After more than a decade of concerted effort, Vijay Balan’s studies have culminated in a novel depicting his grand uncle’s life and times, published by Harper Collins as ‘The Swaraj Spy’ under the historic fiction genre. Without a doubt, Vijay’s painstaking research is evident from the meticulous unraveling of Nair’s life. The writing style is languid and easy, and the reader will soon find himself moving from Malabar to Singapore, through Burma and the jungles of Assam, ending up at what was once the great metropolis of Madras.
Vijay Balan has added meat and bone to the shadowy character
of Nair and made him come alive in his 500-page book. I should, however, mention
that while the book tends to skim over the cruel vagaries of war, as well as the
stark violence and tragedy the Japanese left behind in Singapore, Malaya, and
Burma, the book focuses mainly on the travails of Nair and the games fate
played upon his life. And most importantly, the book ends leaving the reader on
a positive note.
My own involvement in retelling the same story, albeit briefly as a blog post, was coincidental. Many years ago, the story of TP Kumaran Nair found me, while I was searching for something else. My close links with Calicut, the very city of Nair’s origin, made me search deeper for answers on the events surrounding his fate and the subsequent naming of an obscure road, after him. The story was touching, somewhat disheartening actually, and one which I felt that a larger audience should know.
As days went by and the characters became familiar to me
through many other tales and events, I found more and more connections to them.
Nedyam Raghavan, a prominent character and TP Kumaran Nair’s boss at the IIL,
turned out to be a relative, and KP Keshava Menon, yet another from the
Singapore of those days came back to Calicut and worked with A Karunakara
Menon, my great grand uncle, at the Mathrubhumi. A.V. Lakshmi, a.k.a. Lakshmi
Sehgal turned out to be the daughter of a neighbor and family friend at
Chalappuram. As some of you may realize, while many of the aristocratic
families toed the Congress line in Calicut, it was only Lakshmi who went the
INA way.
Coming back to the book, while one agrees that the British
in India were self-serving, especially during WW II, with the Americans just
flitting by, the horrors of Japanese occupation, their treatment of the Tamils
and many Malayalee laborers at the Death railway camps, should have found
mention, so also the fate of the millions who had to flee Burma. This would
have lent more sanctity and balance to Nair’s story. Another aspect I observed was
the perpetually buoyant attitude of Nair as depicted, which may not have been a
reality, since many of us know that as a second-class citizen in Singapore, a
place exhibiting a high dose of white racism, Nair seems to display none of the
reticent attitudes usually prevalent among Indians, then and now, in the prose.
But then I also realized at the end of the tale, that the breezy
prose was deliberately left neutral, written without taking sides, with the
reader sometimes feeling that even Nair may have been somewhat undecided on
which side he was on – the British and the Japanese, and like millions of
others, bobbed along as a victim of circumstances. As I read the book and got
to know the character of Malu, Nair’s wife, I could not help but wonder – what
if Vijay Balan had talked to her too, since she lived a long life and passed
away only in 2002? What additional insight could the author have gleaned? Not
very much I assume, for Vijay Balan has been meticulous. One other aspect
though, I thought Vijay may have missed another side of an MSP man’s character,
drilled into him by Hitchcock and other superiors at Malappuram – which is
ruthlessness. We don’t get to see that in Nair’s persona. I also felt that some
maps would have helped the reader trace Nair’s path, and a few pictures would
have lent a better perspective.
I have also pondered at length on the fateful role played by
another Calicut and Malabar bureaucrat, J. A. Thorne, who as home secretary, argued
forcefully against the actions of these enemy combatants and upheld the rule that
they should be given the most severe of punishments. He was the man behind
strict censoring and the sternest sentences, and he argued for its applicability to
the common man. Then again, he seems to have kept mum when bigwigs were
involved, sparing many of them, if only to avoid a public censure of the
British Raj.
INA enthusiasts may recall a 2015 article in The Hindu,
written by Price Frederick, a journalist who came face to face with Kumaran
Nair– All of us are in some form of shackles, self-imposed or otherwise....My
own helplessness has made me an admirer of those who have shaken off their
yokes. For one, I have been a witness to stirring expressions of love for the
country, when it was under British yoke….. It surprises me no end how we forget
our heroes – most of them, I mean. I got to see T. P. Kumaran Nair, when he was
lodged in the Madras Central Jail in the early 1940s…... Nair worshipped Bose
and he trained cadets in the Indian National Army. It’s a pity that except for
a road in Nellicode, Kerala, that bears his name, T.P. Kumaran Nair remains
largely forgotten.
As I have mentioned often, the many books on the INA and its
work, published thus far are centered around its leader Subhas Chandra Bose,
his life, vision, and strategies. Very few works cover in detail or even mention
the selfless sacrifices of the thousands of Tamilians and Malayali laborers and
entrepreneurs in Singapore, Malaya, and Burma. The Chettiars, the Malayalee Moplahs,
and the others who gifted away their life’s savings to the INA cause are
mentioned only in passing in those works. Therefore, the many who took up arms
for Bose remained unseen and unnamed faces, their stories and sacrifices, hardly
mentioned or told.
Vijay Balan’s book is one of the first books which takes you
down to the life of that ordinary soldier, well below the titled rank and brass
of the INA. It thus fills an important gap, covering the lives and sentiments
of simple men like TP Kumaran Nair and Abdul Khader, who too fought for the
concept of a United India before its conception and who were instrumental in shaping
the huge patriotic rebellion of the Indian, against their colonial masters.
It is well worth a read, and this book will take you to an
India of the ’40s at the threshold of Independence, when many people fought wars
for the benefit of their masters, but foreseeing only a faint result called
Swaraj.
And when you are done, spare a thought for kindred souls
like Kumaran Nair, who fought for that hard-won independence, and laid down
their lives for that cause.
This brief review follows the perusal of a copy
of the book provided by the author, acknowledged with many thanks. Those
desiring more details may visit www.theswarajspy.com
