Most Helpful Customer Reviews
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A drain inspector's report or faithful wounds of a friend?, January 9, 2007
The positive impact that this controversial book had created in the Indian nationalism and feminism during the early 20th century cannot be belittled even while the motives behind such a polemic work on the Indian social life of the colonial India can undoubtedly be questioned.
One cannot disagree to the fact that Mayo's book came as quite a surprise to the leaders of Indian national congress and social reforms at a time when the whole country is engaged in a political struggle with the colonial government. Historians are of the opinion that her work neither revealed anything new of the prevailing social decadence nor gave viable solutions to them. The social movements and women liberation advocates existed at the time even before this book was written, got their much needed impetus with the release of her work. Though the mainstream orthodox Hindu groups were on the constant collision course with these movements with jarring opposition, the members of the national congress could not keep their eyes closed on the women issues in the wake of Mayo's book and gave wholehearted support for questioning the intransigence on religious orthodoxy and the indifference of the colonial government on the issues concerning women. On the political front, Mayo's work could neither dampen the enthusiasm of freedom `fighters' nor could bring the west, who condemned her work as negative American journalism, to consensus with her.
It is interesting to note that though Mayo were able to put forward a number of theories both economical and social for the existing moral turpitude in Indian social life, she did not suggest any solutions for it and one would suspect that such solutions if suggested could have been carried out only in the form of reforms on the existing British policies rather than as reforms in the minds and hearts of Indian people, undermining the very objective for which Mayo created her work in the first place.
Mrinalini Sinha, who wrote an excellent introduction to `Mother India' in a different publication, has given many evidences for Mayo's secret collaboration with the British in misrepresenting India. It was widely believed that the targeted audience of Mayo's work was United States who had been pushing British for granting more political freedom for Indians. One can easily notice in her book that her smear campaign was targeted towards Hindu religion, the religion of most of the nationalistic leaders of the time who were demanding home rule. In her opinion the Hindu nationalism was causing `problems' for the British by their campaign of non-cooperation, civil disobedience and instillation of rural masses when British were doing everything to improve the conditions in India like incorporation of Indians in the administrating positions, improving the economical infrastructure, revival of village industries etc. She was insinuating that Hindus should first address the appalling social conditions in India and then learn, with the help of the British, how to administer a country before clamoring for independence that she thought Indians were still unqualified for. The British on the other hand were delighted to have such a work published around the time when situations were so tensed all around the country following the Rowlatt act, problems in Punjab and most importantly Jalianwala Bagh massacre.
Mayo's revulsion towards Hindu religion and its `superstitions' can be seen all over her work where as she conveniently ignored many of the disgusted customs of Islam, may be fearing a fatwa declared on her by the Muslim community lest she repudiated their customs and traditions. Her rather soft approach towards Islam was due to the fact that most of the Muslim population supported the British rule and alienating them from the British interests in India would be the last thing in her agenda. Being a minority, Muslims always believed that their interests would be better protected under a British rule than under a self-rule with Hindu majority at its helm. In spite of all the venom the book emits, there are some interesting and worth pondering narrations of many Hindu customs in it and how Brahman upper class was able to keep the lower caste people in submission. Chapters `Brahman' and `Sacred cow' deserve special accolade.
In the chapter, `Psychological glimpses through the economic lens', she was giving rather clever explanations for why British rule in India is a boon not a bane for both Indians and the rest of the world. The Indian nationalist leaders' claim that the British was plundering India and fleecing its wealth for the benefit of people of Briton is also questioned in the chapter. She draws sloppy comparison between India and USA, some of the countries to which Britain sold clothes. Her argument was that both America and India exported cotton to Britain and if America had no problem buying clothes from UK in return why India should then had problems doing the same? Her rather superficial comparison reveals how badly was she aware of the realities to which Indian cotton industry was submitted to by the British. Then, she has her own arguments for the India's high military expenditure and high remunerations of Indian civil servants (all of them were British). She seemed to have totally unaware of the fact that her very arguments for British's expensive administration were the reasons why nationalists including Gandhi were asking British to leave; a pompous alien power needs more money to run India than what would Indians need to run their own country - the economic disparity between India and Britain had always caused hardship for India.
Many controversial topics in her book are related to the moral ascendance of Hindu; practices on marriage and sex such as child marriages, pre-pubertal sexual relations, young pregnancy, Devadasi system, Suttee practices, widow issues etc. Her gross exaggerations of numbers are challenged by many historians, one example being the percentage of Indians inflicted by venereal diseases is only 10% not 90% unlike Mayo reported. On the subject of child marriage, she interpreted totally out of context the comments made by Tagore and Gandhi. At the end, Gandhi's response to Mayo, `A Drain inspector's report' (published in Young India journal) truly encompasses the spirit with which Gandhi exhorted Indian populace to remain calm but respond positively to Mayo's challenges.
However, the truth of the matter is that many of the social blots of the Indian society that Mayo reported in her book were true in a sense that it existed at many places in India as acknowledged by prominent leaders of the time as Gandhi, Nehru and Bose though more patriotic nationalists deprecated Mayo's report outright. What was not true is her generalization. Her language is so powerful to cause a casual reader to mistake the identity of India. Her British friends warned her that India cannot be generalized with a few samples of cases taken from few villages; nevertheless she embarked on her work with a British agenda of slandering India.
Ancient or modern, any civilization in the world always has its share of social and moral issues, including one of the so called most civilized countries as Mayo's own. Most recently, the church scandals came in light in the Unites States of incidents happened decades ago in most of the American churches are good examples of where minors are mistreated by the people associated with God (Mayo draw similar cases with priests in Indian temples). Also, the horrible treatment the whites meted out to their blacks brethren in the United States during the same period was no different from the upper caste Hindus' treatment towards `untouchables'.
Mayo's plea at the end of her book to the readers of India to consider her `pain' as the `faithful wounds of a friend' was not well received in India. Had only such a work as Mayo's even with its direct attack on many controversial fronts is produced by a scholar who have spent years in India with a genuine concern for the social problems of India could the same be considered as the `faithful wounds of a friend'. Mayo who just spent three months during 1925-26 to produce such a work and claiming herself to be a benefactor of India and her women community does not deserve the friendship of India as aptly commented by Haribilas Sarda (the architect of the Sarda Act also known as Child Marriage Restraint Act of 1929). Ironically, it is Mayo to whom the supporters of the act should thank for the passage of the act would not have been smoother probably without her work.
The British who welcomed an average American journalist's inferior work with both hands banned the publication of an excellent impartial book `India in Bondage - Her right to Freedom and a Place Among the Great Nations' two years later, written by an other American, Jabez T. Sunderland, who was an authoritative on the subject and was a former president of the India information Bureau of America, twice Special Commissioner and lecturer to India and the author of a number of books on India, on the apprehension that they will loose their ground in the west as well as in the east in holding India still in subjugation.
Comments of some of the western personalities on the Mayo's book are worth quoting here (from `India in Bondage' by Sunderland, P.510).
Professor Franklin Edgerton of Yale University wrote: "I hope you and others in India will believe that there are some of us in America who know how to appraise justly Miss Mayo's scurrilous book. We are deeply ashamed to acknowledge her as our fellow countrywoman, and we neglect no chance to deny the truth of the picture of India which she draws."
Mrs. Annie Besant writes with indignation of `Mother India': "Miss Mayo has published a wicked book, slandering the whole of...
Read more ›
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Reading propaganda in its context, January 23, 2003
By A Customer
This is a great take on the original "Mother India" written in the 1920s by Katherine Mayo. Sinha notes that Mayo's book, in spite of being one of the most viciously racist and imperialistic (and badly written) books ever, served as a guide for US policy makers until the 1980s! Going by Sinha's analysis, it's pretty clear that Mayo was more demagogue than scholar, and very interesting that lots of people cared about her views. That alone makes it worth examining what Mayo said. Sinha takes a good look at (a) Mayo's career and political leanings, (b) new research about her sources of "information" about India, (c) possible sources of funding for her book, and (d) what Indians at the time had to say about it. Through all this, Sinha does a great job of contextualizing Mayo's book, and provokes readers to think about the powerful seduction that oversimplified (dis)information and propaganda hold for the uncritical mind. In the first part of the book, Sinha presents background and analysis. The rest of the book consists of excerpts from Mayo's original text.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A drain inspector's report or faithful wounds of a friend?, September 26, 2008
The positive impact that this controversial book created in the Indian nationalism and feminism during the early part of the 20th century cannot be belittled even when the motives behind such a polemic work on the social and political life of colonial India can undoubtedly be questioned.
Historians would not disagree to the fact that Mayo's book came as a bolt from the blue to the leaders of the Indian national congress and social reformers at a time when the whole country was engaged in a political struggle with the colonial government. Historians are of the opinion that her work neither revealed anything new of the then prevailing social decadence nor gave any viable solutions to them. Instead, the social movements and the women liberation advocates that existed long before this book was written got their much needed impetus with the release of this book. Though the mainstream orthodox Hindu groups were on the constant collision course with these movements with jarring opposition, the members of the national congress could not keep their eyes closed in the wake of Mayo's book and gave wholehearted support for questioning the intransigence on the religious orthodoxy and the indifference of the colonial government on the issues concerning women. On the political front, Mayo's work could neither dampen the enthusiasm of freedom fighters nor could bring the west, which condemned her work as negative American journalism, to consensus with her.
It is interesting to note that though Mayo was able to put forward a number of theories, including economical and social, for the moral turpitude that existed in the Indian social life, she could not suggest any solutions for it, and so one could easily suspect that any solutions if suggested could only had been carried out in the form of reforms on the existing British policies rather than as reforms in the minds and hearts of Indian people, and thus undermining the very objective for which Mayo created her work in the first place.
Mrinalini Sinha, who wrote an excellent academic introduction to `Mother India' in a different publication, Mother India: Selections from the Controversial 1927 Text, Edited and with an Introduction by Mrinalini Sinha has given many evidences for Mayo's secret collaboration with the British in misrepresenting India. It was widely believed that the targeted audience of Mayo's work was United States which had been pushing British for granting more political freedom for India. One can easily notice that Mayo's target was the Hindu religion, the religion of most of the nationalistic leaders of the time who were demanding home rule. In her opinion Indian leaders by their Hindu nationalistic feeling was causing `great trouble' for the British by their campaign of non-cooperation, civil disobedience and instillation of rural masses when British were doing everything to improve the conditions in India like incorporation of Indians in the administrating positions, improving the economical infrastructure, revival of village industries etc. Mayo was insinuating that Hindus should first address the appalling social conditions in India and then learn with the help of the British on how to administer a country before clamoring for independence that she thought Indians were still unqualified for. The British on the other hand were delighted to have such a work published around the time when situations were so tensed all around the country following the Rowlatt act, problems in Punjab and most importantly the Jalianwala Bagh massacre.
Mayo's revulsion towards Hindu religion and its `superstitions' can be seen all over her work where as she conveniently ignored many of the disgusted customs of Islam fearing a fatwa may have declared on her by the Muslim community lest she repudiated their customs and traditions. Her rather soft approach towards Islam was founded on the fact that most of the Muslim population supported the British rule and alienating them from the British interests in India would be the last thing in her agenda. Being a minority, Muslims always believed that their interests would be better protected under a British rule than under a self-rule with Hindu majority at its helm. In spite of all the venom the book emits, there are some interesting and thought provoking narrations of many Hindu customs in the book and how Brahman upper class was able to keep the lower caste people in submission. Chapters `Brahman' and `Sacred cow' deserve special accolade.
In the chapter `Psychological glimpses through the economic lens', she was giving clever explanations for why British rule in India was a boon and not a bane for both Indians and the rest of the world. The Indian nationalist leaders' claim that the British was plundering India and fleecing its wealth for the benefit of people of England was also questioned in the chapter. She draws sloppy comparison between India and USA, some of the countries to which Britain sold clothes. Her argument was that both America and India exported cotton to Britain and if America had no problem buying clothes from UK in return why India should then had problems doing the same? Her rather superficial comparison reveals how badly was she aware of the realities to which Indian cotton industry was submitted to by the British. Then, she has her own arguments for the India's high military expenditure and high remunerations of Indian civil servants (all of them were British). She seemed to have totally unaware of the fact that her very arguments for British's expensive administration were the reasons why nationalists including Gandhi were asking British to leave; a pompous alien power needs more money to run India than what would Indians need to run their own country - the economic disparity between India and Britain had always caused hardship for India.
Many controversial topics in her book are related to the moral ascendance of Hindu on marriage and sex; bizarre practices such as child marriages, pre-pubertal sexual relations, young pregnancy, Devadasi system, Suttee practices, widow issues etc are dealt in detail. Her gross exaggeration on statistics was challenged by many historians; the most striking one is her claim of the percentage of Indians inflicted by venereal diseases. On the subject of child marriage, she interpreted the comments the comments made by Tagore and Gandhi totally out of context. At the end, Gandhi's response to Mayo, `A Drain inspector's report' (published in Young India journal), truly encompasses the spirit with which Gandhi exhorted Indian populace to remain calm but respond positively to Mayo's challenges.
However, the truth of the matter is that many of the social blots of the Indian society that Mayo reported in her book were true in a sense that it existed at many places in India as acknowledged by prominent leaders of the time as Gandhi, Nehru and Bose though hard-line patriotic nationalists deprecated Mayo's report outright. What was not true is her generalization. Her language is so powerful that a casual reader could easily mistake the identity of India. Before her onset, her British friends warned her that India cannot be generalized with a few samples of cases taken from few villages; nevertheless she embarked on her work with a British agenda to slander India.
Ancient or modern, any civilization in the world always had its share of social and moral issues including the so called most civilized countries as Mayo's own, the United States of America. Most recently, in the nineties, the church scandals came in light in the Unites States of incidents happened decades ago in American churches are good examples of where minors were mistreated by the people associated with God (Mayo draws similar cases with priests in Indian temples). Also, the horrible treatment the whites meted out to their black brethren in the United States during the same period was no different from the upper caste Hindus' treatment towards `untouchables'.
Mayo's plea at the end of her book to the readers of India to consider her `pain' as the `faithful wounds of a friend' was not well received in India. Had such work, even with direct attack on many controversial fronts as Mayo's work, being produced by a scholar spending years in India with genuine concern for the social problems of India, could the same be considered as the `faithful wounds of a friend'. Spending just a few months during 1925-26 to produce such a biased work, Mayo does not deserve the friendship of India as aptly commented by Haribilas Sarda (the architect of the Sarda Act also known as Child Marriage Restraint Act of 1929). Ironically, it is Mayo to whom the supporters of the act should thank for the passage of the act would not have been smoother probably without her work.
The British who welcomed this inferior book with both hands written by an average American journalist banned the publication of an excellent impartial book two years later written on India, India in bondage: Her right to freedom and a place among the great nations, written by an other American, Jabez T. Sunderland, who was more authoritative than Mayo on the subject and a former president of the India information Bureau of America, twice Special Commissioner and lecturer to India and the author of a number of books on India, fearing they will loose their ground in the west as well as in the east in holding India still in subjugation.
Comments of some of the western personalities on the Mayo's book are worth quoting here (from `India in Bondage' by Sunderland, P.510).
Professor Franklin Edgerton of Yale University wrote: "I hope you and others in India will believe that there are some of us in America...
Read more ›
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
|
