NEW DELHI: The first volume of this illustrated military history starts from the epics (BCE) and goes up to 1857.
INTRODUCTION
Shiv Kunal Verma can clearly be called one of India’s finest military historians. His latest offering “Yodha: Illustrated Military History of India”, is the first volume of which covers from the epics (BCE) to the uprising of 1857. A single word to describe this latest magnum opus from an individual who has single-handedly made it his life’s mission to keep military history alive in this country is brilliant. Kunal’s earlier books, the most notable being the three-volume Northeast Trilogy, the books on the Assam Rifles, The Long Road to Siachen, 1962: The War that Wasn’t, and 1965: A Western Sunrise together add up to an impressive body of work.
Considered amongst the most definitive works today, and combined with the various films he has made, Kunal has undoubtedly carved a niche for himself. The films he has made for the Air Force, Navy, Army (including on the Kargil War), and Assam Rifles, and about institutions like NDA (Standard Bearers) and IMA (Making of a Warrior) have given him a deep understanding of the Armed Forces. Most of this is documented in his autobiography, Industani. Yodha is the culmination of all this work
Military history helps identify the myriad events down the centuries which have shaped both our Armed Forces and the nation .For various reasons, military history as a subject in the Indian subcontinent has not been given its due importance outside the preserve of the Armed Forces. This is now beginning to change with authors such as Kunal reaching out to a larger and wider audiences with his insights. However, India’s military history is both vast and panoramic and has contributed immensely to India’s rise as a “formidable global player”.
Religious and zonal affiliations have created a tunnel vision that, even 77 years after Independence, shrinks perspectives “to narrow domestic walls”. “Fortress India”, as author Shiv Kunal Verma likes to call it, can only be one cohesive entity if the people bound within by geography begin to understand it as one. He states, “only when we can see the larger geographical picture each and every time in our mind’s eye will we be able to relate to the way life has played out through the generations before us”.
THE BOOK
Together, the two volumes of Yodha are a major step in that direction. Collectively, they have close to 1,800 images, making it visual treat.
The effort to put these two volumes together must have been humongous. The first volume starts with the Ramayan and Mahabharat which he states are “relevant to our times”. The first recorded history then takes us to the time of Emperor Bhimbisara “who is credited with having the first imperial control of the sub-continent”. This is when both Buddhist and Jain scholars began to chronicle and document events. While Chandragupta Maurya “created the first pan Indian Empire with the aid of his mentor and later Minister Kautilya”. Kunal goes on to state that “Kautilya used his wars by other means tactic” as he realised that “a battle with Magadh would require much more than a large Army”.
Commenting on the genesis of Yodha, Verma says, “While photographing some of the old Hoysala temples in Karnataka, I realised there were a lot of war scenes that existed, but these were overshadowed by the more spectacular carvings of gods and goddesses. Buddhist stupas went as far back as recorded history, and temples in Kanchipuram and Tanjore gave us a glimpse of the Pallavas, Cholas and Pandyas who, between themselves, ruled the Deep South for centuries. Piece by piece, the search began to find visual content.” He then painstakingly contacted museums, private collections, and institutions, and slowly, the entire canvas began to emerge. The focus during this period remained on the South, as the Vijaynagar Empire had left behind ruins that continue to tell the story of Ancient India.
Unfortunately, the early northern kingdoms in the post-Chandragupta period left behind little tangible physical evidence that could be drawn upon. Apart from the images, the text and captions are extremely well-researched and the narrative takes us through the various stages of the subcontinent’s history in a seamless manner.
The initial inward migration was across the Naga-Patkai when the Ahoms entered and settled in Assam, after which the pendulum swung to the west where the first bastion to fall to Islamic raiders was Sindh, after which Turks, Arabs and Mongols started eying the fabled riches of the Golden Bird. The Slave Dynasty, or the Delhi Sultanate as it was also known, then established itself, while subsequently, the breakaway Gujarat, Bengal and Bahmani Sultanates also became major players.
By 1498, the first Portuguese ships had arrived off Calicut and “discovered India” centuries after Chola and other ships from the subcontinent had been negotiating the open high seas and trading with distant lands. In 1995, while shooting the maritime history of the Indian Ocean for the Navy, Kunal visited Lisbon, where the Portuguese Navy presented him with paintings of St Raphael and St Gabriel, both of whom find a place in the book.
What comes through almost immediately is the sheer ruthlessness of the Portuguese, who, like the Islamic invaders before them, relied on spreading terror through mass murders. Babur’s short tenure is followed by Humayun’s reign, interrupted by Sher Shah Suri and his son’s rule. Akbar, then stabilised the Mughal Empire, which then became the dominating power. Running parallel with the Mughal Dynasty, the book documents the arrival of the Dutch, the British and the French. The Mughals brought in gun powder and a new style of combat “focused on artillery and muskets”. This contributed to “the change in battlefield tactics and evolution of military strategy”.
Aurangzeb’s initial military genius saw him literally eliminate his brothers. However, this period also coincided with the rise of the Nawabs of Carnatic, the Marathas under Shivaji and the Mysore State. Towards the north, Guru Gobind Singh was forming the Khalsa Panth to fight the Mughals, while in the east, Lachit Bhorphukan’s Ahoms defeated Aurangzeb’s right-hand man, Mir Jumla on the Brahmaputra River. The dynamics of the power struggle between the French and the British intensified, who, after defeating the Bengal and Awadh armies, gradually established themselves as the masters of the Gangetic belt and Central India.
The defeat of Tipu and the subsequent vanquishing of the Marathas then virtually gave them control of all lands south of the Sutlej. This period also saw the rise of Maharaja Ranjit Singh and the Sikh Empire. Kunal states that the monarchy “was well- known for both its secularism and wealth. It was a significant era in South Asian history and the Sikh Empires golden age”. British expansion all this while continued apace, as they first neutralised the Gorkhas and then the Sikhs whose formidable army was defeated by the British due “to lack of unity within and overwhelming superiority of the British”. The emergence of the Dogra\s under Maharaja Gulab Singh, “a man of vision and a great strategist” and the subsequent conquest of Ladakh by General Zorawar Singh make for excellent reading.
In 1803, the Vellore Mutiny by the Madras Native Army was the “first instance of a large scale and violent mutiny by Indian Sepoys” underlining the fact that the British were sitting on a keg of gunpowder waiting to be ignited by a spark of nationalism. Four and a half decades later, the Bengal Native Army did exactly that.
Shiv Kunal Verma describes the events of 1857 as an “uprising”. Volume 1 ends there, having set the ground for the more contemporary events that followed after the British Crown took over from the East India Company. What stands out is the brutality of the British in dealing with those who had risen against them which include “tying Indian Sepoys to canons and blowing them to pieces in front of crowds who were forced to watch this spectacle”.
CONCLUSION
Having gone through the first volume, the reader now awaits the second book which is yet to be released. It covers the events from 1857 up to the Kargil War.
The truth is that most people tend to look at any battle or period of history in a piecemeal manner and the picture that emerges is quite different from the one we see in case we view the same events against the larger framework. Undoubtedly this book has covered the vast canvas of events and has opened a “window into the subcontinent’s military history”.
Maj Gen Jagatbir Singh, VSM (Retd) served in the Indian Army.