Smiling Buddha – Pokhran 1

India’s PNE at Pokhran 1974

A number of you would have seen the recent film ‘Paramanu’ and have assumed that the tests of 1998 was the seminal event signaling India’s nuclear journey, but many of you would not have heard of Smiling Buddha, a PNE (peaceful nuclear explosion) which was conducted some 24 years before the 1998 Pokhran II tests. I am not surprised because so little is written about that first test and if you did want to try and unearth that story, you would have to scour all around to find a rare copy of Raj Chengappa’s magnum opus “Weapons of peace’. I do not promise to provide you much more, but I can give a decent overview for those interested in perusing the matter further. Those aware will know the reason for the difficulties, a decision was taken early by the team, to commit nothing to paper in the interest of national security, and so you will discover no paper trail.  But naturally, memories of those involved did conflict here and there, so their own accounts differ slightly.

So friends, it is time to visit the deserts of Rajasthan, the stratospheres where satellites traversed, the musty South block offices in Delhi, the tiny hamlet of Thumba in Trivandrum, the atomic energy city in Trombay and get to know the select few involved in this project and what they did preceding the test itself.

Remotely located, near Jaisalmer, on the arid Thar Desert and some 50 miles from the Pakistan border, Pokhran was once the seat of the Champawats, a sub-clan of the Marwar-Jodhpur Rathores. The name Pokhran means land of five mirages, connected to the five salt ranges. The Rajput Marwari Thakur’s titled Pradhan’s, were premier nobles of the Jodhpur fort, and ruled from Balagarh. Of the eight Sirayats, or premier nobles of Marwar, two are Champawats, the Thakurs of Pokhran and Auwa. Their abode is barren, dry and hostile, with scanty and erratic rainfall. Typical of deserts, it was evidenced by vast expanses of sparse vegetation with little grass to provide fodder for cattle, sheep and goats. Camels could be seen often, providing a means of transport. Rolling sand dunes separated by sandy plains and punctuated by low, barren hills –bhakars complete the scenery. In some areas the sand dunes are in continual motion, but older and taller dunes are quite stable and as high as 150 meters. These dunes would figure in intelligence assessment much later, during the 98 tests, and so were always very important for the planners. In the 60’s Pokhran was used as a conventional weapon test range. It again came into consideration only because that was just about the only place where the government and the bomb planners could sequester some 40 sq miles of land and where the water table was acceptably low for digging deep test shafts.

As time went by only their mud forts remained and the populace cultivating millet hardly saw anything foreign. Their life centered on their small havelis, the camels, the colorfully clad women and their small festivals. They were certainly not prepared when government officials came to acquire large tracts of land at a pittance, Rs 4 per bhiga(1/4 acre) during the early 70’s.

Let me now take you back a little back and refer you to that story of the listening device in Nandadevi when the world was snooping on China’s nuclear tests and missile development from the top of the Himalayas and India’s role in it. Two years after the disastrous skirmishes at the Indian borders, a hostile China had tested its atom bomb and signaled a bigger threat from the Northern borders. By now the nuclear club had five members, US, Britain, France, China and Russia.

Even though the intent to develop a nuclear device and test it dated back to the tail years of Nehru, Homi Bhaba, the dynamic head of AEC and Raja Ramanna found the going tough especially after Nehru’s death in 1964. The RAW was set up with help from CIA and the Nandadevi caper followed to cement that cooperation.

Pakistan gravitated towards China as India strengthened its Russian bear hug. The 1965 war with Pakistan showed a decisive Shastri taking on a Chinese threat, but he passed away in the midst of a peace discussion at Tashkent. Days later Homi Bhaba died mysteriously in a plane crash in Switzerland. Indira Gandhi took on the mantle as India’s PM. India was deep in debt at that time. Vikram Sarabhai was appointed as the chairman of the AEC, overlooking Bhaba’s understudy Homi Sethna. But by then the Nuclear haves had formed a club and decided to restrict any new entrant with their combined immense power. The BARC enterprise in Trombay was growing and the Punrnima reactor was set up additionally to assist with special experiments. Even a PNE was frowned upon and the western powers would offer no support to India’s request for assistance. India eventually pulled out of the NPT in 1968.

Sethna explained much later about the reasoning in a 1996 interview: There were pressures on India

Homi Sethna

to sign the NPT around 1967. There were two schools of thought. One said, "Forget it," we should give up and sign the treaty. This school tried to put pressure on the other school which wanted to develop the nuclear option, but it did not succeed. You see, something else had happened recently. We were told (in 1966) to devalue the rupee, which we did. We were told that money would flow once we devalued, and it would be all milk and honey. But money did not flow in. So that was when we became extremely suspicious of the US advice about what was in our interest.

A decision to prepare for the test was taken by Sarabhai in Trivandrum in April 1970. Sarabhai informed R Chidambaram that he could talk to Abdul Kalam (interestingly Kalam was nicknamed Hanuman – for he was sincere and dedicated, was a celibate bachelor and liked bananas) at Thumba since they had expertise making detonators for the soundiung rockets at TERLS. By 1970 China were ready with their ballistic missile technology as well and administrators feared that those rockets would reach any state in India.

Close to follow was the 1971 war with Pakistan where a victorious India had to face a nuclear threat from the Nixon Kissinger combine (see my article on Ghazi) and their 7^th fleet sailing in to the Indian Ocean. The treaty with the Soviets helped counter that challenge. In 1972 Indira visiting Trombay, gave a verbal authorization to Sethna to go ahead and build a nuclear device. Bhaba wanted 18 months to prepare for a test.

Again, tragedy struck with Sarabhai’s mysterious death in a Trivandrum hotel. In any case he had been told that Sethna would take over and that he was being considered to head the space program. By 1972, Sethna was thus in command of the AEC. But perhaps it was better for the team who had always wanted to go full steam, and Sarabhai tended to be an impediment to their efforts.

The biggest issue was the economic situation and the non-availability of Plutonium to carry out a test. Some 15-20 kilos of the material was needed, but the Phoenix reprocessing plant was not operating efficiently and the Purnima research reactor was still to start working. Thus the situation in 1973 was that almost all other constituents of the test were in place, but for the plutonium sphere and the initiator. If they had to test in 1973 or 74, the only way was to take out the 20 kg of plutonium from Purnima after shutting it down. Ramanna gave that order. As days progressed, the ball started to take its shape, a perfect sphere of layered plutonium with a protective coating. Secrecy was paramount and so all this was done after office hours.

Raja Ramanna

The Indian army had the next task, to dig a shaft at least 107 meters into the ground at Pokhran. The 61 regiment at Jodhpur who only knew how to build bridges and bunkers, were tasked to do it, the purpose vaguely stated to them to be seismic experiments. As the local army commander dithered, stating that such mundane tasks were not to his liking, the Army chief Bewoor had to personally intervene and give him an oral command to do it. The outside world was given to understand that the ONGC were digging for gas wells, while locally the story was that they were digging for water to supply the army contingents.

In January 1974 the diggers stuck water and were overjoyed, but the top brass were mortified since what they wanted was a bone dry shaft for the test. After all the effort, that first shaft had to be abandoned (so also the test which was originally scheduled for 15^th Feb 1974), and a local a water diviner had to be summoned to identify a previously abandoned dry well in the village of Malki. Digging started again and progressed smoothly.

It was later in April 1974 that India’s PM Indira Gandhi summoned Homi Sethna (Chairman AEC), Raja Ramanna (Director BARC), Nagachaudhuri (DRDO chief) PN Dhar principal secretary and PN Haskar (principal advisor to the PM) for a final discussion. The BARC were to prepare the plutonium core and DRDO to pack the conventional explosive cover around it. The army were to sink and get the shafts ready. Dhar after going through the economic situation India was in and the debt situation warned against testing. Haskar also agreed stating that the time was not right. Ramanna argued that much effort had been made to get everything ready and that it was not the time to cap it. As was her norm of listening more and talking less, Indira sat quietly and at the end stated that she agreed to go for the tests. No minutes were recorded.

Back in Trombay the plutonium ball and the trigger (flower) were readied in time. The trigger was flown out in a commercial flight by Iyengar and Murthy. Chitambaram and Roy carried the ball and other instruments by road accompanied by a military convoy, travelling all of 900km. Ramanna, Sethna and Nagachaudhuri flew in via Jodhpur. The core team had reached Pokhran with all the required paraphernalia as well as the casing and the explosives. Issues with lenses and final assembly of a fat man style bomb presented some difficulties, but were ironed out in the nick of time.

R Chitambaram

A sandstorm potentially helped the scientists prepare for the final acts of the test, under cover. Soni and Venkatesan went down the shaft in a crane to place the sputnik shaped device and all the power cabling in the L section. After some minor issues, the shaft was filled with cement, sand and a wooden replica of the bomb. There was no going back now. It was 16^th May. The villagers were asked to remain outdoors. Sethna flew back to Delhi to get Indira’s final OK. Indira was nonchalant and even asked Sethna, if he was getting scared.

18^th May, it was an intensely hot day. Ramanna, Sethna, Nagachaudhuri, Iyengar and Subherwal waited behind a trenched shelter 5 km away from the shaft. Chitambaram and Sikka were in another, near the control room. Srinivasan and Dastidar were in the control room, pottering over the instruments. The button was to be depressed at 8AM.

Just before the test was planned, a problem arose when Virendra Singh Sethi’s jeep refused to start. Sethi hiked back and another army jeep had to tow away the stalled one. It was 805 AM, a five minute delay.

Dastidar pushed the red button and waited, nothing seemed to happen. Venkateshan who had been muttering the Vishnu Sahasranamam, to invoke Lord Vishnu, had gone mum.

And then the earth rose. A mini mountain of sand rose up, followed by the aftershock which sent Ramanna who was trying to stand up, tumbling down, to the earth. Sikka too fell down. Soon they were all jubilantly celebrating. The wooden model survived the blast and was tossed back to the surface.

Sethna later rushed to a field telephone to call Dhar in Delhi but could not get a clear line. However Dhar had already heard from Gen Bewoor moments earlier the cryptic message ‘anand hai’ (it is joyous). Sethna eventually got to Dhar in Delhi a little later from an army phone exchange in the nearby Pokhran village and informed him that the test had gone well with a yield over 10 kilotons, and no venting at the site. Sethna maintained that he had not uttered the so called code message ‘the Buddha is smiling’ as is stated in many a report.

As the ground quaked, the swami in the village square explained to the perturbed lot around him - You see, the world is balanced on the horn of the celestial cow (or bull). Sometimes it gets tired and tosses the earth from one horn to the other. That is when a quake occurs (This was a popular belief in Asia as well as the Middle East) and that is what you just felt. Don’t worry!!

The 9AM, AIR announcement was terse “At 805 AM India conducted an underground nuclear explosion for peaceful purposes at a carefully chosen site in western India”.

Jagjivan Ram, the defense minister was formally notified only after the tests. A disgruntled Ram muttered, ‘what is the point in telling me now’?

Ramanna and Sethna flew to Delhi to meet Indira and were congratulated by the PM. She said – ‘Wonderful job, but now the program is over, Pack up’. That they were disappointed would be an understatement, but for now, it was a time to celebrate. The entire gang did just that, they had a huge beer party at the army mess in Pokhran.

Indira Gandhi with the scientists at the site

Criticism and recriminations followed instantly from around the world. Canada was angry since they knew it was their plutonium which had been used for the tests. Only France congratulated India. The US response was muted for two reasons, one Nixon was beleaguered by the Watergate affair, and of course, even though they had not predicted it, they could not state they knew nothing - it was not that they had no inkling, they had already been tipped by S Krishnaswami in 1971 informally. Cananda were also aware that something was in the offing. Pakistan as expected, were bound to follow, and their defense budget was quickly increased by Bhutto, to work on developing a Pak bomb. The race was on.

Even today people wonder what made India carry out that explosion, was it due to the Chinese atomic threat? Was it due to the anger at the arrival of a nuclear threat from the US in the Indian Ocean? Was it due to NPT pressure and threat of sanctions? Was it because Pakistan was to get atomic weapon support from China? Or was it a politically motivated and timed test? Most indications point to the last reasoning mainly because India went dormant for 25 years after that test. There is one technical aspect though to be considered. The Beryllium polonium initiator had polonium with a 138 day half-life. It had to be used within that time. So that could have been a possible reasoning for the scientists to hurry through with a test, having completed the initiator in Jan 1974.

Following this PNE, the next would be Pokhran 2 in 1998, though scientists maintain there was a need to generate more plutonium reserves and so on.

Even though the press went gaga with the reporting and exclaimed that Indira had the real balls (George Reedy, a long-time aide of President Lyndon Johnson went on to state “My God, that woman had a will of iron. You talked to her and you realized immediately that she was tough.” (Reedy, 1985)), the political situation went downhill soon after. As it transpired, an insecure Indira fearing many things and even a CIA led topple, clamped an emergency and censorship. It was soon time up for the Congress. In 1977 the Janata party swept into power. The swing in Delhi moved back and forth between the congress and the opposition as time passed. The western nuclear haves flexed their muscles and threatened sanctions. Goverments came and went.

Raj Chengappa mentions that one reason for doing the tests in Pokhran was to remind people of the once glorious Indus valley civilization in those regions, nurtured by the Saraswati River. The once great and unrivalled civilization had vanished with the drying up of the river and what better way to remind the people with this huge event at that very location?  As it appears, later tests on the well water in Pokhran provided an interesting aspect that the water originated from Himalayan glaciers.

What was it with the ‘Buddha smiling’ code concocted by Dhar? It is believed that when Buddha has that serene smile, any situation is peaceful. Chengappa provides an explanation by detailing the Anguli mala story where the fearsome dacoit met his match with an ever smiling Buddha. Others say it was because the test was on a Buddha Pournami day.

Vinay Sitapati demurs - It seems Raja Ramanna was also aware of the history of Vaishali’s destruction by Magadha. The legend is, Buddha was upset about it and thought the war could have been avoided if Vaishali too had deterrent military power rather than its so-called direct democracy so nobody would take hard decisions. “You can only have peace between equally strong or equally weak nations,” he is supposed to have said; that’s why Ramanna told Indira Gandhi “Buddha is smiling” as India had acquired its deterrence. But then again, it was supposedly Sethna who said Buddha is smiling, not Ramanna.

It was not that the area was not under watch from the skies by US satellites in 1974. In fact Corona, Gambit and Hexagon satellites did make sporadic fly through’s during the 60’s and 70’s photographing Trombay and other locales but the scientists were worried that they might get picked up by chance, at Pokhran. In the 90’s however, the US reconnaissance was more pronounced as they were expecting India to test any time. Curiously a Japanese paper had even reported details in 1971 about where the test was being planned and that Plutonium would be used. But nobody took India or her scientists seriously those days, I guess.

Perkovich has an interesting theory. He explains that the 1974 PNE was conceived and executed by a group of South Indian Brahmins primarily to exhibit their brilliance, but they had no interest in weapon-zing, as well as dealing with or sullying their hands with the nitty gritty of military affairs. That is possibly one reason according to him, why the program languished.

Did it? In reality the scientists were hard at work in going to the next phase which was compacting the bomb, making a delivery mechanism, mating it with aircraft and developing missile technology.

Ramanna was always clear about the intentions and it was far from peaceful, he said (Oct 97) - The Pokhran test was a bomb, I can tell you now... An explosion is an explosion, a gun is a gun, whether you shoot at someone or shoot at the ground... I just want to make clear that the test was not all that peaceful.”

Krishna Menon, a person who stood firm for total disarmament, the one who had started the DRDO, was mortified when he heard about the 1974 tests. He was seriously ill and hospitalized in Delhi. Madhavan Kutty wrote - When Menon saw the newspaper report, he started shivering with anger. He asked the nurse to get the Prime Minister on the telephone forthwith. When she came back and told that the Prime Minister was not available, he shouted at her and ordered that Homi Sethna, the Chairman of Atomic Energy Commission, be asked to see him immediately. The nurse reported that he too was not available. Tearing his hair Krishna Menon was heard saying that he was on the consultative committee of Parliament for Atomic Energy and that Sethna had no authority to do this behind his back. He was seen grasping for breath…..

The many players are no longer alive today. Indira Gandhi, Homi Bhaba and Vikram Sarabhai met untimely deaths. Raja Ramanna and Homi Sethna passed away some years ago. Abdul Kalam parented the missile program, then went on to become India’s president and he too passed away recently. But their memories and efforts would always be remembered.

The villagers at Pokhran know all about tests these days. Land value has gone up and they are even trying their hands at cultivating Quinoa. There is much interest in the Saraswati River. Some villagers complain of skin and genetic disorders.

Tests continue - Recently the cruise missile BrahMos was tested at the Pokhran range and VIP’s continue to come and go.

References

Weapons of peace – Raj Chengappa

India’s Nuclear Bomb – George Perkovich

The making of India’s atom bomb – Itty Abraham

Years of Pilgrimage – Raja Ramanna

Spying on the bomb – Jeffrey T. Richelson

Explosion in the desert – Kushwant Singh

BBC podcast

The Nanda Devi Episode 

An immaculate deception 

Pics - Google images, Wiki- acknowledged with thanks

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The Englishman’s tail

And the role of Hanuman in it……

What if I told you that there was a time when many a person believed Englishmen were the descendants of Hanuman and his ape friends? And If I continued to state that this was serious stuff, not words of sarcasm, ridicule or any kind of contempt for the white man? Well, it was so and as I got deeper and deeper into the story, I saw that it stretched into the performing arts of Kerala, the Kathakali, where its effect remains to this day. But to get to the origins, you have to go to the days when the Ramayana epic was embedded deep in the psyche of the common man.

Before we do that, we have to visit Malabar in the 15^th through 17^th century. Those days were turbulent alright with the Portuguese sometimes embedded in the wars between the Zamorin and Cochin, as well as a few fought in the seas involving the Portuguese and the marakkars. But the man on the street was not really affected and Malabar went on with its merry ways as a feudal society with the Nambuthiris, the educated lot at the apex, then the Nairs and following them all the other classes, castes and tribes. Sanskrit was the language of the learned, and Malayalam was just starting to evolve from Tamil and Sanskrit. The white men from the West was making his presence felt, and of course, the local populace observed them and their habits keenly. The foreigners - both men and women dressed differently, covering much of their body, compared to the barely clad locals, they ate food which the locals never ate, such as the meat of the cow and they drank liquor in the evenings. They were strong and courageous in the battle field and well, people asked questions. 

If they were doing things which were against the prescribed norm, how was it that they were strong and victorious? The Nambudiri’s came up with a theory and the scribes recorded it faithfully. But naturally, it had to fit with the epics and holy books for popular acceptance. As time went by, more white men appeared, the Dutch and later the French and the English. The last of the lot manifested themselves even more closely with the locals and soon displaced the local chiefs and titular heads. I must also hasten to add that while I am focusing on the Malabar side of the story, similar accounts popped up from other parts of the land around the same time and we will get into a couple of those later on. The brief conclusion was that these foreigners had something to do with a strong and warlike lot such as the monkeys who fought for Rama against Ravana, in Lanka and that the Englishmen, could be their progeny, naturally complete with a tail in the rear.

The thought that Englishmen have tails existed even before that and is ascribed to a Scottish belief from the 16^th century. A version reported in BBC went thus - In his chronicle, 'The Scotichronicon' (c. 1440), Walter Bower relates the story of how some of the English acquired their tails. Apparently, in 597, when St Augustine came to preach the word of God to the West Saxons in Dorset, he came to the village of Muglington where the people distorted and contradicted what he said, or simply wouldn’t listen to him. They even had the audacity to hang fish tails from his clothing. The story goes that God decided to punish these Saxons, along with their descendants and the rest of their country, for this insult to one of his anointed messengers. As Bower relates: ‘For God smote them in their hinder parts, giving them everlasting shame so that in the private parts both of themselves and their descendants all alike were born with a tail.’ The Scots said it of the English, the English said it of the French, and it seemed to be a common insult to hurl at one's opponents.

Medieval Frenchmen had a tradition, which survived even to the nineteenth century, implying that Englishmen had tails, which they cunningly concealed. Other nations were also sure of it, the Greeks of Sicily, as it appears - when forced to entertain British crusaders in 1190 termed them as ‘tailed Englishmen’. At the end of the 13^th century, the besieged Scots at Dunbar castle shouted ‘ye English dogs with long tails! We will kill you and cut off your tails’ (Peter Ackroyd). A few shouted after a battle that they would make ropes for themselves from the Englishmen's tails to tie them up on the following day. Some academics mention that the inference was due to the long hair English men sported, worn down like a tail. But all that were for different reasons and did not involve the monkey brigade which went to Lanka.

But let us return to the Namboodiri in Malabar, and he chose to do exactly that, which was to pin a tail on the Englishman. The epic they chose to associate the Englishman was the Ramayana. It is difficult to point out exactly when and how this was done, but what we do know is that Englishmen of repute heard of it from their associates in Malabar. One JF Logan had to prove he did not have one and others wrote their opinions about it. The version reported in The Academy-July 1893 was the version provided by a Namboothiri to Edward Nicholson. Edward incidentally was an Army doctor who authored one of the first works on tropical snakes and spent a while in Malabar.  

He recounts: I have just come across the same charge (English have tails) in a Malyalam legend grafted on to the Ramayanam. It was in an old notebook, which I had forgotten at the time of the correspondence. I give the story as it was told me in Malabar, many years ago; I spell the proper names as they are pronounced in Malyalam.

The legend of Belal Kitia: When Ramen's army of monkeys were building the bridge from Rameshwaram to Lanka, they were hindered by Värunen (the sea-god), and the monkeys came to Ramen complaining of the rough sea produced by Varunen. So Ramen prayed to the sea to let him build the bridge, but Varunen paid no attention. Then Ramen became angry, and took his bow and arrows to destroy the sea. But as soon as his arrow was fixed, Varunen got frightened and came out of the sea; and he came to Ramen, bringing a present of a bright gold colored cucumber, and begged Ramen's pardon. But Ramen said, having fixed his arrow he must discharge it - at what? Then Varunen said there is a country over there where Rakshashas live; destroy that country. So Ramen shot the arrow, and it killed everyone in the country, and then came back after washing itself in the sea. And then Ramen, having finished the bridge, went over to Lanka and destroyed Ravanen and his Rakshasha army. And after he had made Ravanen's brother king, the Rakshashis came and complained that they were all pregnant by Ramen's monkeys. What to do? So Ramen bid them all get into a ship and go to the country, Belal-kitia, the inhabitants of which he had destroyed with his arrow. But they said, how shall we live there? And he gave them a palm-leaf (writing-leaf) and a broom-twig (for a pen) and told them they should live by that. So they went into the boat and rowed to that country, and had children who became very clever. The English people are descendants of them, and being of monkey ancestry they have tails. And being descended from Dévas [monkey-gods] and Rákshashis [female demons] they partake of both natures, the men being like Dévas and the women like Rákshashis. And they breakfast in the morning like Dévas, on proper simple food, but they dine like Rákshashas on meat and strong drink.” This explanation of the “valakaren’’ nature by simple Hindu country folk is singular. And the general Indian dislike of Englishwomen, a feeling not unreciprocated, shows itself in a very uncomplimentary form.

The origin of this story however dates back to the Portuguese times when as it appears the Alvancheri Thrampakkal narrated this to the Zamorin of Calicut (Keralodaya – KN Ezhuthachan) and suggested that the Zamorin carry out a number of yaga’s and rites to counter the white man’s strength. Now all that was certainly interesting, and believe it or not, this story has many other corollaries and localized versions, as we shall soon see. But one question to be asked was did they men Vaal Karen – man with a tail or Vella Karen - white man when the term was coined? Could it have been the former? And did the term belal kitia mean bilayet? I think valkaren was hardly used and the connection to Bilati shows a potential link to the Bhavishya Purana about which we will talk later.

Another account in the Indian review (Vol 57, 1956) is even more amazing and I quote - A Nambudripad of Malabar declared that all Europeans are descendants of Hanuman and are furnished with a tail. Mr. J. F. Logan, I. C. S., undressed himself before a Parishad and demonstrated that he had no tail. The Parishad duly passed a resolution "This Englishman apparently is an exception and has no tail." I am at a loss as to who this JF Logan is, for we did have William Logan (Malabar Collector) and he does not mention this anywhere, but it is stated so in the above publication.

All this was debated for some time in various English meetings, which sometimes involved learned Indians too. The Journal of the Royal society of arts provides examples of how common spread this belief was. RA Leslie Moore mentions: The Hindu belief in Bombay is that the English are descended from Hanuman, the Monkey King. After all, Hanuman was a good fighter, and apparently a cheery soul, to judge from the red-leaded images of him adorning every Deccan village.

One Mr KG Gupta C.S.I replied that this was not prevalent in Bengal but he agreed on its possibility and stated ‘Having regard to the extreme energy, of the average Englishman, his agility in the tennis- court, or cricket-field, or in the ball-room, it was possible that in some parts of India he might be considered as being descended from the ape. He also thought that the Hindus actually gave the Englishman very great credit, because he did not regard him as a descendant from an ordinary ape (like the rest of us), but from Hanuman, the Lord of Monkeys.

The discussion became serious and Gupta added his thoughts - Hanuman was the ally and friend of Rama, one of the great Indian deities; he assisted Rama in civilizing and Aryanising Ceylon, and he was a loyal, thoroughly good and kind ape. He was so loyal that when his loyalty was once questioned he tore open his breast for everybody to see that on his heart was written the name of his friend and patron Rama. If they (English) had to admit that they were descended from apes, surely the best thing that could possibly happen was to be descended from the best of the apes, so that there was nothing discreditable about it at all. Coming to the question of superstitions, what were superstitions? Did not they represent the exercise of that faculty which had brought all human knowledge, i.e., the inductive faculty? All the highest achievements of science were due to that process. Superstition was an inference drawn from one or two coincidences. It was faulty in that sense, but was the result of the same process.

Sir George Birdwood charmingly opined thus in reply - whether it was to be regarded as implying compliment or contempt would depend on the feeling and thought of the person at the time of giving expression to it: for the Hindus, like all the quick-witted people of Southern Eurasia, from Greece to India, have a wonderful way of conveying praise and blame, blessing and cursing, in the same words. So, he concluded, ‘spoken by a Hindu, in the plain sense of the words, the tradition referred to by Mr. Leslie Moore could have been repeated to him only in the spirit of the sincerest praise’. A common Hindu saying in Bombay is: - "Even the High Gods themselves delight in flattery."

But the story does not end there, for this tale can possibly be seen to be part of a work called the Bhavishya Purana (Pratisarga Parva) and perceived to have been written or modified sometime after the English settled in Calcutta, narrates the origin of Harikhanda (Europe) and the Gurundas (white bodied). The Gurundas are connected to the monkeys of Ramayana. Those which died were brought to life by Ravana and consorted with the women in Ravanas’s harem. The Gurundas came for trade and started it at the city of Kalikata by the order of their queen Vikatavati (Queen Victoria). This myth also, as the myth from Malabar, connects the origin of the Gurundas who are evidently the British, to the monkeys of the Ramayana.

I could not get a hold of the original verses, but  I got to the  Kanchi kamakoti translations, and this is what it states - Shri Rama of Ramayana after vanquishing Ravana made possible many of dead vanara soldiers who fought valiantly to get back to life, the important ones being Vikata, Vrujil, Jaal, Burleen, Simhal, Jawa (Jaawa), Sumaatra (Sumatra), etc. He gave the boon to these Vanaras that quite a few Dwipas (Islands) far and near Lanka be occupied and that they would be Kings of these Islands and that Architect Jaalandhara would help construct and even their wives would be procured from among those Devakanyas liberated after Ravana’s death. The Vanaras were delighted at the happening and in course of time, the habitants of the Islands developed trade contacts with Garunds (British) of the Western World, especially with Isha Putras (Khishtha, Ishu or Isamasiha). The inhabitants were Surya Deva worshippers and virtuous and honest people worthy of promoting overseas business and the King of the Western Dwipa of England called Vikata and later on by his wife Vikatavatior Victoria ruled over there by Ashta Koushala Marg (under the Counsel of Parliament). The British Raj witnessed high prosperity by executing overseas business generation after generation with democracy (Rule of Citizens) with the hereditary Queen or King elected by a Prime Minister; the ninth Chief Representative of Gurunds was Mekal (Lord Macaulay) who administered the Raj with honesty for twelve years; he was followed by Laurdel (Lord Wavel) who ruled for thirty two years.

In the above, you will find that the islanders conducted trade with the gurundas. Nevertheless, the monkey connection may have been deduced by the Nambudiri from the Bhavishya Purana and these special divine powers of the monkey brigade also seem to account for the capacity of Europeans for sea voyage and oceanic adventures, all which were taboo for the common man in Malabar.

Later, and funnily enough, some lent flight to their imagination and connected the tail of Hanuman to the tail coat worn by the Englishman, maybe that was the image which got them the Hanuman link. On the other hand, some opine that the concept of a tail went from Hanuman Ram Leela stage shows to the dressing of gentry in England, during formal occasions!

Then there is the associated account as related to Trijata, the daughter of Vibhishana and one who was friendly to Sita during her period of confinement in Lanka. She (in other versions it is Mandodari) is considered to be Queen Victoria, in a rebirth, according to Upasni Baba (Meher baba’s guru and Shirdi Saibaba’s pupil). The Baba narrates (early 20^th century) - Trijata was a Brahmana, and loved the Kshatriya Rama. The duty of the Kshatriyas is to rule. Being a Brahmana and being intensely devoted to Rama, Trijata should have attained the real state of Rama. But she was devoted to the ruler Rama and hence her progeny, though Brahmana by class, came forth as the rulers on this earth. Once the progeny was brought into being the atma of Trijata joined the real state of Rama. The punya accumulated by Trijata in serving Sita forced her Jiva to have a body to enjoy and expend that punya, and she came forth as Queen Victoria. Since the state of Sita was ever existent in her heart (due to which she had desired to have Rama as her husband) the Kingdom of the Queen Victoria was virtually the Kingdom of Sita. Just as the Ramarupa that satisfied the desire of Trijata returned to its original state on satiating her desire, in the same way, the husband of Queen Victoria after the birth of their progeny returned to the state of Sat. All this explains why Queen Victoria loved this country.

Now this was all interesting, perhaps still accepted by some and scoffed by others, but what is important is that the many of the learned accepted all these hypotheses gladly during a three to four hundred year period as a possibility, and allowed it to direct their actions!

But what connection does this have with our revered art form Kathakali? Ah! My father would have gone on and on about that art itself for he was very fond of the art. I understood very little of it and have never had the patience to savor the lengthy performances, being the dimwitted fool I was, and slept off as it went on into the wee hours of the morning in our temples.

If you observe the headgear of Hanuman in Kathakali carefully, you will find that it is very different from that of other characters. You will find that it is styled somewhat after a pike helmet oft used by the British, but one with a wider than normal brim and a majestic brass spike. The origin of this white and silver trimmed ‘vattamuti’ is ascribed to the Kadathanad Raja (d 1727)in North Malabar during the 18^th century, and the story is that he styled it after French military hats from Mahe (some others say Christian priest style hats modified to have double domes and a spike). I am more inclined to connect it with the Pike helmet since the French wore flat topped hats in Malabar, but maybe I am wrong, perhaps the French did wear such a hat. The white man was sometimes termed the ‘red monkey’ and you will also note that Hanuman’s Kathakali facial getup is made up with a black top half and a red bottom half, replete with a white sideburns / beard or vellathaadi. He wears a woolen hairy coat, completing the European monkey connection.

That brings us to an end and well, now you know how it all came about, right? But then again, all these are myths or events bound by myths, and the question is, should one spend time trying to figure it all out? Romila Thaper answers the question interestingly - Myth is at one level a straight forward story, a narrative: at another level it reflects the integrating values around which the societies are organized. It codifies belief, safeguards morality, vouches for efficiency of the ritual and provides social norms. In a historical tradition therefore the themes of myths act as factors of continuity…….

You can perhaps recount this story to a friendly Brit over a pint of bitter (maybe better after two or three), but I would not guarantee that the results would always be accompanied with much bonhomie! 

References

The Academy – Vol 43, 1103, June 24, 1893

Journal of the Royal Society of arts – Vol. 59, No. 3040 Indian Superstitions E. A. Leslie Moore

Essence of Bhavishya Purana VDN Rao

The Talks of Sadguru Upasni-Baba Maharaja Volume II Part B

South Indian History Congress Jan 1999, The Myth of the origin of White People and its Role in Resistance to Europeans in Malabar - Dr. T. Vasudevan

Ancient Indian Social History: Some Interpretations - Romila Thapar

BBC article – Englishmen and tails 

Pics Hanuman – Courtesy Hindu and photographer named.

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Colonel Cyril J Stracey - I.N.A – A remarkable man

Sept 6^th 1945, Singapore – A small crowd is gathered in front of an Azad Hind monument at Connaught Drive. As Indian Engineers position guncotton charges, Major Donald Brunt (Royal Engineers) is seen checking the fuses. The fuse is lit and the charges explode. Troops of the 17^th Dogra Regiment push over the monument (marked ‘Itmad’ on its larger face) with poles; a civilian crowd claps and cheers enthusiastically; while a Malay policeman observes. The clock of the nearby tower, shows 6pm. A burly Indian Naik (corporal) of the 5^th Indian Division, with an Mk 5 Sten gun with a bayonet fitted, is standing together with two other soldiers, looking on. A guard of honor of the 17^th Dogra Regiment is dressing back a few paces as a brigadier in a kilt (Is it Brigadier Patrick McKerron?) approaches and takes the salute. The brigadier spoke later, perhaps with enthusiasm after this important symbol in the memory of INA soldiers, built by one Col C J Stracey, had been finally demolished.

But Pat McKerron or Mountbatten, who ordered the demolition, could not have predicted their own flight out of India, just two years later. Now, who could this Stracey be? To get to his story, we have to traverse a long road back in time, to the last stages of the 2^nd World War and the years preceding Indian Independence.

Sometimes you just stumble on the beginnings of a story while researching another and that is how I came across the tale of a fascinating character, an Anglo Indian named Cyril John Stracey, who served as a senior officer in the INA. That itself should evoke some curiosity, an Anglo Indian in a nationalist Indian outfit?  It was not easy to unearth details of his life, but as it emerged gradually, bit by bit, it turned out to be a heartwarming tale, sandwiched and hidden between better known stalwarts in the INA and those of his other illustrious brothers, the two who served in the British bureaucracy - the ICS, the Forest Service and the third who rose to occupy the apex position in the Madras Police.

I have always admired the Anglo Indian community, a community which just happened. Some in British India reviled them for their leanings to things and thoughts West, many pitied or ridiculed their dual existence but others watched enviously from afar at their trysts with music and dance, their connections with the railways and their lighter outlook on life. Many said ‘but naturally’, when they moved off to Britain and Australia, seeking easier acceptance from the paternal races that created them, moving off after feeling a certain animosity in Independent India. There were a few though, who made India their home fighting through and shining as brilliant diamonds.

Eric Stracey did just that as he rose through the ranks to become the first DGP of Police in erstwhile Madras. His books on his Anglo Indian upbringing in Bangalore and his life in the police forces are interesting, but this is not his story, it is the story of his lesser known elder brother Cyril John Stracey. The Stracey progeny were in all 11 (four died as infants), four boys and three girls who lived their lives mostly in India and each of them were examples of how one could serve on public services. The eldest Patrick started the wildlife preservation society of India, Ralph became an ICS officer, Eric joined the police, Doreen became a doctor, Margaret a nurse and Winnifred, a teacher.

The Stracey’s affair with India actually started from the early days of the EIC when John and Edward from Cork came to India. Interestingly John worked at the offices of Hyder Ali as the British commercial agent representing the Bombay factory while Edward worked for the EIC at Madras, a bunch who were fighting Hyder. Both married Portuguese Indian girls, perhaps from Cochin and later worked for the Nizam of Hyderabad while their children continued working for the British who had by then started to govern India.

Their father Daniel a Catholic a district forest officer (mother Ethel a protestant), had a connection to Malabar, for he was born in Chittoor Palghat. Many other family connections can be seen with Malabar, Eric spent a couple of terms with the MSP at Malappuram, post the Moplah revolts. Ralph’s daughter married a Malayali, Pat married Peace Mammen a Syrian catholic from Kerala, Pat’s best friend was Ramabhadran, related to the Kollengode Raja’s.

The Stracey children moved from Andhra and grew up in Richmond town Bangalore, then a quiet and cool town with a cantonment and an Anglo Indian minority. Cyril who was born in 1915 at Kurnool, turned out to be quite different, one who chased adventure and traversed the world. He did his schooling in St Joseph’s Bangalore, but did not complete his intermediate and went on to join the Indian Military Academy in 1935 as a gentleman cadet. Eric records the difficulties the family had to endure in meeting Cyril’s 2 ½ year course expenses at Dehradun (Pat deferred his marriage to help pay for his younger brother and their mother had to give up their home in Bangalore and move to Rangoon as a house guest with her brother in law) after their father passed away in 1932. Other family friends also chipped in with support as Cyril was not granted a scholarship which he deserved, for that was awarded instead to the son of a well-placed ICS officer. Eric recalls that Cyril as a youngster was actually more artistically inclined than soldierly, could draw and paint well, and could play the piano with some proficiency.

The IMA’s newly graduated officers were not considered on par with the Sandhurst graduated ones for they were Indian commissioned officers, not the king’s commissioned officers, who were treated highly. ICO’s had a lower pay and were only supposed to replace the VCO’s such as Risaldars, Jamedars and Subedars. The first two terms made them physically fit, adept in English, accounting and in the next three terms, they were provided strategic and tactical training. Camps in the plains and mountains provided them exposure to difficult terrains and tactics. After graduation (Gen Bewoor, Army Chief was his batch mate), Cyril was attached to the West Kent’s at Lucknow (This posting, according to Eric Stracey, with a British battalion was a compulsory part of his initiation to regimental life before he joined his regular Indian battalion). His formal posting was with the 1^st battalion of the 14^th Punjab regiment at Bannu at the North West frontier.

In Feb 1941 the battalion was deputed to Burma. This battalion later became part of the 11^th Indian division’s 15^th brigade and was in Sept 1941 tasked with preparing the defenses at Jitra on the Malay-Thai border anticipating a potential Japanese invasion.

On Dec 7^th, the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, dragging America into the 2^nd World War. The Japanese attack was intended to destroy the pacific fleet, thereby preventing it from interfering with an intended Japanese conquest of key SE Asian countries such as Malaya, Thailand and Burma, the latter for oil and food resources. On Dec 8^th, the Japanese invasion forces landed at Kota Baru (actually 70 minutes before Pearl Harbor was hit, so that was the place where the first attack occurred). Despite their heavy initial resistance, British forces were eventually forced to retreat to their defenses in front of the airfield. On 11^th December 1941, the Japanese started bombing Penang. Jitra and then Alor Star fell into Japanese hands on 12^th December 1941. The British had to retreat to the south. On 16^th December 1941, the British left Penang to the Japanese, who occupied it on 19^th December. By 31^st January 1942, the whole of Malaya had fallen into Japanese hands.

In the meantime the conquest of Burma was underway.  On Dec 14^th the Japanese bombed Victoria point airbase, the southernmost British airfield in Burma and commenced the land based operations. Another Japanese aim was to destroy of the new Lashio Burma Road link to China. An attack or foray into India was never intended, originally.

As we saw parts of the 1^st division of the 14^th Punjab regiment were at Jitra. Mohan Singh and Cyril Stracey were part of separate but incomplete defensive positions laid around Jitra. When the Japanese arrived on the 8^th, they had solid air support and tanks. Barbed wire lines had been partially erected and some anti-tank mines laid but heavy rains had flooded the shallow trenches and gun pits. Many of the field telephone cables laid across the waterlogged ground failed to work, resulting in a lack of communication during the battle. In the Jitra attack, the Japanese decimated the under equipped British Indians who had little answer for the Japanese tanks supported from the air. The remaining British forces fled into the rubber plantations and hid. Both Mohan Singh’s and Stracey’s teams were hiding and while the former was contemplating his future, the latter was forced to assume leadership of a motely group of officers, soldiers, Gurkhas and so on, in the jungle.

C.J. Stracey

According to Stracey the ferocity of the Japanese attack forced the men to take refuge in the rubber plantations and as the lone road was taken by the Japanese, they could not venture back. The locals gave no shelter or support and eventually when the Japanese reached the location on 16^th where these men were hiding, the hungry and battered men had no choice but to surrender. They were taken to the police HQ at Alor Setar where the Japanese started to separate the Indians from the English. Stracey was initially left with the British, but when his orderly piped in that Stracey was Indian, he was moved with the Indians. It was here that Stracey met his old pal Mohan Singh and Mohan Singh updated him of the INA activities and his newfound involvement together with Pritam Singh and Fujiwara. He explained that Rash Behari Bose had arrived there from Japan and agreed on a potential tie up with the captured Indian soldiers to fight the British. Stracey was asked by Singh to explain all this to the new crowd after a cleanup operation of the town and exhort them to join the IIL as it was called.

Stracey was confused and torn, wondering what to do, for his heart was not set on cooperating with the enemy. He also noticed that some junior officers were now being awarded senior positions in the INA organization, and was a bit miffed about it. Anyway as matters took their course, Stracey did not join Mohan Singh and so was confined with other British officers in the Alor Setar jail. As the number of prisoners increased, they were moved to Taiping, then to Kuala Lumpur and finally to Singapore, which had fallen to the Japanese, in Nov 1942.

During this year of confinement, Stracey was getting disillusioned. He caught up with Mohan Singh who had by then become a general, who had after the Farrer park meeting created the first INA and recruited a great many soldiers, totaling to 16,000 or so. Stracey decided to volunteer to the INA, sick of the discriminatory attitude shown by his fellow British officers and noting that they had anyway washed their hands off the Indian soldiers and thrown them to the mercy of the Japanese. Another reason was that he saw a number of his old colleagues already serving in the INA. Stracey was tasked with leading the 10,000 odd new volunteers which included Jawans, JCO’s, Subedar majors, Subedars and Jamadars. He had to start a new army career as a 2^nd lieutenant once again!

Stracey in fact had a unique position, he in his own words ‘was the only officer who saw the INA as a germ, a mere idea and who eventually participated in its obsequies’. Not only was he with Mohan Singh at the start of the INA conceptual discussions, but was also a witness to its disbanding and the first officer to be formally picked up and arrested after the retaking of Singapore, by the Allies.

But things were not going well for Mohan Singh. The Fujiwara Kikan which was behind him had given way to the Iwakuro and Hikari Kikan’s which did not think much of Indians (or rate Indians as equals) and had other ideas. Mohan Singh had by then many other festering issues (INA recognition, use of Indians for manual labor, managing of Japanese misappropriation of Indian assets in Burma) with the Japanese over the INA recognition and issues about the tasks of the IIL. Mohan Singh’s relationship with the I Kikan as well as Rash Behari Bose turned sour resulting in him getting sidelined, dismissed and arrested and transported to Pulau Ubin, an island off Changi point.

A terminally ill Rash Behari Bose had by now decided on appointing fresh blood to lead the large INA organization, which was somewhat rudderless. It was into this vacuum that Subhas Chandra Bose stepped in, coming in from Germany. SC Bose thus took over as the new Supreme commander and recreated the so called ‘Second INA’. Stracey remained in Singapore as INA’s adjutant general (Singapore was the rear HQ while Rangoon where Bose lived, was the front HQ) and was the person responsible for the ‘A’ branch.

Accounts of his life in the INA hierarchy during the Bose days is very scarce (his family considered him lost or dead!) and Eric agrees - It was at this stage that Cyril played a prominent part as its Adjutant-General. We never questioned him about his motives, for as a family we respected each other’s personal privacy, and what notes he left behind about his INA days were only brief and purely descriptive. He rose through the ranks to become a colonel. Dr RM Kasliwal, who was Netaji’s physician states – Stracey was a smart Anglo Indian officer, a staunch nationalist, who joined the INA and became the adjutant general and Quarter master General with a rank as Colonel. He was a great organizer and a good friend and he and I shared a bungalow in Singapore. Stracey met Bose a few times and interacted with him personally. On a lighter side, he once arranged a football match where Bose kicked the ball off to start the match. He was also involved with the design of some air raid shelters.

Two incidents relate to him, one indirectly and one directly. The first is the case of the MK Durrani, an Indian POW who later turned out to be a British agent. Durrani was implicated in manipulating the newly trained spies from the Penang spy schools (they were trained and inserted in India by submarines, but as it turned out, they gave themselves up to the British, influenced by Durrani’s covert actions) and were eventually caught. Bose who was furious with this, sentenced Durrani to death. Dr Kasliwal and a few other Indians asked Bose to show some mercy and finally Bose agreed that Durrani’s life would be spared if he confessed and provided details of his mission. Durrani was thus arrested in 1944 and tortured (finger press and water boarding are mentioned), and some British investigators felt that Stracey and Kasliwal knew about this and perhaps condoned it (the case at the Red Fort involving them was dropped due to political reasons) as it was under Stracey’s watch. Incidentally, the Bidadari camp where Durrani was interred in was administered by others.

Original INA Monument Singapore

The second was in the construction of the Shaheed Smarak or INA martyr’s monument in Singapore where INA officers and contractors led by Stracey built a marble memorial on the Connaught drive, an obelisk 25 feet high, honoring the INA personnel who died. As is quoted often, C.J. Stracey, Quarter-Master General of INA produced a number of models for the memorial. Bose approved one of the models and asked Col. Stracey if he would be able to complete a sea facing structure before the British forces landed in Singapore. He built it in a record 3 weeks, racing against time to finish it before the allied forces retook Singapore from the Japanese, in 1945. The words inscribed were the motto of the INA: Unity (Etihaad), Faith (Itmad) and Sacrifice (Kurbani). The monument was built at the Esplanade just before the Japanese surrender. On 8^th July 1945, Bose laid its foundation stone. Perhaps it was an act too late, for the morale of the INA had gone down, what with the Japanese reverses, general lack of food and resources, Japanese utilization of Indians for other purposes (to fight MPAJA and at the death railway) and the INA and Jap failures at the Indian front.  But as soon as British troops re-occupied Singapore in early September 1945, they blew it up upon instructions from Mountbatten.

Stracey has this to say about the Japanese and the INA. The Japanese found in the Indian army POW’s a very useful weapon to help them achieve what they were setting out to do: the greater co-prosperity sphere of Asia. They were of course very tactful and they always quoted Mahatma Gandhi and the Indian freedom movement under the great and recognized leaders. He implies that on the ground, where it mattered the Japanese never really treated the INA as equals and that Mohan Singh was perhaps right in breaking up the first INA.

As adjutant and quarter master general, Stracey then reporting to Gen Kiani in the INA, was also responsible to coordinate the INA surrender to the British. By this time, Col CJ Stracey was, in British parlance, a JIFF (Japanese Indian or Japanese inspired fifth column). After the British had routed the INA and the Japanese, their task was to round up the JIFF’s and prosecute them to the extent possible.

Interestingly, Cyril’s brother Eric was at that time partly responsible for interrogation of JIFF suspects! He explains - By a twist of fate, I myself was engaged towards the end of the war with security intelligence at our Main Forward Interrogation Centre in East Bengal, where there was a large camp for INA prisoners captured during the fighting in Burma. Though Cyril was flown direct to Delhi from Singapore, and so did not pass through my hands as a prisoner as did some of the other INA officers after Japan surrendered, I had access to his file and classification before that, followed his latter INA career up to the time he was retaken, and was personally the subject of considerable interest to my Intelligence colleagues..

Stracey was taken to Delhi in Jan 1946 and together with a number of others were put on trial. It is a long and convoluted story with all kinds of people involved, Congress, Nehru, Patel, Bulabhai Desai, Gandhiji and so on. Proof was hard to come by, much of the documentation had been destroyed or lost and large communities including the Anglo-Indian applied pressure on the administration to disband the INA trials. Most of the INA officers were dismissed from service or de-mobbed. Colonel Prem Sahgal, Colonel Gurbaksh Singh Dhillon, and Major General Shah Nawaz Khan were court-martialed. Many others were charged for torture and murder or abetment of murder. These trials attracted huge publicity, and public sympathy for the defendants who were considered patriots of India and fought for the freedom of India from the British Empire, ran high. Outcry over the grounds of the trial, as well as a general emerging unease and unrest within the British, ultimately forced the then Field Marshal Claude Auchinleck to commute the sentences of the three defendants in the first trial.

Cyril, was dismissed from the army and upon release from the Red Fort, worked for a year as Secretary of the INA Relief and Rehabilitation Committee in New Delhi, which proved of help to many refugees during the large-scale carnage at the time of partition. It was during the trials and this work that Cyril caught the eye of Nehru who impressed with the officer and his bearing, stated that he could provide him a job in the Indian Foreign Service IFS.

Perusing the Nehru papers, I came across substantial correspondence between Stracey and Nehru during the 1946-48 period. Nehru mentions about him to Patel, about Stracey’s request to archive all collected INA material, of Stracey’s request to induct all INA officers for training in the IMA ( Nehru replied that that would not be advisable as they were over age, but that he would recommend to Patel and Baldev Singh that they be appointed into state forces). He was involved with the refugee relief operations connected with the disasters of the Indian partition. Stracey was also the secretary of the goodwill mission to Ethiopia under Ammu Swaminathan (Lakshmi Menon’s mother).

Stracey repaid his debts to his family and friends from the back-pay he received after the war for his army services and POW period, and he even had a little extra which he lent to Eric so he could buy his first second hand car (a 1937 model Chevrolet released by the Air Raids Precautions service after the danger to Madras city ceased!).

Interestingly, in a fitting end, Nehru gifted Stracey a marble fragment, a part of the demolished INA monument which read ‘Subhas Ch’ after the dust had settled and India was free. This had been retrieved by a local Indian in Singapore. What happened to it later, is not known.

As promised, Nehru gave him a position in the IFS where Cyril did very well. His diplomatic career spanned through postings in Karachi, Bonn, Jakarta, as Consul-General at San Francisco, First Secretary at Washington and Chancellor in Paris, finishing with spells as ambassador to Finland and Madagascar. Reports mention him as being considered a ‘most eligible bachelor’ while in San Francisco and also of his amusing complaints about his lodgings and landlady while in Washington DC.

Eric and Cyril had purchased a small retirement home ‘Charleston” in Coonoor, where Cyril moved to after retirement from the IFS. He continued with philanthropic work and was an active member of the Coonoor branch of the AIS. His 78 rpm records, his piano and his garden gave him the solace he sought.

Eric’s retelling of his brothers last days is sad and poignant. Cyril lived on at “Charleston” until his death in November 1988, enjoying his music and his books, but keeping much to himself. Apart from a bachelor friend or two, his only company was a Marwari family, the Simrathmulls, who lived near-by. They were generous and open-hearted friends - husband, wife and five bright sons, who had him over for dinner every Sunday night and ran errands for him. (He did not keep a car in his later years and did not like going down to the bazaar in person). As a humorous sidelight, when their business ran into trouble, Cyril helped them with a loan which they duly repaid - a strange case of an Anglo-Indian, a member of a notoriously prodigal community not known for its wealth, lending money to one whose people constituted the traditional bankers and money-lenders of the north! When Cyril had a sudden and fatal heart attack, it was they who rushed him to hospital and later helped carry his coffin in a last gesture of friendship.

Eric had by then retired from his IPS position in Madras and moved off to Australia. In 1989, he returned to India to sell off their house, ‘Charleston’ in Coonoor and with that the last link the Stracey’s had to India was broken. A few educational scholarships and the Stracey Memorial School in Bangalore, provide trace memories of that family.

That my friends is the story of a very interesting man, one who stood at a very difficult crossroad and decided his direction only after much soul searching. One path would perhaps have led him to England or Australia to live there as a second class citizen, the other, the path he chose, led him to remain an Indian, in the country he lived for, and died in!

Notes

• 1      While Cyril states – I decided that I will join the INA, this thing has become a reality and why should not an Anglo Indian be part of it as well? Eric explains it differently - In Cyril’s case, predilection would have been reinforced by the pressure of his regimental peers. He was not the sort of person mindlessly to follow the natural course expected of Anglo-Indians and side automatically with the British, nor would he have wanted to incur the sneers and contempt of his other Indian colleagues for a member of a community they already regarded as lackeys of the Raj. It was these factors rather than any special feeling of nationalism that would have moved him to join the INA along with most of the other Indian officers of his battalion.
• 2.       Stracey was interrogated after he was picked up in Singapore. Kevin Noles who studied the files states - His interrogator considered that he joined in August 1942 ‘from motives of greed, ambition and pleasure-seeking’ although he conceded his ‘thorough ideological conversion’. The comments reveal more about the attitude of the interrogator attempting to comprehend the actions of an Anglo-Indian than they do about Captain Stracey himself, who seems to have been genuinely enthused by Indian nationalism and became a senior staff officer in the INA.
• 3.       The first battalion, 14^th regiment had a number of other well-known Indian origin officers. Ayub Khan, SPP Thorat, MH Kiani, Shah Nawaz Khan, Habib Ur Rahman, AIS Dara, GS Dhillon, Inayat Hassan, Mohan Singh etc.
• 4.       A number of Mohan Singh’s first INA followers who did not join the Second INA were transported by the Japanese to New Guinea and Solomon island labor camps. That is another story, for another day!
• 5.       One could ask if the Congress and Gandhiji won independence for India or was the decision by the British to leave a result of the INA movement? There are certainly many arguments supporting the latter, for the INA movement, the Red Fort trials and so on had a substantial influence on the Indian soldier in the Raj’s army and the general public. The British Empire, which was fully based on the unquestioning loyalty of the Indian armed forces, had finally been undermined by the INA trials. Once Auchinleck and the administration felt that they had lost their complete grip on and loyalty of the Indian army, they knew their cause was lost.

References

The late Cyril Stracey – A remarkable soldier and diplomat (The Review Vol 88, Feb 1989)

How I came to join the INA (Oracle Volume 4, Jan 1982) CJ Stracey

Odd man in: my years in the Indian police - Eric Stracey

Growing up in Anglo India: Eric Stracey

Interviews with Ralph, Eric and Cyril Stracey– The Centre of South Asian Studies

Netaji, Azad Hind Fauz, and After – RM Kasliwal

A remarkable family – S Muthiah Hindu April 16, 2012

Anglo Indians – S Muthiah, Harry Mcalure

Shades of white, brown and black - CVG The Hindu

The Indian national Army & Japan – JC Lebra

The Forgotten Army: India's Armed Struggle for Independence, 1942-1945 -Peter Ward Fay

Waging War against the King’: Recruitment and Motivation of the Indian National Army, 1942-1945 – Kevin Noles

Pics – Azad Hind Monument courtesy EM Kasliwal, Cyril Stracey picture Courtesy S Muthiah, Harry Maclure

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Peace at the 38th

Indian role in defusing the Korean situation 1950-54

The 38^th parallel, the real line of latitude does not actually divide the Koreas, but in diplomatic parlance is considered to be the divider between the two. Prior to the Second World War (1910-1945) the whole of Korea was under the Japanese regime. After the Japanese surrender in 1945, the Americans and Russians decided to divide the country into the North and South roughly around the 38^th. The actual line of demarcation today is situated at a slight angle to the 38^th and meanders from the North to the South in a more leisurely fashion. The tensions around that line and the demilitarized zone, close to the large city of Seoul have since its creation, seesawed wildly, at times coming perilously close to nuclear confrontation between world powers. In the 50’s, one of the main peacemakers working hard to prevent a nuclear attack and larger conflict was India, a story not well known to most. The people who played a part in that tale are very familiar to us, and the story is a master class in plays, counter plays and the art of diplomacy. Today with the backdrop of the meeting which took place between Trump and Kim Jong-un and the prospect of lasting peace between the two Koreas, this story will I hope, provide an interesting aside.

The line was established in a hurry actually, for the Americans were worried that the Russians could occupy the whole of Korea after entering the war against Japan. Col Dean Rusk, was tasked with the job of drafting a line, something that he had no idea about. He states - Using a National Geographic map, we looked just North of Seoul for a convenient dividing line but could not find a natural geographical line. We saw instead the thirty-eighth parallel and decided to recommend that ... [Our commanders] accepted it without too much haggling, and surprisingly, so did the Soviets. And that was how Korea got divided! Things got complicated after the chill in the relation between the super powers, and the onset of the cold war. The UNTCOK (temporary commission on Korea) was then formed under the aegis of the UN, headed by KPS Menon. But the Soviets were firmly against it and did not allow the commission to enter the 38^th or set up elections in the North.

By the autumn of 1948 the independent states of North and South Korea had been established, pitted firmly against each other the communist North headed by Kim Il Sung and the South by Syngman Rhee. Both sides conducted independent elections, and the South’s election was supported by the UN. Following a number of deadly border skirmishes, the North Koreans launched a full-scale invasion against the south on June 25, 1950. Whether it was the North who really started it is not clear and Karunakar Gupta is of the opinion that the Indian Chairman of the UNSC did not consider the claims of the North while passing a decision favoring the South.  India’s BN Rau condemned the invasion, a decision which was not supported by Delhi’s MEA since Nehru remained under the opinion that India had abstained. During all these parlays, the Soviets were boycotting the UN over the non-inclusion of China in the UN. The US decided to provide military support to the South and Gen Mc Arthur was to lead the UN forces into Korea to help repel the North Koreans as well as to engage in a battle against communism in an Asia under transition. India refused direct involvement, but finally acceded by providing limited moral and medical support.

This was a critical phase and India’s involvement as an interlocutor in matters concerning Asia considered very important. The players on the UN scene and the ambassadors in key capitals were experienced diplomats, namely VK Krishna Menon, Vijayalakshmi Pandit, KM Panikkar, BN Rau, KPS Menon, KN Raghavan and so on, each held in high esteem. At this critical juncture, USSR offered support for India’s permanent membership if it supported the Soviets on Korea while US offered India the same to replace a possible Chinese position at the UN. Nehru rejected both proposals stating that India was opposed to these kinds of pressures to create a chasm between India and China.  Since China was not represented in the UN, India was the interlocutor between them and the West. It was to prove costly during the next four years for her relationship with USA became acrimonious and opinions vastly divided. The Americans threat of ‘you are either with us or against us’ was bandied about every now and then, as India sought to position itself as a neutral, nonaligned and Commonwealth member in the new world order. Nehru’s anti-imperialist views were viewed by America as communist, especially Delhi’s support for the PRC during the Korean War years. Over and above all that Nehru believed in the UN and its mediatory powers, more than war and with his efficient representation at the UN, sought to build up an important role as an educated mediator for sticky situations.

As Mac Arthur’s forces were poised to enter the North, the world feared that the Chinese would enter the conflict in support of the North Koreans. In Oct 1950 the Zhou Enlai summoned Panikkar and asked him to convey to the West that if the US forces did cross the 38^th, China would consider it an act of aggression and would come to the assistance of the North. The Americans at that time thought that the Chinese were bluffing and that Panikkar was panicking. Mc Arthur was tasked with destroying N Korean armed forces, but to stay clear of Soviet border or Manchuria. For a few days the UN forces advanced without resistance and the Americans believed that the Chinese had bluffed, they even jokingly called KM Panikkar as ‘panicky’.  It would be “sheer madness” for Mao to take on America, Acheson said, and the Indian warning was the “mere vaporings of a panicky Panikkar.”

But they were wrong and the Chinese who entered through Manchuria inflicted heavy damages on the US led troops. This now resulted in the UN allowing a Chinese representation to debate the issue at the UN and the Chinese called for sanction on the US for occupation of Formosa and armed intervention in Korea. As the debate became acrimonious and heated, the then US president Truman decided to force the issue by issuing a nuclear threat. Nehru conveyed through Atlee visiting Washington that an Atom Bomb drop in Korea was a no-no and requested that Gen Mc Arthur’s powers be clipped.

India then tried to pressure China into declaring a ceasefire, but did not succeed for the Chinese wanted full US withdrawal. As the matter deadlocked, Truman declared a national emergency in the US, driving up mass hysteria and panic, and China were now convinced that the Americans were now preparing for a full scale war in Korea. As the permanent powers seemed to be unable to do anything at the UN in these matters, the ‘little six’ as they were called, India, Cuba, Yugoslavia, Norway, Egypt and Ecuador tried to bring about a solution, but that effort did not take off. Eventually the commonwealth ministers met in London in Jan 1951 to discuss a fresh set of proposals agreeing to return of Formosa to China, entry of China into the UN and a cease fire in Korea. 

The Chinese seemed amenable to most of the terms but the Americans did not agree and fighting continued. The 60^th Indian Parachute Field Ambulance provided the medical cover for the operations, dropping an ADS and a surgical team and treating over 400 battle casualties apart from the civilian casualties that formed the core of their humanitarian objective. But the fighting also moved into a stalemate stage by July which resulted in the US finally requesting Soviet involvement for negotiations. During the interim Mac Arthur was relieved of his powers by an incensed Truman who later said “I fired him [MacArthur] because he wouldn't respect the authority of the President ... I didn't fire him because he was a dumb son of a bitch, although he was, but that's not against the law for generals. If it was, half to three-quarters of them would be in jail”.

The war itself, especially the battles at Pusan, Unsan and Incheon, the involvement of USSR and China and their leaders Stalin and Mao, and the leadership of Mac Arthur etc is a subject which would involve a huge amount of text, so I will not get into the same here. The negotiations started with the first liaison meeting on 8 July 1951. The Americans considered the negotiations to be very difficult with the UN according to the US being unduly influenced by India and other neutrals. In 1952 the negotiations ground to a halt with the issue of the POW’s.

The next rounds were actually fought at the UN and involved India to a large extent. In China, Panikkar had been replaced by KN Raghavan (I hope you recall him from my previous article on the IIL in Penang). At the UN, the impeccable ‘saint’ KN Rau had been replaced by a suave Vijayalakshmi Pandit supported by the mercurial and highly impetuous VK Krishna Menon. While the Chinese insisted on the 1949 Geneva Convention implementation where the prisoner would be returned to the country of his origin, the Americans wanted the principle of voluntary repatriation to be enforced (after a preliminary screening it was determined that only 73,000 of the 170,000 wanted to return home). It was soon a matter of egos and neither side would budge. The American bombing of the power stations at Yalu, Poyang and Antung complicated the issue further and the Chinese did not back off.

And with the arrival of ‘Formula’ Menon, the so called ‘Menon Plan’ took shape whereby a special commission took into custody the non-repatriate prisoners and decided later on their disposition. The unhappy Americans launched the 21 Power draft resolution when they saw that the Menon plan found support with other commonwealth members. Meanwhile, a new US president Ike Eisenhower was elected, based mainly on his assurances to end the Korean War quickly. The various drafts of the POW plan, the acrimonious relations between Menon and Vijayalakshmi, the tough exchanges between Menon and Acheson, the mentions of the existence of a Menon Cabal, the mediation by Canadas Lester Pearson, Menon’s secretiveness, all add color to the larger story. Without doubt, it was a tense affair, but in the end things worked out.

Menon revised his plan to create a repatriation commission to take custody of all prisoners, repatriating immediately willing prisoners and persuade over the next 90 days the rest to return home. After 90 days the fate of unwilling prisoners would be decided by the UN after discussions. India upped the ante by summarily submitting the draft without an US approval as Acheson continued to persuade members to accept the US draft. Acheson was furious when he found little support for his plan and obtained Truman’s approval to vote against Menon’s. But matters took a different course as the Soviets seemed against the Indian proposal. The US now decided to support the Indian resolution, hoping that the communist states would vote against it. Nehru was aghast at all this and was considering to step out of the whole Korean business. When the UN members now saw a vacillating Nehru, they put their weight behind Menon’s plan which had huge support and in Dec 1952 adopted it despite a lack of support from the Soviets and the Chinese.

Truman was formally succeeded by Eisenhower in USA and Dulles replaced Acheson as secretary of state. During the 20^th May NSC meeting Eisenhower concluded that if the truce talks failed, the United States would have no choice but to initiate a greatly expanded military offensive into North Korea, Manchuria and China using nuclear weapons. President Eisenhower went so far as setting a tentative D-day for May 1954. He directed Secretary Dulles to relay that threat through Nehru and Raghavan to the Chinese.

On 5^th March 1953, Soviet leader Josef Stalin died and was replaced by Georgi M. Malenkov. Malenkov and his advisors were facing unrest in Eastern Europe, wanted to ease the tensions with the West, and saw the Korean War as a growing burden. They, as is believed, consequently relaxed Stalin's previous opposition to a negotiated truce announcing a ‘peace offensive’ at Stalin’s funeral. The Chinese and North Koreans facing huge expenses and losses also agreed to negotiation concessions and with it the Korean War came to an end in 1953. The Chinese in the end did not achieve much from this foray, for neither did they obtain UN membership nor Taiwan.

Krishna Menon however saw no connection between the death of Stalin and the softening of Soviet policy toward the West. "Unlike most Americans," he said. "Indians have no terror or phobia of the Communists. In India we don't say. "Thank God the man is dead." After six years in the United Nations, Menon had come to the conclusion that "effective diplomacy is the capacity to keep quiet."

The Chinese signaled that they were willing to exchange sick prisoners and accepted the rest of the Menon plan. After some differences of opinion with the Americans were ironed out, the Menon plan was finally executed. The resolution as submitted by Brazil and received unanimous support. Meanwhile South Korean dictator Syngman Rhee unilaterally released 27,000 prisoners allowing them to escape into S Korea and threatened to kick out the Americans from S Korea if they entered into an armistice. But an armistice was completed on July 27^th 1953, with the South Koreans not signing it.

The person in charge of the POW transfer operations was none other than Lt Gen Thimayya, assisted by Maj Gen Thorat. India helped with the repatriation of captured prisoners to each side, a very delicate issue because thousands of North Korean and Chinese prisoners wanted to be free to stay in the South and not go home. The Indian custodian force located at the DMZ called ‘Camp Nagar’ and ‘Shanti Nagar’, despite severe criticism and lack of support from the Rhee (they forbid the Indian forces to land in S Korea) regime, supervised a careful process that ensured they were able to defect, but without too much humiliation for the communist regimes. The UNC held 132,000 prisoners while the Communists held 12,773 prisoners. All of these prisoners had the choice of whether or not they wanted to be repatriated. The vast majority of prisoners wanted to return home and each side had 60 days to hand the prisoners over. Statistics shows that under the operations Little Switch and Big Switch eventually around 83,000 POWs were repatriated to the north, while around 22,000 preferred to remain in the south. Nehru decided to bring the 88 left to India.

Interestingly of the 88 prisoners who were brought to India, 5 were sent to N Korea, 2 to China, 55 to Brazil, 11 to Argentina and 9 to Mexico. Two returned to S Korea while the remaining five who elected to stay in India namely Ji gi cheol, Hyun Dong hwa, Jang Gi Hwa, Cho in Cheol, and Ji Sin young lived out the rest of their lives in India. Four died in India and the last went back to S Korea with his son.

On 27 April 2018 the Panmunjom Declaration for Peace, Prosperity and Unification on the Korean Peninsula was signed by South Korean President Moon Jae-in and the North Korean leader Kim Jong-un which commited the two countries to denuclearization and talks to bring a formal end to conflict. The two leaders agreed to, later in the year, convert the Korean Armistice Agreement into a full peace treaty, formally ending the Korean War after 65 years.

The broad canvas of geopolitics that played in the background is a great study for those interested. The Soviets pulled the cords at key moments, the Chinese were goaded on by the Soviets, the North Koreans perhaps got the nod and support from both in varying amounts, the South Koreans and Syngman Rhee (who himself had been raising the war bogey to prop his regime) were supported by America who was fighting a war against communism and hoping to arrest its spread into Asia’s southern regions. The global cold war played its part as a backdrop to the various acts and sub acts and it was into this heady mix that Nehru and Menon stepped in, perhaps attempting to project the intellectual might of a young India authoritatively in the world arena, for the first and last time. The Korean War bruised many a leader and India earned the distrust of America and S Korea due to her firm stance. When India refused to call China an aggressor, Truman is said to have stated – ‘Nehru has sold us down the Hudson. His attitude has been responsible for our losing the war in Korea’. It is believed by academics that Truman resented India’s socialist stance and her being right about potential Chinese intervention.

The Canadians proved to be a bridge between India and US throughout the play of events wanting India’s direct involvement while at the same time pointing out that America resented public Indian criticism of any US stance or policy. In addition, this was also to prove an important point to the Americans that the general assembly and not the UN Security Council would prove decisive in thwarting war and attaining peace.

Tragically most historians and strategists agree- if only the Americans had listened to KM Panikkar, the situation may have been different. Panikkar himself wrote in his diary later in 1950 that “America has knowingly elected for war, with Britain following. The Chinese armies now concentrated on the Yalu will intervene decisively in the fight. Probably some of the Americans want that. They probably feel that this is an opportunity to have a show down with China. In any case MacArthur’s dream has come true. I only hope it does not turn into a nightmare.” It did eventually when in Tokyo, MacArthur and Willoughby completely dismissed the Indian warning as merely communist propaganda delivered by an untrustworthy source. Over 2.5 million people were to die during the Korean War, including 30,000 Americans.

References

Military armistice in Korea: a case study for strategic leaders –lieutenant colonel William T. Harrison

Between the Blocs: India, the United Nations, and Ending the Korean War - Robert Barnes

India’s Diplomatic Entrepreneurism: Revisiting India’s Role in the Korean Crisis, 1950–52 - Vineet Thakur

How Did the Korean War Begin? Karunakar Gupta

Conflicting visions – Canada and India in the cold war world 1946-1976 - Ryan M. Touhey

Explaining the origins and evolution of India’s Korean policy - Rajiv Kumar

The Role of India in the Korean War-Kim ChanWahn

Ending the Korean War: Reconsidering the Importance of Eisenhower's Election - Robert Barnes

Heroes of the Korean War: Lieutenant General Subayya Kadenera Thimayya – See link

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