing efforts to seek multicultural inclusiveness within the new India as a threat to a "Hindu India."

Interestingly, post partition, modern India evolved into a country where communal peace became the norm, though communal tensions have not altogether disappeared, even today. The BJP, the party of India's new Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has roots in the same sentiments that tried to thwart Gandhi's efforts to seek communal peace and which resulted in his assassination.

"Freedom at Midnight" reads like a novel. One can't put the book down. That was my reaction the first time I read it, forty some odd years ago. "Freedom at Midnight" chronicles an era which ended in the demise of colonialism. That India retained most of the Raj's institutions... railroad, military, administration, common English language for the bureaucracy and big business, democratic governance, attests to the fact that things British were not universally reviled, and that there was much to be gained from leveraging the achievements of the colonial period going forward. Most of India's senior political and military leaders were educated in Britain and, like it or not, they were tied to what they had learned from the British.

Gandhi himself was educated in England. Though he disdained the "classism" and racism he saw in British colonial administration, he understood that the foundation in India laid by Britain was sufficiently solid so as to advance India into a successful future. Dismantling what was there didn't make any sense. Nelson Mandela, in later years, took a similar approach in South Africa, when the African National Congress came in to oversee the demise of the apartheid government. There was much that the "colonialists" in both countries (India and South Africa) that was worth keeping.

Gandhi hoped that Indians would remain humble, farm, and labor in simple tasks. In simplicity and hard work Gandhi saw peace, harmony and happiness. Gandhi said, repeatedly,to the effect, paraphrased, "bread without work is evil." Gandhi was never far from his spinning wheel which he hoped would symbolize how Indians should think about work. Gandhi feared the moves to turn India into a modern industrial state advanced by titular leaders like Nehru and Patel. And, in his later days, though he retained Nehru's and Patel's respect, he became more and more an outlier as India's future was directed towards economic growth levels that would require significant modernization... a step away from the simple spinning wheel.

Modernization of India has come in fits and starts. India's early leaders, Nehru, and his daughter Indira, adopted socialist policies and advanced a foreign policy of non alignment with the west... even to the point of having strong bi-lateral relations with the USSR. Not much economic growth occurred during this period... the 50's, 60's, '70's, 80's, and most of the nineties.

But, India is energetic... resilient. Democracy, notwithstanding socialist proclivities, did not hold back the propensity for its citizens to seek education, to work hard, and to improve one's lot in life. The most recent government of Modi and the BJP seeks to capture this spirit in ways not pursued by the sclerotic Congress Party of Nehru... socialist predecessors. India, today pushes an 8% economic growth rate. The country is chaotic, to be sure, but it is energetic... it is a young energy.... an aspirational energy. It has the potential to "break loose" if it can free itself from the bureaucratic strictures that held it back for several decades post independence.

Having lived in India for three years in the 1970's and having traveled to India six or seven times since, it is fascinating to watch India emerge as a world power... and relate its recent economic progress back to the leaders, characterized in "Freedom at Midnight" who oversaw one if its most difficult periods.

Addendum:


Dear Steve,

Two things strike me immediately from the ski photos that you circulate from time to time.
First, how spacious and empty the pistes are compared to Villars, where I live half the year. School holidays here are a nightmare.
Second, everyone is wearing helmets. Old guys here, me included, are still into sun glasses and long hair.
Best wishes

Bosco,
Villars, France


"Alan Greenspan listened to me from 1994 to 1995... why doesn't TiMDT do the same?"

(See below, and please share it with TiMDT.)

“And if you think that every time you open your mouth around here everyone is going to dance to your tune, you’ve got another thing coming, Mr. Federal Reserve!”

***********
FeeNix,
Phoenix, AZ


HI Steve! I expect I understand the blood red color of your first quote but I know I remember my "bestest" Christmas present in 1935 or 1936 (age 10) when I received a Lionel electric train model of the Burlington Zephyr! --

Manhattan,
Park City, UT


Steve,

I can't believe that you support Bernie Sanders.....socialism has not worked and it includes huge taxation.....hope you are not being serious. Always enjoy your journals!

Lianne,
Miami, FL

Double entendre always dicey tactic in written communications


What interesting life experiences you have had. When is your autobiography coming out?

LaDoc
Los Angeles, CA