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TRANSCRIPT
CHAPTER 111
THE PARADISE LOST
The Anglo-Indian fiction found a new theme in the story of the
princes who were leR to negotiate the best terms they could with the
Indian government on the eve of independence. Before 1947, only one
author - L.H. Myers had really succeeded in approaching this subject
with seriousness of moral intent and depth of spiritual insight. After the
Second World War novelists began to address the political and moral
issues bearing on the disposition of the princes. 'Their fiction portrays
three types of princes: those who defy the Indian government; those who
rush through belated reforms prior to independence to win the full support
of their subjects against the Congress; and those who helplessIy fade
away. Paul Scott's The Birds of Paradise belongs to the third category
and the story of the Nawab of Mirat in The Raj Quartet, to a certain
extent comes under the second category. Z le Alien Shy contains a brief
1 04
sketch of an Indian prince who toys with the idea of remaining
independent of India and Pakistan.
The Birds of Paradise is the first novel that Paul Scott set in a
civilian lndian background. It is a bold attempt at reinterpreting the past,
and in such a manner as would make sense of the difficult years before
independence. As first person narrator Scott gives himself a fictive
rebirth as the son of a member of the Indian Political Service in an Indian
States Agency. William Conway is an Anglo-Indian, the son of coldly
ambitious civil servant and of a mother who died when he was an infant.
His childhood in the princedom of Tradura, where his father represented
the British Crown, lies at the core of his memories. In this "finest pre-Raj
achievement" (Swinden, lmages 47) the period covered is from 1919, the
year of William's birth to 1960: from the days of the British Raj firmly
entrenched on Indiar. soil to the days of the Kaj's decline and
disappearance.
Dora Salford, daughter of an English major, Krishi, heir apparent
to the princedom of Jundapur and Bill Conway had been a trio in the
halcyon days of the Raj. They had grown up together in the privileged
world of private tutors and governesses and had been waited upon by
dutiful and loyal servants. Binding themselves by a blood-faternity rite,
they enjoyed the pageantry of the princes, the tiger shoots and particularly
105
visits to an island in Jundapur distinguished by an enormous cage which
houses the birds of paradise. The pleasure and privileges enjoyed by the
trio mainly resulted from the annexation and protection policies of the
British Empire and before it the East India Company. Paul Scott's novels
with their historical aspiration narrate the conflict of the princes with the
Empire.
With the 1858 proclamation of Queen Victoria India ceased to be a
trading company's private business and became "The Raj". The East
India Company, the greatest mercantile corporation the world has ever
seen, had been conquering the various parts of hdia before this
prociamation and this process finally resulted into the great revolt of
1857. Apart from the provinces which fell under the direct rule of the
Crown, there were nearly six hundred native states know11 as the princely
states, "widely scattered and varying in size from mere estates to
provinces the size of Ireland" (Division 576). In other words, at one end
of the scale, there were states as large and populous as some of the
European countries and at the other end, units which were scarcely bigger
than a fair sized kitchen garden.
The specked and incoherent pattern of princely India was the result
of the tactics adopted by the British policy makers. In the earlier days as
the East India Company had problems with their French rival and to repel
106
local threats, the British power did not pretend to any general suzerainty,
nor aimed to extend their alliances with indigenous monarchies beyond
their immediate territorial or militev needs. Lord Wellesley's attempt to
make Britain the paramount power in 1798 is ancther factor that
contributed to this peculiar situation. I3.V. Hodson in The Great Divide
states:
A principal instrument of this policy was the system of
subsidiary alliances with the lndian rulers, whereby, in
return for guaranteed protection, a State concluding such an
alliance undertook neither to make war nor to negotiate with
a ~ y other State without the Company's knowledge and
consent and accepted in its capital a British Resident
representing the Governor General's authority. (23)
The agreement to appoint a Resident as representative of the Crown
caused many problems. The relationship between the Residents and the
princes were not always friendly or on equal grounds. According to V,P.
Menon, who played a major role in the integration of states, the Residents
"became gradually 'transformed from diplomatic agents representing a
foreign power into executive and controlling officers of a superior
government' " (integration 6) .
107
Though Conway's father, the Political Agent of six principalities
namely Tradura, Jundapur, Shakura, Premkar, Trassura and Durhat - all
fictional - appears cold towards him and cannot communicate, Conway
respects him as one of those who are above even the princes, a man
fulfilling the British imperial mission. As Mrs Canterbury, William's
Governess, explains the state of affairs thus:
'Men like your father have put down all the old feudal
injustices.' 'Men like your father have given them
standards.' 'By leaving them with the crowns and palaces
they had when we first conquered India men like your father
have show11 them that the Engiish understand true values.'
And - 'One day, William, when you're a man Iike
your father, i t will be your job to go on helping these people
to live better lives'. (Birds 32)
On another occasion, Conway recollects that the Resident was a man
"who was one of the keepers of the sacred trust laid upon a certain kind of
Briton to guide, punish and reward those whose mother's milk, lacked the
vital element that would make real men of them: fair-skinned rotters, for
instance, or dark-skinned heathen" (30) .
I08
Though by no means distinguished for their intellectual abilities,
many of the Residents were haughty, impertinent and ironical in their
dealings with the rulers - whom they often treated as their subordinates.
In A Division of the Spoils Rowan, an officer of the Political Department
describes the conflict between his uncle Thomas Crawley who was
Resident at Kotala, another fictional state and the prince:
[H]e virtually ran the state while the prince was a minor and
apart from that they'd formed an extremely close and
affectionate father-and-son relationship. When the prince
came of age a11 that should have stopped. My uncle should
have stood back and been content to let the young man
assume full respo~sibility, but he made the error of
continuing to treat him as a minor, of forgetting that he was
a ruling Hindu prince. (1 74-75)
The Residents expected unquestioning obedience and even servile
submission from these unfortunate men whose rank, honour and even
security on the gad& depended upon the Resident's favour. In order to
win the support of those powerful imperial men, the princes did every
thing. When Conway was born as the son of the assistant to the Resident,
it provided an occasion for celebration:
109
'T'he fireworks were ordered by the ruler of Gopalakand, the
Maharajah, Sir Pandirakkar Dingit Rao. He was known to
the English as Dingy Row. It never occurred to me to ask
why there should have been fireworks to mark the birth of a
son to a then junior civil servant, but I suppose Sir
Pandirakkar was in a pro-English mood and thought the
fireworks as much a proof of his own good nature as a
compliment to my arrival. (23)
The Charter Act of 1833 gave Lord Dalhousie an opportunity to
take advantage of the weakness of the Indian rulers to conquer fresh
territory and to annex dependent states on the excuse of
maladmi~istration or want of natural heirs. It was orlly when the policy
makers became convinced that the princes of India, far from objecting to
British paramountcy, actually rejoiced at their feudatory status that the
attitude of the British Government towards them crystallized into a
definite policy. The most striking feature of the policy was the complete
integration of the states into the imperial system. Nevertheless, the East
India Company maintained a rather good relationship with the princes.
On occasions, the princes in return to their internal autonomy showed
enthusiasm to help the Crown at momerlts of crisis. The Indian princes
"had been on the side of the British 'to a man,' that they had always been
110
the loyalist element in British Indian life, as had been proved it1 the Great
War when they gave money and men to the allied cause" (32).
Thus the passive acquiescence and in some cases active aid of
princely states from the Punjab to Hyderabad saved the British from
irretrievable disaster in 1857. The Mutiny always haunted the British.
Conway once had the experience of being scolded by Mrs Canterbury for
talking about the Mutiny (32). The political movements within British
India itself were beginning to dispute the right authority by which India
was governed. Assailed by the intelligentsia, the government looked
round naturally for allies and helpers. In 1857 the princes had in general
aided to resist the tide of Mutiny. The Second World War gave the
princes a welcome opportunity to make an enthusiastic demonstration of
their devotion and loyalty to the Raj and to suppress the wants and wishes
of their people with extreme severity.
The realization that the states could play a vital role as one of the
bulwarks of British rule led to a radical change of policy, which found
expression in Queen Victoria's proclamation of 1858:
We desire no extension of our present territorial
possessions; and while we will permit no aggression upon
our dominions or our rights to be attempted with impunity,
1 1 1
we shall sanction no encroachment on those of others. We
shall respect the rights, dignity, and honour of Native
Princes as our own; and we desire that they as well as our
own subjects should enjoy that prosperity and that social
advar~cernent which can only be secured by internal peace
and good governmen:. (Menon 9)
Having understood that it had gone far enough with its policies of
expansion, the Crown made treaties with the rulers which secured them to
their successors, their princely rights, revenues, privileges and territories,
assured them of autonomy in all but the major subjects of external affairs
and national defence. The Empire obtained paramountcy through these
treaties which were made with each state:
'Separate though these treaties were - a series of private
formal individual contracts between rulers and crown, they
have nevertheless always been part of a larger unwritten
treaty - or doctrine: the doctrine of the paramountcy of the
British Crown over all the rulers; the paramountcy of the
King-Emperor or Queen-Empress who, through the Crown
Representative, could depose an unruly prince, withhold
recognition from a prince's heir, and generally take steps to
I I2
ensure the peace, prosperity and wellbeing of a prince's
subjects'. (Division 576)
Constitutionally the states were not part of British India nor were their
citizens British subjects, but in international status, 'British protected
persons'. Within an lndia governed by the British another lndia was
marked out and fenced off, and in the process, at an altogether new class
of rulers were created. Conway recollects this difference:
We lived in Indian India which was as different from British
India as chalk from cheese. Indian India was made up of the
princely states which one way and atlother accounted
between them for something like a third or more of the
whole land mass, which 1 have found surprises people who
always thought of India as just lndia with the British ruling
the lot from Whitehall and putting a Viceroy in to make it
look good. The states had treaties with the British Crown
and were left to govern themselves for good or i l l , except in
matters of external affairs, defence and communications; but
the British Crown represented the paramount power and so
they had to govern themselves under the eyes of British
Residents and Agents. (Birds 24)
!!3
And since the 1858 proclernatic?r! Rrltisi~ po!icy towards the stst;
had been governed by two miiin principles: a territorial ~ n d conslitutional
standstill and an intent to bring the states along with British India in
social and economic advance, subject to the ruler's rights of internal
autonomy. However, the Viceroys had to perform a dual role:
In his role as Governor-General it has been his duty to
govern and guide and encourage the British-lnoiim
provinces towards democratic parliamentary self-rule. As
Crown Repr%~entative, it !ias been his duty to ui:!:c:!dt
secure: oversee 31:d &Cet:d !he tt:ltu~raii~ rr:le uf ::eve;-::!
hundred prifices. (Llivisio.: 575 - 77)
The importance of the princes thus lay by entirely in their usefulness to
the Empire. Lord Curzon called them his colleagues and partners in
sustaining the Raj. In The Towers oj'Siie?rce Barbie is telling Sarah about
the loyalty and servitude of the princes despite the harsh treatment:
'I suppose I meant odd, difficult, to be the guest of a man
whose kinsman we'vc put in clink, but India is full of
oddities like that isil't It atid !:erl~zps !he Naweh dir::ppmves
of his politir~iar! kinman, Gr if he doesn't he at;.:iousijr
doesn't disapprov~ or" ~ s . Biit then the princes Iik.s us betier
I I4
than the rest of them do, don't they? We've bolstered ttietn
up and some of then! une gathers hardly deserve it'. (1 67)
. . hccr~rding to AniI Kumar Vema, the prillces were "as mger tn p~cp!tltitt
the British as ;he British were to pamper them as long as they did not
presumptuously strut out of their golderl cages to assert their freedom"
(Paul Scott 1 39).
The need for such comradeship grew with the rising tempo of
Indian Nationalism. "As the Congress agitation against British rule
gathered momentum, the British xealised that i11e staunchest supporters of
the Raj were the pritlces . . . ths iatter nn their part made it abundantly
ckar that they wanted ;he Rz-i tto rem:lin" ( M a l g o ~ k ~ r 'i7). Cspzin
fde~ ick * A J ~ I ~ : has studied abnui the relationship between the g[.:iies and the
Crown expresses the same t~otii:ns about the Nawab and the Mirat
ArtiiIery:
"l'he State's barely more than the size of a pocket-
handkerchief but it's run on very democratic lines and has a
tradition of loyalty to the crown. One of the Nawab's surls
is an officer in the indian airforce and of collrse the Nawab
haiided his private zrfiif over it) t ;Ell) on t h ~ Erst day cf the
r . It was r~~uste:.~ci i r l i r ; il:c indian Army as the Mita?
l ! S
I . 1 ' Artillery, and g ~ t captured by the Jcps In ivia,aya .
(Scorpion 1 53 1
31: return ! r : their money and mcn, :he prices received prniecii::x? Cr~:n ti:::
C r o w :
Independence had been a goal for so long that it had
achieved a mythical quality. It could not stand up to the
solidity of that palladian mansion or the straight roman road
down to the cantonment, the town and further, to the palace
where Sir Fandirakkar sat on the gad&- in the kind of
security kings must feel when under the friendly, protective
eye and influence af another more powerfiil king.
(Birds 152)
With no incentive to govern well, an overwhelming majority of the
p:i;lces sank into indolence and dissipari~n and squandere~ away he hard
earned resources of their subjects in frivolous and unworthy pursuits. As
the rest of India moved into the modern age, and towards self-
determination, "they became more and more of an anachronism" (Chew
105). In his fiction Paul Scott paittis cc~lourful pictures oi- thcsc Indim
rulers who were fallibie mcn, impractica!. l~ve r s ef ease sild pc:np z!~:!
inczpable coming to terms with the hard realities of life. With ihe -v~b::a!th,
! i6
the tin13 aild tile appetite 1:) irlti~llge iheir rnost imagifiative i'intasies 2
series of consurning passions ur~itecl those exfravagant gcntlemen a d
t!~ey pursued them with rare r!ev::iic:n. F1.i:lny observers felt constrained to
charncierise the princely g~vcrnmcnts as vicious and reckless \*rhich
reduced the states into wiiderness uf gppressior! and misrule. At the
public school in England, young Conway has vivid recollections of the
land of his childhood and looks forward to a career in India. On one
occasion, a teacher asks him as an "expert in Indian affairs" to comment
un words attributed to Mountsiuarl EI~hinstone as argumcnt f ~ r the
preservation oi' the princely states as cess-pits. '"We must have sink to
receive all the corrupt matter that abounds in India, ul~less we i?re willing
to taint our own system by siupf:i!~g 111:: riiscjrarge of it' " (ai;-dz 1118).
Some of the rulers like the idawab c.f Mirat were certainly
enlightened and able men, but the administration of most of them were
bad, worse and hell. The PoIitical Department, so powerful and so alert
about its paramountcy rights, watched such princely excesses with
unseeing eyes. The rulers might plunge their people into deeper penury
by building more palaces, by pampering an unlimited tlulnber of pets, by
going abroad frequently for no 1-ezsons, and by lavishly entertaining
visiting 'diceroys and iiovernorr:, .;:itE_~ui. the fcar 6 cr?y corrective
-., * weagm b e i ~ g uszd agaiast than. 1 :re 3irthday celebrztioi~s :!f young
I ! ?
Conway are an excellent exanlpje of this exuberance. !:is Iiig'lti~ess, the
Maharajah of Tradura, Ranjit Ra~singh, Lord of the Sun, Giver of Grain,
ordered ffir 8 tea - p a e j as parx of thc celebrations. Clad in the. best :.-:_rii~?
Cunwny was brought to the paiace in a carriage drawn by two black
horses:
At our gates the soldiers on sentry go presented arms, but
whether to myself or to the Maharajah's carriage I was not
sure. They presented arms to my father but never to me
except on these occasions. It must have been the
combination of palace carriage, political agent's son and
occasion which brought them excitiilgljr slap to attention,
palms ringing on wooden butts. (39)
Paul Scott's accounts reiterate the fa~niiiar courses of misrule and
maipractice which despotism promotes and which, in this case, are
intensified by Renjith Raosingh's ~bsession to please the alien rulers.
These princes enjoyed great pleasure in organisir~g hunting and
other blood sports in order to please the Crown representatives. It was an
occasion to exhibit the pomp and pageantry of the king. "The shikar was
fixed for the beginning of March and old Ranjit Raosingh decided to
cot~duct it with all the pomp and display at his command" (57). The
t 18
princes were generous enough to spend any amount or" money for this
cruel pleasure. In the states that published annual budgets the amount set
aside for shikar far exceedec! that earmarked for public works or
education. The care taken and the elaborate preparations made can be
seen in the words of William C.onway:
The Maharajah's procession marked the real beginning of
the royal shikar, the central event of which was to be the
beating out of the Kinwar tiger. The shikar was laid on with
an almost military precision. Kinwar lay some three miles
to the south of the hunting lodge. Experts had been at work
in that area for two weeks and a plan fcr flushing the tiger
and driving i t on to an open stretch of goufid znd an to the
guns had been worked out to the last detail. (60)
In Staying On old Tusker Srnalley who was Administrative
Adviser to the Commander of the State Force, also entertains the
memories of his privileged life in the state of Mudpore:
Old Luce adored Mudpore. We had that bloody great
burlgalow practically in the grounds of the palace, the use of
one of the Daimlers with a liveried chauffeur, and when we
first met the Maharajah he had on a11 his paraphernalia and
119
locked a regular bnbby-dazzler, coat of silver thread, pear!s
festooned in his turban; and Luce said, 'This is the real india,
'I'usker. (83)
The preference given to such displays naturally affected the welfare of the
people. As Malgonkar puts it, "military parades, durbars and other forms
of pageantry left littIe time or money for hospitals or road building, and
the industrial age was kept at bay as something alien, an imposition from
the West" (Princely India 92).
The Western contempt of this princely misrule has been aptly
summed up by Rudyard Kipling in his story, "The Man Who Would Be
King". In his words the princely states are "the dark places of the earth,
full of unimaginable cruelty, touching the Railway and the Telegraph on
one side, and, on the other, the days of Harun-al-Raschid( Wee Willie
207). As a novelist Scott's task is to expose the "vicious misfits" (Verma
139) and to draw us into the human drama. Scott achieves this by
showing, first, the corrupting effects of absolute power; and second, the
linked destinies of princeIy states and Empire.
On the contrary, the Nawab of Mirat, whose story appears in The
Quartet was also under the charge of Robert Conway, the Resident of
Gopalakand, wanted to run his state on modern lines. " ' I must be a
1 20
modern state', the Nawab was reported saying, 'Make me modem' "
(Scorpion 98). Mirat was a tiny state, a left-over remnant of the Moghal
Empire, with which the British came to terms in the late-eighteenth
century. Its dynasty was of Turkish ancestry and the ruler from C.1920
was H.H. Sir Ahrned Ali Gaffur Kasim Bahadur, whose relations with his
father were not cordial, and who was an extravagant prince redeemed by
Bronowsky, the Russian &mi@, from an embarrassing liaiso~~ with a
European woman. Paul Scott presents a very attractive picture of Mirat.
"The garden imagery surrounding the description of Mirat", according to
Janis Tedesco and Janet Popham, "is unmistakable" (Inlroduction 23 1).
The palace courtyard was bathed in briliiant sunshine and colour. Water
splashed in the fountain, and a white peacock strutted undisturbed
(Division 580). According to ancient lore, the Nawab's reign would last
as long as there was water in the Iake (Scorpion 136). Symbolically, the
Nawab's lake was the place of living waters. Mirat as a princely state
still mirrored something of the old India. The picturesque splendour and
luxury had not been completely contaminated by Western influence, and
in Mirat both Ahrned and Sarah Layton discovered that illusive happiness
in which the rest of India could not offer them.
The Nawab wiih his Paresight arld democratic sentiments appointed
Count Bronowsky as chief minister of his state. In the twenty years of his
12 1
admitlistration Bronowsky had transforriled Mirat from a feudal autocracy
into a miniature semi-deaocratic state. "Under Brunowsky's guidance,"
Robin J. Ivloore says, " t5e xbitrariness of the Nawabi darbar was
replaced by a nominated Couttcii of Stat?, the judiciary and the civi! and
criminal codes were reformed, and a chief justice from outside was
appointed" (Paul Scott's RrJj' 182). Numerically in a minority, a mere
twenty per cent of the population, the Muslim of Mirat had maintained a
firm grip on the administration since the days of the Moghals. There
were more mosques than temples "not because the rich Hindus of Mirat
were unready to build temples but because permission to build was more
often refused than granted" (Scorpion 101). For the Muslim children an
Academy of Higher Education had been established in the late-nineteenth
century, but non-Muslims had to compete for places in colleges out side
Mirat. So Bronowsky persuaded the Nawab to allocate a modest sum for
a college for Hindus and the rest of the money was provided by
prominent Hindu businessmen. The Hindu college stood as epitome of
the Nawab's broad~nindedness:
The building that was erected reflected the combination of
civic pride and sense of communal and personal grandiosity
with which the money was contributed: red brick with white
122
facings, Gothic window and Gothic arches. Coconut palms
were planted in the forecourt. (Scorpicrr~ 102)
Jimmy Stnith, the present Maharajah of Kalipur, whose story is
narrated in The Alien Sky is also a man of wisdom. Marapore, where the
major part of action takes plsce: was once part of the neighbouring state
of Kalipur, a state which had terded to absorb itself bit by bit into British
India as its ruler's fortunes wavered and cash was needed to replenish the
private exchequer. However, Jimmy could bring forth remarkable
changes and to be in good terms with the Raj :
Under the present Maharajah stability had returned and the
state's boundaries had remained intact, sorm twenty miles
south of Marapore; a phenomenon which his enemies
attributed to his being 'in with the Raj'. But the
phenomenon was, in fact no phenomenon but a clear
indication of the young Maharajah's good sense. (The
Alien Sky 3 0)
In 192 1, under the British pressure, the princes formed tllernselves
into a Chamber of Princes where it was hoped they would evolve
common policies for all the states. "'l'here was at this stage, . . . a kind of
tentative solidarity, the leftovers of earlier attempts at federation between
123
the princes" (Bin& 153). Though many states refused to join the
Chamber it was inaugurated as "a reward ta the States for the way they
had come to the aid of the British in the war of 1914 - 18" (30). By the
end of the Second World War, the British had made up their minds to
quit. The new Labow Govenunent in Britain was not prepared to let the
Indian princes act as a positive veto on advance. In fact, it was really a
violation of the Viceroy's assurance given to the Chamber of Princes that
in attempting to farm a constitution for a free and self-governing India
within the British Common-aealtlt "no changes in the princes'
relationships or treaty rights with the British Crown -,vould be made or
even initiated without their consent" (153). Earlier the Cripps Mission
brought home to the rulers the discomforting realization that if the
interests of the British India and the states came into conflict His
Majesty's Government would almost certainly let down the states.
This realization and its painful consequences are explicitly
revealed in The Birds of Paradise by the symbol of the celestial birds. A
calIection of thirty-six regal dead birds in the enormous expanse of the
cage is the symboi for the princes of India / British Raj in this novel. 'J'lle
cage was tall enough and big enough to have held several fully grown
giraffes and given them plenty of head room. Most of the birds were
male and the females were "insignificant, small, dun-ooloured specimens
124
of the species Marquis de Raggi" (83j. Or, two occasions Wiliian;, Dora
and Krishi could see the birds in the cage, first when they were young and
later, after independence at the time of their reunion. The birds were
perched on a branch, beaks pointing upwards as if hypnotized by what
was going on above them. They had been collected by Krishi's
grandfather and in his day their plumage had been worth a fortune.
"Their wings and bodies were cunningly supported on wire cradles and
braces and only the rods connecting thern to the dome4 roof were dimly
visible from below'' (84). Akbar Aii, a Muslim servant was in charge of
looking after them. Using a tail iron step-ladder, he periodicajly ciirnbed
up and unscrewed the birds from their rods cne by one, and brought them
down to inspect the wire frames. "It was the fact that the birds were dead
that gave them their special power. Their deadness was more disturbing
than the restlessness of a cage full of living birds" (85).
As the Resident of Tradura, Conway's father administers six states
which are supported by the "cradles and braces" of the British Crown.
Just like the birds of paradise these states require the Resident's periodic
attention to preserve as weH as to police them. They syrnboiize the
"special power" of the British who caged the Indian princes in the vast
confines of their India but hart lo keep a watchful eye on the
''restXe~sness" concealed in their "deadness". "The birds", says David
125
Rubin, "identified variously with the British on their way out of india,
then with the native princes themselves, their finery an3 style beautifully
preserved, but lifeless, come eventually to fulfill a greater symbolic
role" (1 12).
In a 1961 lecture, "Imagination in the Novel" Paul Scott described
the origins of this novel and the use of the bird symbol. He associated the
image of "the idea of fine feathers" with the princes of India. It was the
case that the feathers of the birds of paradise were still treasured like
crown jewels at the court of Nepal. The natives of the Pacific islands
where the birds were found always cut off their feet in the process of
removing their skins for sale. For Scott, that emphasized their celestial
origins: if they had no feet they could not perch. The princes, too,
claimed celestial origins but had been divested of power by the British:
While the British ruled, the princes were kept going in all
their feudal magnificence. Their fine feathers were kept
shiny. But when the British went and all their lands were
merged with tile lands of the new dominion, they appeared,
. . . in their true light - they had been dead all the time,
stuffed like the birds in the glass cages in the central hall of
the Natural History Museum. ( Writing 3 1 )
126
Considered footless, in fact by trappers, these inhabitants of the airy
realms of paradise are at once richly symbolic of the Raj which was dying
even then, in William's childhood, despite all appearances; of the
princely states like Krishi's Jundapur, which were to meet a similar fate ;
of elusive dreams cruelly rnetted by the realities of life, and an actual
background against which past and present are suddenly united. The
belief that they were footless emphasized this etlhreal immaterial
potentialities. "Or the suspicion that their feet were cut off by native
traders merely emphasized the brutal retribution men exact from whatever
is beautiful and strange" (Swinden, images 2 1) .
The dead birds themselves, from which the novel takes its title
provide a wonderfully phantasmagoric setting for the story of the Raj. As
Gomathy Narayanan remarks, magnificent in their rich and luxuriant
plumage, amidst the exotic flora of an island, "these birds, for all their
apparent mobility and postures of light, are only dead, stuffed birds,
carefully preserved and maintained to give an impression of life" (The
Suhibs and the Natives 72). But history had shown that the birds of
paradise in the cage were not so much the British Raj, but the princes who
were dead "in spite of all their finery and high-flown postures" and the
British "had stuffed them and burnished their fine feathers, but as princes
they were dead even if they weren't dead as men, and if not actually dead
127
then anyway buried alive in a cage the British had never attempted really
to open" (Birds 243).
The British announcement that the treaties stood abrogated and
paramountcy had lapsed, on the face of political pressure from Indian
National leaders, was a shock to the princes. As far as Britain was
concerned, the princely domains were so many independent and
sovereign countries, and it was up to them to work out their relationship
with free India. A few months later "the British cabinet mission had to
explain that independence for British India would mean the end of
paramountcy, the end of treaties the British no Ionger had the means to
adhere to. The states would be free to make their own arrangements"
(153). During the negotiations over independence, the British had not
really had the time, or the inclination, to discuss in any detail how the
princes should act when power was fmally transferred. William Conway
knew that his father had been conscience stricken by the betrayai of the
princes. In Malaya, where Bill was interned as a prisoner of war, he
realized that the fate of the princes wouId be absorption into independent
India. British policy had been to advance the princes towards integration
with British-governed India "so slowly that it was difficult not to see the
laggardly pace as deliberate, and part and parcel of a bloody-minded
game of divide and rule" (1 79).
128
After his father's death in 1950, William Conway searched the
shelves of the public library for a reference to the accession of
Gopalakand to India. He learns more about the integration from books
like The Integration of the Indilrn States; The Last Viceroy; Farmell to
Princes; and Betrqal in Delhi ( I9 6). Bill gets the historical perspective
of events from reading The Times also. The Congress-dominated
government could not preserve the internal autocratic authority of these
princes. As Michael Edwards puts it, "no popular government could
tolerate islands of mediaevalism in its midst" (Last Years 196). But the
princes could not fully grasp the situation:
Now the writing was on the wall, but it seemed that so many
of the princes had failed to see it. They actually welcomed
the British announcement that paramountcy over the states
would come to an end automatically with the end of British
rule. The old musty curtain was flung aside and revealed a
freedom and power almost greater than they had dreamt of.
But not for tong. The winds of crisis changed quarter and
blew from coIder regions. The Maharajahs ate crow. When
nearly six hundred of them they ate it in different ways, a
few eagerly, most reluctantly, some by forcible feeding.
Some threatened to accede to Pakistan even if
129
geographically such an accession would have been
nonsensical; others were as much coerced into accession by
their own people as diplomatically persuaded by the
politicians of the new India. (Birds 197 - 98)
A Iarge number of states, however, preferred to wait until
paramountcy had lapsed before they negotiated their position with the
successor governments. Dingy Row's eldest son "had a high opinion of
then Viceroy, Wavell, who, he knew, would 'sort out these chaps N e h
and Jinnah' and wouldn't 'sell the States down the river' " (151 ). For all
the service they have rendered to the Crown, the princes expected a better
deal. " 'We've stood by the Crown', Dingy Row's son said, 'and the
Crown'll stand by us. The jackals aren't going to feed on us. Wave1 will
see to it. So shall. we.' "(151). The Nawab of Mirat also expresses the
same confidence. "No, Dmitri, he says, we have supplied the British with
money and men in two world wars. And there are over five hundred little
yellow specks, and some not so little. The British are pledged to protect
our rights and privileges and our authority" (Division 183). However, the
princes failed to see the reality of their danger. There was no doubt that
"Jimmy's throne was tottering, for the States had been deserted and left as
vulnerable islands to be eaten away by hungry seas" (The Alien Sky 36).
130
The senior officers of the Political Department also covertly and
overtly supported the princes. They even tried to undermine the efforts
of Mountbatten. Sir Conrad Corfield, head of the Political Department, a
sort of prototype for Robert Conway, "an unemotional man with rigid
views" (Division 184), "was determined that", writes Michael Edwards,
"at least some of the princely states should be saved from the grasping
hands of Congress" (Last Years 199). The Resident in Gopalakand, Sir
Robert Conway, persuaded Sir Pandirakkar on more than one occasion to
go back on promises given verbally to the States Department; and
actually interrupted a private conference between the Maharajah and the
representatives of the department and threatened to tear up the draft
documents which he described as "instruments of a blackguardedly policy
of intended seizure and forfeiture, masquerading as agreements between
free parties" (Birdr 199). In his discussion with Guy Perron who is
"primarily concerned with the relationship between the Crown and the
Indian States" (Division 52 1), Nigel. Rowan expresses fear that the Nawab
of Mirat is "taking that line too" (548). Moreover, the Nawab believes
that "he would be abandoned only aver Conway's dead body and the
dead bodies of every member of the Political Department" (1 84).
The crisis in the Political Department and the dilemma of the
princes are more obviously revealed by the chess game in The Birds of
131
Paradise. While William takes the black pieces, his father Robert takes
the white ones. Bill describes the progress of the game, bringing out its
symbolic significance:
He advanced queen's pawn two squares. I blocked it. Then
he moved queen's bishop's pawn one square. I followed
suit. He brought out queen's knight and 1 brought out king's
knight and the game was on.
Within the hour his king faced death; the white pieces
I had taken were lined up along one side of the table,
temples of misfortune on the road to his defeat. (1 78)
In this defeat of his father Conway sees a suitable yet relevant
symbolism:
The symbolism of the game was striking. My black pieces
were what Dingy Row's son had called the jackals - the
Indian politicians uf British India; and the white court these
same jackals opposed and brought to disintegration was one
of the feudal courts which men like Father had lived for and
sometimes, Iike the agent in Ranpur who was murdered in
the 'thirties, died for. (i78)
132
The white pieces were the princely states and all through the years of the
British Raj, the Crown had stood by them. When independence came to
the subcontinent, the princely states big and small, believed that the
crown would guarantee their independent existence. Robert Conway
believed in it too. But in this chess game where only the king's knight
(nanlely Robert Conway) was left to defend the monarch (namely the
Maharajah). In Francine Weinbaun's words, the elder Conway "enraged
by this betrayal, had been responsible for Dingy Row's delay in signing
the first agreement of accession and the consequent worsening of the
conditions for Gopalakand" (Critical Stu& 56).
Finally, the princes got the message. Count Bronowsky tells
Rowan :
'You are all going, aren't you? One day. When? . . . .
Perhaps I shan't live to see it. On the whole I hope not,
because when you go the princes will be abandoned. In
spite of all your protestations to the contrary. They will be
abandoned . . . . The treaty . . . will be a piece of paper'.
(Divtriotr 1 82)
They complained to Mountbatten that the British were deliberately
evading their responsibiIities. " 'We are being treated as a sort of no
133
man's child' moaned the Chancellor of the Chamber of Princes," quotes
Malgonkar (Princely India 98). On the eve of independence Mountbatten
called the princes to Dethi and addressed them. Michael Edwards quotes:
" 'You cannot run away from the Dominion Government which is your
neighbour any more than you can run away from subjects for whose
welfare you are responsible' " (Last Years 205). History, political reality,
the destinies of princely states and empire coalesced in the meeting
between Mountbatten and the princes. The pathos of the situation is
pointed by William Conway:
The Maharajahs twisted and turned and the old Political
Department burnt records like an embassy preparing to
evacuate. And in the end there were only the details to work
out, the quid pro quo for the surrender of ruling powers and
internal autocratic authority. One by one the states were
formed into provinces or merged with provinces of what in
our own day had been called British India. The quid pro
quo was the retention of title and prince's privileges for the
ruler and his heirs, whose successions to the in-name-only
gaddis would be subject to the approval of the President of
the Republic instead of the Crown Representative. (Birds
198)
134
Finally with independent India becoming a reality, the princes found
themselves fighting for their existence yet once more.
The British arrangement, then, threw the princes into an
extraordinary predicament as they retuctantly came to realize that non-
transference of paramountcy was tantamount to ensuring that they would
lose their power to the new India or Pakistan, and that British assurances
that paramountcy would not be transferred were meaningless promises.
Hapgood, the bank official in A Division of the Spoils advised Perrorl to
meet Sardar Patel and Sir Conrad CorfieId to get both sides of the picture:
"Have you seen Patel? He's in charge of what I call the coercing
operation. Have you seen the head of the British Political Department?
He'd give you the other side of the picture" (521).
Many states obliged to the wishes of Mountbatten, some to the
wishes of Congress leaders and some other to their awn subjects.
However, the hesitation on the part of certain princes caused tense
situations. Though he "signed every thing like a shot" (Birds 228), after
the loss of his state Krishi becomes mad enough to shoot the birds of
paradise as "a gesture to history" (243). The birds are identified
explicitly by Krishi as symbols of the British Raj, or alternatively, as the
Indian princes, implying an emptiness and unreality to their glory. There
is a tawdriness and artificiality to the image of birds stuffed in a cage that
135
has to do with the artificial presectation of illusion. They are the first of
Scott's images of the dead Raj that needs to be blown away, and the boy
Krishi wants to shoot them down.
When he is prevented from this symbolic self - destruction by Dora
he feels now "the birds would rot and fall one by one and that was
symbolic too" (243). Jimmy Smith of Kalipur also reacts violently to the
accession proposal of the British:
'The Mountbatten plan leaves the Princely States in the
lurch, my dear. He hadn't any other choice, of course, but
the lurch is the lurch. Half my subjects are Muslims and
half are Hindus. I am a Hindu. I have three alternatives, I
can become a part of Pakistan and then from the religious
point of view half my subjects will be aIiens with the right
to become refugees. I can cede to India. The same applies
in reverse. The third alternative is for me to declare my
independence. I can become a sovereign state'. (The Alien
Sb 59)
The Nawab of Mirat's understandable hesitation in signing an
affiliation with India led to communal violence. This disaster is naturally
the result of "a bloody-minded game of divide and rule". As flapgood
136
asks, "what can you expect when you draw an imaginary line through a
province and say that from August fifieen one side is Pakistan and the
other side's India?" (Division 520). As communalism infected the
populace resulting in murder and arson, the Nawab secured help from the
British-controlled States' Police and Ronald Merrick was transferred to
Mirat from Rajputana. Merrick's acceptance to serve under an Indian
prince signifies his faith in the permanency of the British treaties with the
princes. Though he was disliked by many characters in The Quartet,
Merrick, in his handling of the riots won even the appreciation of
Bronowsky :
They say he did a marvellous job. The Nawab's own police
are practically all Muslims, and that was part of the
problem, because they took sides in communal disturbances,
lashng out at Hindu crowds and mobs and turning a blind
eye if the Muslims were having a go. Ronnie stopped ail
that. (544)
The situation in many states became deplorable. The princes were like
"creatures who took it for granted they excited wonder and admiration
wherever they went and had no idea that they were dead from the neck up
and the neck down" (Birds 243). As Jacqueline Banerjee puts it: "The
birds must be rotting even on the outside now, without the elaborate care
137
their plumage used to receive, just as the real birds of paradise are dying
out in the wild because of cruel exploitation" (Paul Scott 37-38).
Learning that "the dominion had no romantic notions about
princes"(Birds 181) Gopalakand, like many of her sister states
surrendered her autonomy. The Nawab's helplessness is revealed
in Bronowsky's words: " 'Poor old dear', Dmitri said. lie's looked at
the sky and wonders what he has done wrong, or what I have ever done
right' " (Division 608). The Count knew that Mirat could not remain
separate forever. But he hoped that Hindus arid Muslims could continue
to live harmoniously under the Nawab and not Gandhi's promised
democratic millennium or Jinnah's theistic paradise state. The Nawab
believed that the British were cunning enough to ensure Mirat's
continued existence even after they withdrew. But the Count knew that
the British trimmed their principles to suit their own needs. Whereas The #
Birds of Paradise juxtaposes William Conway with his coeval Krishi,
since like the world of the Maharajahs "old Conway world had gone"
(181) with the end of British rule in India. " The Indian prince" as
Gomathy Narayanan points out, "is also shown as a victim of history, but
he is quite relieved at the chance to rid himself of his microscopic
bankrupt Kingdom" (73).
138
?'he serious historical point of The Birds of Purudise is that the
Raj's ostensible dedication to serving India masked imperial self-interest.
The rhetoric of the Raj belonged to a world of self-deception or illusion.
Had Britain been serious about unifying the two Indias she would have
followed a policy of bringing them together, rather than upholding
princely apartness. Liberal historians would laud British withdrawal, but
what about their sacred oath to the princely states which, since 1857, had
been assured of their independence and autonomy? The quandary of the
princely states at the time of independence demonstrates the fundamental
illogicality of the doctrine of paramountcy which runs "counter to the
doctrine of eventual self-government" (Division 5 76). According to the
editorial appeared in The Ranpur Gazette, the actual consequences of this
illogical situation are far reaching, leading to the "farce" in which Muslim
states attempt to join Pakistan and Hindu ones India, regardless of actual
geographical location or the religious composition of each state (Division
578). Unfortunately the uncertain future of the princely states is to be
decided by British administrators and politicians by and large ignorant of
the extent and complexity of India's political composition.
In the final analysis, the question is whether the novels like The
Birds of Paradise and fie stories of Jimmy Smith of Kalipur and the
Nawab of Mirat can be read as a document of history. Based on the
139
findings, one can definitely say that these novels bring a sense of history
to fiction. It is now generally accepted that one fruitful way of recovering
the past is through the work of the imaginative writers and it is also
evident that these novels can tell us a great deal about the painful
experience of native rulers' when the British "in the politest way, had
washed their hands of the future" (Edwards, Last years 198). The works
discussed above offer insights into particular events and in addition,
record how these events were interpreted at a later stage of history.
Coilingwood states about the nature of event and history: "For history,
the object to be discovered is not the mere event but the thought
expressed in it. To discover that thought is already to understand it" (The
idea of History 2 1 4). Therefore, the versions of history proliferate, every
version being a provisional reconstruction. Yet the actual historical
events of the period are a kind of echo in the novels, and there is more
than a little sense of history about it. One can notice in Scott's works an
interpretive richness unmatched by any non fictional account. As
Michael Gorra in Afer Empire wants to note:
[Hlis portrayal of the princely state of Mirat, whose nawab
remains always deferential to the British mi!itary power that
tacitly maintains his rule-a portrait that could serve as
textbook example of John Gallagher's and Ronald
140
Robinson's influential argument about the empire's reliance
on the collaboration of local elites. (33)
Scott's concern with history, then, is two fold: he is interested in
how it will be repeated in the future, and in how people can learn from
the examples of the past. Emerson provides hirn with a way to address
these concerns, the essay on history explaining so much of what he has
come to feel, as an individual. With' regard to its importance to his
fiction, it explains "why the characters in [his] novels usually have -
demonstrably -- personal histories whose weight they feel along with the
weight of their presents and their expectations for the future" (Writing
68). Scott found in Emerson a philosophy of history that he both felt and
thought was true to his experience cf the past.
More debatable is whether Scott's writing succeeds entirely as an
imaginative realization of a historical idea and situation. Certainly in his
presentation of the story of the princes "Paul had himself become a
formidably knowledgeabie imperial historian" (Spurling 362). The
princes, presented as caged birds, found to their shock the neglect of the
Crown when they were tom between the Political Department and the
Indian nationalists. The elegant decay of the princes is presented as an
Indian equivalent of the faded glory of the Raj. The pact between them,
their mutual dependence, their property surrounded by others' poverty,
I 4 !
and thcir rclimce oil dead cr dying I.rsriiiiorls, ai! suggest ~ G . S I J GEE :::ccid
not survive without the nther. The maintenance of tile autocracy ::f ti:::
- . . princss :vas one pccil!izr fact or ilistor);; made not less b1r.t more
unsavoury by whet Scctr saw as the betrayal at independence when the
British ''left the feudal islands to their fate and, right up to the last few
weeks, assured the rulers of those islands that no arrangement would be
reached with British India for ifidependence without there being princely
c~nsultatiotl" (Writing 3 7 1.
Chapter IV
A Patriotic Disloyalty