They mix it up almost as I do

‘We have a three-hour session at the home of the Artists’ Union, a big old mansion once the home of some French family. We hear a great variety of Vietnamese music, from the Western-influenced modern compositions to ancient traditional music. They mix it up, alternating old and new almost as I do.’ This is none other than Pete Seeger, the great American folk singer who was born a century ago today. Although he rarely kept diaries throughout his long life, the above quote comes from a brief diary he did keep while travelling in Vietnam in the early 1970s.

Seeger was bon on 3 May 1919 in Manhattan, New York City. His father was a Harvard-trained composer and musicologist and his mother a concert violinist and music teacher. When Seeger was a still a toddler, his parents set out with him and his two older brothers in a homemade trailer aiming to bring music to the working people of the American South. Aged four, he was sent to a boarding school for a couple of years, and aged seven his parents divorced. Seeger attended schools in Nyack where his mother lived before being sent to Avon Old Farms School, a private boarding school in Connecticut, until 1936. It was at Avon that he first began playing the ukulele; he first heard the five string banjo when visiting music festivals with his father and stepmother, Ruth Crawford. Also, while still a teenager, he joined the Young Communist League.

Seeger followed in his father’s footsteps by going to Harvard, but, increasingly, he became more involved in music events and politics than in his courses. By 1938, he had dropped out of college, and was on the road, travelling round the country, collecting ballads, singing, and developing a remarkable ability on the banjo. In 1940, he formed the Almanac Singers, a quartet that also featured the folksinger and composer Woody Guthrie, which performed at union halls, farm meetings, and wherever their populist folk messages and songs were welcome. In 1943, he married Toshi Aline Ota, and they would have four children (although one died in infancy). When he was called up to the US Army, he trained as an airplane mechanic and served in the Pacific. However, once there, it wasn’t long before he was reassigned to entertain American troops. After the war, in 1948, Seeger formed another group, the Weavers which went around the country giving concerts, particularly to students, and it began to produce records. However, as the group achieved national fame, so public attention to Seeger’s left-wing politics led to it being blacklisted.

Thereafter, Seeger usually toured and performed on his own, sometimes with half-siblings Mike or Peggy, but he remained the focus of blacklisting by mainstream entertainment organisers. This was even more the case after he refused to answers questions by the House Committee on Un-American Activities in 1955, and a subsequent conviction for contempt of Congress in 1961 (though this was later overturned). Seeger became a fixture at folk festivals across the country, and is credited with popularising the ‘hootenanny’ i.e a gathering of performers playing and singing for each other, often with audience participation. He wrote many songs himself, and collaborated with others also. Where Have All the Flowers Gone and If I Had a Hammer are two of his most famous songs. During the 1970s and 1980s, he was often to be found protesting on environmental - particularly antinuclear - issues, as well as promoting the music of his friend Woody Guthrie who had died in 1967.

By the 1990s, the taint of accusations against him in the McCarthy period had all but died away, and somehow he had become an American institution. In 1994, he was awarded a National Medal of Arts, and in 1996 he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He released more successful albums, winning Grammys for Pete in 1996, At 89 in 2008, and Tomorrow’s Children (with the Rivertown Kids) in 2011. In January, 2009, at the finale of Barack Obama’s inaugural concert in Washington, D.C., Seeger (and his grandson Tao Rodríguez-Seeger) joined Bruce Springsteen, and a vast crowd in singing the Woody Guthrie song This Land Is Your Land - with several political verses having been restored to the popular sanitised version. Seeger died a few years later, in 2014. Further biographical information is available at Wikipedia, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Folkways at The Smithsonian, or from any number of obituaries (The New York Times, The Guardian, RollingStone, The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times).

It can’t be said that Seeger was much of a diarist, though a couple of brief diaries he did pen have been published - in Pete Seeger in His Own Words as selected and edited by Rob Rosenthal and Sam Rosenthal (Paradigm Publishers, 2012). Seeger’s preface explains how this book came about.

‘I was asked to write a short last chapter to this book. But Rob and Sam said it would be better as a preface. So here ’tis. Dear Reader: For 30 years or more, I had put copies of letters, unfinished diaries, and miscellaneous essays in a filing cabinet and forgot about ’em. Then four years ago, a professor asked if he could look through them, perhaps reprint some. I said “sure” in my usual unthinking way.

Behold. The professor and his son have made a book. I’m now age 93. Whatever insights I’ve had and whatever mistakes I’ve made in my long life are now displayed. The inconsistencies, the contradictions are all here. All! Well, at least a lot of ’em, thanks to Rob and Sam. Yes, thanks also to Dean Birkenkamp and the folks at Paradigm Publishers, you can now read them.

Now, I’ll waste a little time to say that I found myself wanting to rewrite almost all of the pieces in this book. But Rob and Sam thought it best not to go down that road. What was, is.
To all of you I say, stay well. Keep on, Old Pete Seeger’

In the book, there are references to two diaries. The first is Diary of a Soldier, begun in March 1943, and picked up again in April 1944, added to through 1944 and 1945, and finished in 1947. However, it barely reads like a diary, more a record or memoir. Seeger, who is in Keesler Field, Mississippi in March 1943, starts the diary as follows: ‘During this lull, while I am sitting here waiting for shipment, I thought I would take advantage of my free time to write the story of my time in the army. . .’ And he proceeds to set out what has happened to him over the last few years, and then describe in a little more detail his time since having joined the army. Later entries (very few of them) also have a substantial retrospective tone.

The second diary dates from nearly 30 years later, when Seeger was visiting Vietnam. It’s source is cited as Eastern Horizon magazine (1972), so it seems likely that Seeger was commissioned by the magazine to write it. Here are several extracts.

10 March 1972
‘We arrive in Hanoi amid palm trees and rice paddies to our right and left. Is this the land of “the Enemy”? We are greeted by 30 members of the Committee for Solidarity with the People of the U.S. Huge bouquets of flowers are put in our arms, and we are kissed and hugged, with tears of emotion in our eyes and theirs.

First impressions of Hanoi: It is a city (1,000,000) on bicycles, mostly manufactured locally with imported steel. An amiable, courteous people, small in size. They show a love of color in spite of little money - it takes two or three months wages to buy a bicycle. Trees everywhere, and so are bomb shelters. The city has not been bombed since 1968, but they think an all-out attack may yet come.

We visit a little temple-pagoda 1,000 years old. It was destroyed by the retreating French, and later rebuilt. We also visit a lovely park created by thousands of volunteers, who made a lake from a swamp! put in flowers, pavilions, goldfish tanks - wow! It shows what can be done with very little money only if you have love and perseverance. Someone has “sculptured” bushes to look like ostriches, lions and deer on the lawn. And then we see “elephants” sculpted by growing four small pines and weaving their long branches around to form legs torso, head, and trunk!

Another thing I have never seen: bicycles each carrying loads up to 800 pounds! The device was invented during the war against the French. A man walks pushing the bicycle with one hand on a diagonal stick behind the seat, and another steering by a horizontal stick tied to the handlebars. The load is on two platforms hung low one on each side of the bicycle.’

11 March 1972
‘In the morning we visit the museum, which combines archaeology with crafts and modern painting and sculpture. It is a small museum, but one of the best we’ve ever seen. There we find a 4,000 (!) year-old bronze drum. It is four feet high and was used for signaling in naval battles. But it is still in perfect condition. Decorations covering it depict the life and times of that period.

In the afternoon we visit an exhibition of war crimes. Latest ingenious bombs and devices to carry on computerized electronic warfare from the air are on display, enough to give anyone nightmares.

Evening - we go to the circus. Performers are young, but of high quality. We see trained monkeys peddling tiny bicycles. This country is at war, but the people are not grim about it.’

12 March 1972
‘We have a three-hour session at the home of the Artists’ Union, a big old mansion once the home of some French family. We hear a great variety of Vietnamese music, from the Western-influenced modern compositions to ancient traditional music. They mix it up, alternating old and new almost as I do. Later at 8 pm we have a similar session at the radio station.

Here are some of the instruments we see: A beautiful bird-like flute (the player tells us of performing this instrument for soldiers in sections where U.S. chemical sprays had killed all birds, and the bird calls he made on the instruments were the only ones to have been heard there in years).

Banjo-like instruments have two strings over very high frets, so the player can slur the notes. There is also an instrument like a cigar-box ukulele; a bowed instrument held between the knees of the player while seated; various wood-blocks, claves, drums, from huge to small; and harps like kotos.

All the Western instruments are there. I wouldn’t be surprised if Hanoi, like Tokyo, doesn’t have a first-rate symphony orchestra some day. (Hey, it does have a symphony, which I find out later.)

But what really gets me is an instrument completely new to me, a monochord - one stringed. The Vietnamese name for it is dan ban (pronounced “don bow” - as in bow and arrow - with falling pitch. The same words, if inflected differently, could mean “bullet pinches.”) Like a dulcimer, it is a horizontal box. Perhaps it was once set on the floor, or on the lap. The one we see stood on legs, and is amplified, so as to be heard by any audience bigger than five or ten.

The one steel string is tuned by a peg at the player’s right. His left hand holds a thin curved rod. By forcing this toward the string, he can gradually lower the pitch as much as four or even seven notes. Thus the dan ban is similar to a broomstick-wash-tub bass. When moved to the left, the rod raises the pitch, but no more than three or four notes.

While plucking, the player’s right hand momentarily dampens the string in order to sound the high harmonics, a bell-like tone. Thus if the string’s basic pitch is low C, the first usable note is middle C, and the few notes below that. So most melodies will be played in the 2 1/2 octaves above C. Without the left hand bending the curved rod, one could only play bugle calls. With the rod in action, one hears a warm sensuous melody. An old folk song saying has it: “Let the player of the dan ban be enraptured, by his own music. You, being a girl, should not listen to it.” But the dan ban was never puritanically outlawed, as the fiddle was in America.

A week later we are given a two-hour lesson in the dan ban or don bow, as I shall anglicize it. No one knows exactly how old it is - perhaps several hundred years, perhaps much more.

Our instructor, Doan Auh Tuan, a young man in his twenties, is a member of the Vietnam Traditional Music Ensemble, playing on radio and TV, concert tours, as well as performances for soldiers and for children in parks. He plays often as accompaniment, or with accompaniment. He says that in the old days a good player might be invited to perform at a feudal court. But it was usually in the peasants home or in the courtyard, where a few neighbors could gather to listen. 

14 March 1972
‘We are taken on a 5-hour drive to one of the beauty spots of the world: Hon Gay Bay. which is filled with several thousand steep rocky islands, averaging 400-600 feet high with fishing junks sailing between them.’

15 March 1972
‘I am invited for a 3-hour session at the home of the Delegation to DRVN (North Vietnam) from the PRG (Provisional Revolutionary Government of South Vietnam). You see, the NLF [National Liberation Front, also known as the Vietcong] is not a bunch of guerillas in the forest, but a full-fledged government, with considerable light industry, including color printing, textile, etc. It includes communists in its leadership, but also a lot of non-communists, all united under one slogan: Drive out the Yankees and their puppets.

Their leader, a wiry, intense man a little younger than me, is a prominent writer, a man who knows literature of Europe and America well.’

18 March 1972
‘In the afternoon Toshi and I have a long interview with another writer our age, the head of the journalists’ association, Luu Quy Ky. Luu says that after the U.S. and puppets are defeated trouble is predicted in the south. And then he goes on, “There has been much corruption by the dollar. But we know that the job is to rebuild, not recriminate. Six hundred years ago, after we defeated the Mongol army of Kublai Khan, the king’s minister brought a large box into the court of the king. “This box,” he said, “contains names of all those who collaborated with the invader.” The King ordered the box to be burned, in full view of the court. So today, the NLF proposes that there be no reprisals against the puppet mercenaries.’

Trungpa’s escape from Tibet

Chögyam Trungpa, the Tibetan monk who became a renowned lay teacher of Buddhist teachings in the United States and founded the Shambhala organisation, was born 80 years ago today. When the Chinese invaded Tibet, he was no more than 20 years old. At first he went into hiding, but then took part in an heroic expedition across the Himalayas to escape into India. For a few weeks during the latter part of that journey, he kept a diary which he included in his first autobiographical work, Born in Tibet.

Trungpa was born in the Nangchen region of Tibet on 5 March 1939, and was eleventh in the line of Trungpa tülkus, of the Kagyu lineage, one of the four main schools of Tibetan Buddhism. He was trained in the Kagyu tradition, receiving his degree at the same time as Thrangu Rinpoche (who would go on to become another important Buddhist figure in the West). Trungpa was also trained in the Nyingma tradition, the oldest of the four schools. 

In 1958, aged only 19, Trungpa’s home monastery was occupied by the Chinese People’s Liberation Army, and so he spent the winter in hiding. The following year, he started out with Akong Tulku and a small group of other monastics to escape China. As they travelled, often through mountain wildernesses, others joined them swelling the group to some 300 refugees. They eventually reached the  Brahmaputra River. Under heavy gunfire, about 70 managed to cross it, but they then had to climb 19,000 feet over the Himalayas, with little food, before reaching the safety of Pema Ko. On reaching India, in early 1960, the party was flown to a refugee camp. The full story has been told by Grant McLean’s in his 2016 book From Lion’s Jaws: Chogyam Trungpa’s Epic Escape To The West.

In India, Trungpa had one son (who is today the head of Shambala network) with a nun he had met on the journey. He set about learning English, and by 1963 had won a scholarship to study comparative religion at St Antony’s College, Oxford University. In 1967, he and Akong were invited to take over Johnstone House Trust in Scotland to run a meditation centre, which then became Samye Ling, the first Tibetan Buddhist monastery in the West. Around 1969, he married Diana Judith Pybus, a wealthy rebellious 16 year old, with whom he had at least one son. He also had a car accident which left him partially paralysed for the rest of his life. When Trungpa split with Akong, in 1970, the former moved to the United States. By then, he had dispensed with his monastic way of life (allowing himself to be promiscuous and drink heavily), and set course as a lay teacher. He travelled widely around North America, gaining renown for his ability to present the essence of the highest Buddhist teachings in a form readily understandable to Western students, in particular he introduced and opened up, to the West, the esoteric practices of the Vajrayana or Tantric Buddhism.

Trungpa soon began to establish many meditation centres and retreats, all managed by an umbrella organisation, Vajradhatu, based in Boulder, Colorado. Also in Boulder, he found the Naropa Institute which would become the first accredited Buddhist university in North America. Allen Ginsberg and William Burroughs were hired at one point to teach poetry and literature respectively. (Joni Mitchell even sang about Trungpa in Refuge of the Roads, on the Hejira album.) From 1976, he began a series of secular teachings, some of which were gathered and presented as the Shambhala Training, inspired by his vision, when younger, of the legendary Kingdom of Shambhala. His whole organisation eventually took on the Shambala name.

In 1981, Trungpa hosted a visit by the 14th Dalai Lama to Boulder. In 1983, he established Gampo Abbey, a Karma Kagyü monastery in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, Canada; the following year, he observed a yearlong retreat in a rural community in Nova Scotia, and in 1986 he moved his home and international headquarters to Halifax. However, he was, by this time, suffering failing health; after a heart attack in 1986, he died in 1987. Further information can be found at Shambhala, Wikipedia, Encyclopaedia Britannica, or Stripping the Gurus.

A diary kept by Trungpa for a few weeks during his heroic escape to India was first published by George Allen & Unwin in 1966 as part of the autobiographical Born in Tibet (as told to Esmé Cramer Roberts). This has been republished several times, and can be previewed at Googlebooks. Born in Tibet is also included in the first volume of The Collected Works of Chögyam Trungpa, edited by Carolyn Rose Gimian, and published by Shambala in 2003. Furthermore, the diary itself can be found online at The Chronicles, ‘a repository of teachings, articles, interviews, news and podcasts pertaining to the life and teachings of Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche’.

Here are several extracts (as found at The Chronicles).

‘With the morning light we started off and walked down the slope and as we turned uphill again we met the peasant husband carrying a large bag of tsampa. To our amazement he said that he and Tsepa had overtaken Akong Tulku’s elder brother in company with Dorje Tsering’s wife and three nuns and they had given him the tsampa to tide over our immediate needs. They told him how they had been captured by the Chinese near the backwater, but managed to escape from the headquarters where they were being held and had afterward joined up with some Kongpo peasants who were also escaping. The party had heard Tsepa’s gun the night before and had been so frightened that they had rushed away. It appeared that the gun had only been fired to scare a wild animal which seemed as if it might attack. Tsepa had sent the peasant husband back to us while he himself went up to the village on the mountainside to buy provisions. He sent us a message saying that we were to go to a cave below that place where the other party was waiting for us; he would join us there later with the food. We soon reached the cave and spent a very happy morning telling each other of our experiences. They told us that a group of them had crossed the river and the backwater and had tried to follow us; however, they had lost their way and after lying hidden in the long grass for a time they reached the village. When the Chinese discovered them, there was no fighting; all the refugees were taken prisoner and removed to a village which was a local Chinese headquarters, on the south side of the Brahmaputra. Their baggage was thoroughly searched; all the contents of their amulet boxes were thrown out and all religious books were immediately destroyed. Each person was privately questioned to find out if their stories tallied; they were asked where they came from and where they were going. Most of them said that they were trying to escape to India, though a few said that they were going on pilgrimage to that country. The lamas and leaders were separated from the rest and put under guard to be interrogated more closely. They were given the most menial work to do, such as cleaning out latrines. One of the lamas despaired and hanged himself, he had already escaped from one prison camp in Derge and this was the second time that he had been captured. As other prisoners were brought into the camp all our party were relieved to find that no members of our little group were among them; but when the Chinese could not trace Akong Tulku, Yak Tulku, or me among the senior prisoners, they thought we might be lurking disguised among the crowd, since they knew that we had been the leaders of the party; so the prisoners were checked again, especially the younger ones.

At night everyone was locked up together in a single room, but women and the less important men were allowed to go out into the village during the day: They were, however, called in for individual questioning from time to time. The Chinese would then tell them that now that Lhasa was liberated they could go there whenever they wished to, there would be no trouble on the roads; but of course there were more useful things to be done than wandering off on pilgrimages, which were indeed only superstition. The prisoners were even told that should they wish to go to India for this purpose, the Chinese administration were quite ready to let them out; however, such a journey would be exceedingly dangerous, for anyone might die of starvation or fall ill from the hot climate there.

When a rumor went round the camp that all the able-bodied refugees were shortly to be sent north to join labor camps on the other side of the Brahmaputra and that the senior people and those too old for work were to be sent to concentration camps, one of the nuns contrived to buy food for herself and Akong Tulku’s brother, she also obtained information about the best way to reach Doshong Pass. Dorje Tsering’s wife and two other nuns were also able to procure some food and all five managed to escape together. They stopped in a wood the first night and crossed the Doshong Pass the following day. Here they met the family from Kongpo who knew the country and were also making their escape, so they joined forces.

The Kongpo family were camping in a valley below our cave and the man came up to see me, bringing a jug of soup made of meat and barley which was much appreciated. He told me how he and his people had escaped: It had been very difficult to get out of their village as permits were only given to visit friends in the near neighborhood and when the visit was over the holder had to apply to the local authorities for permission to return to his own home. Having obtained the permits to leave his village, our friend and his family took the opposite direction toward the mountains to the south. A number of the villagers had wanted to do the same thing, but knowing the danger they would have to encounter in crossing the snowbound Doshong Pass, they had not dared to undertake the journey.

Some refugee lamas from Lower Kongpo were sheltering in the small monastery in the village above our cave. A monk came down with Tsepa to request me to conduct a devotional service for them as well as for the villagers. I was surprised to see him wearing a long dagger which looked somehow wrong for a monk. He was particularly friendly and invited us all to stay in the monastery. However, we felt that this village was too near Lower Kongpo and might not be a safe place for us so, seeing that one could not get to the monastery and back again that same afternoon, we stayed where we were in and around the cave. We had an excellent meal with some pork the villagers had supplied and made dumplings with their wheat flour which they also gave us. We tried the local dish of millet, but found this difficult to swallow.

23 January 1960
‘No one knew how we could get to India proper, for there was a waiting list for the few airplanes flying to and fro. However, we no longer felt anxious: We were free at last and were able to wander about the town at will. I was struck by the fact that people here were much gayer and more cheerful than in the Communist-controlled Tibetan towns. As we were having our midday meal, a messenger came to tell us to go down to the airport, as there was every possibility that we would get a lift that same evening. A tractor arrived with a trailer behind it, into which we all bundled. The winding road led through a valley and we came to the gate of the airport. It was built in decorative Tibetan style, surmounted by the ashoka emblem. We disembarked and waited. No one knew of any airplanes likely to arrive that day. The evening drew in and it was quite dark. A jeep came to take me to see the local district administrator; he gave me a bag of rice and a few vegetables and apologized that supplies were so scanty and the accommodation so limited. However, he was sure that the plane would come the next day. He asked me to leave my blessing in the place, that things should go well. I thanked him and presented him with a white scarf. We spent that night in the hut.’

24 January 1960
‘In the morning an official came and read out a list of our names. He told us that we would be given priority on the next plane. It arrived that morning and, since it was a transport plane, its cargo of building material was first taken off and seats screwed in afterward. There was only room for six of us: myself, my own attendant, Yak Tulku and his attendant, Tsethar, and Yunten; the rest of the party followed in a second plane that same day.

This, our first flight, was a strange new experience, skimming over cloud-covered mountains, seeing far below us the small villages and footpaths leading up to them; only by the moving shadow of the plane on the ground could we gauge how fast we were traveling.

We thought about the teaching of impermanence; this was a complete severance of all that had been Tibet and we were traveling by mechanized transport. As the moments passed, the mountain range was left behind, and the view changed to the misty space of the Indian plains stretching out in front of us.’

Montagu and the Indian tiger

‘When they came after the tiger, throwing at it hand grenades, firing blank cartridges, and so forth, in order to move it and prevent it charging back, flying foxes were disturbed from the trees, peacocks moved backwards and forwards, parrots flew about; four sambhur passed before my first shot at the tiger, but I am afraid I did not see them. It is a very artificial form of sport, but it gave me sufficient thrill to last me a lifetime.’ This is Edwin Montagu, an early 20th century British Liberal politician born 140 years ago today, best remembered for his stint as Secretary of State for India, or perhaps for his marriage to Venetia. Though the marriage was one of social convenience (she had had an illegitimate child beforehand, and continued to have affairs after), they remained together throughout Montagu’s short life; and it was Venetia that edited Montagu’s India diaries for publication.

Montagu was born in London to Samuel Montagu, 1st Baron Swaythling, a rich banker and his Jewish wife Ellen, on 6 February 1879. He was educated at Clifton College boarding school and the City of London School before studying biology at University College London and Trinity College, Cambridge. In 1902, he was elected president of the Cambridge Union. The following year he joined a firm of solicitors, but was soon more interested in politics than the law. He became friends with Raymond Asquith, son of H. H. Asquith, and was recruited as a speaker for the Liberal Party. Then, in the 1906 general election, he was elected Member of Parliament for Chesterton. Asquith, who was made Chancellor of the Exchequer, appointed Montagu as his parliamentary private secretary.

In 1910, Asquith, by now Prime Minister, promoted Montagu to the post of Under-Secretary of State for India, to Financial Secretary to the Treasury, and then to Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (with a seat in the Cabinet). In 1915, he was sworn of the Privy Council, and a year later was appointed Minister of Munitions. Although initially left out of David Lloyd George’s coalition government at the end of 1916, he was appointed Secretary of State for India in mid-1917, a position he had sought, and which he then held until 1922. Wikipedia says, he was primarily responsible for the Montagu-Chelmsford Reforms which led to the Government of India Act 1919, committing the British to the eventual evolution of India towards dominion status.

In 1915, Montagu married Venetia Stanley, a friend of Asquith’s daughter, after she had converted to Judaism. For several years prior to the marriage, she had been courted by Asquith as well as Montagu. The union was not a conventional one (Venetia had several affairs); it did however produce one daughter, though historians believe Montagu was not the father. A 2012 book, Bobbie Neate’s Conspiracy of Secrets, suggests that the marriage was one of social convenience, to cover Montagu’s homosexuality, and Venetia’s earlier affair with Asquith (which had produced an illegitimate child - Louis Stanley, who was Neate’s stepfather). Montagu is also remembered for his strident anti-zionist stance, and his opposition to the Balfour Declaration of 1917 (for more on this see How I saved the Balfour papers!). Montagu lost his seat in the 1922 general election which delivered a landslide for the Conservatives. He died soon after, in 1924, aged only 45, from an unknown cause. Further information is available at Wikipedia, Liberal History, Spartacus, or the Zionism website.

From his first day on the sub-continent as Secretary of State for India - having arrived in Bombay in late 1917 - Montagu kept a detailed diary. His main purpose was to keep the Prime Minister, Lloyd George, informed of his progress: batches of his diary were regularly sent back to London by mail. After his death, Montagu’s wife, Venetia, edited the diary which was published by William Heinemann in 1930 as An Indian Diary (freely available at Internet Archive). In a short preface, Venetia explains: ‘Now that India is looming so largely in the public eye, I have thought it a fitting time to give this document to the world, hoping that it may help to make a little clearer the great part which the writer played in India’s destinies.’ ‘When he resigned in 1922,’ she adds, ‘he seemed, in saying good-bye to his work for India, to lose the greater part of his interest in life; he was never the same man again.’

The diary was dictated to a secretary ‘at all times and places, sometimes on the back of an elephant, miles out in the jungle’. These week-end shooting trips, Venetia says, ‘were the only way by which he could save himself from a severe breakdown, which indeed continually threatened him’. She continues: ‘Whether he was the guest of honour at a vast tiger-shoot, with 1,500 beaters in a Native State, or standing up to his waist in water for the chance of bagging a few couple of snipe, he was able for the moment to forget his troubles, which had usually redoubled themselves by the time the train steamed into Delhi on each successive Black Monday morning.’ She concludes: ‘I hope that the publication of this diary may [. . .] throw some light on an extraordinarily complex personality whom the great world never understood, but his intimate friends and colleagues knew to be passionately sincere and generous to a fault.’

Naomi B. Levine, in her biography Politics, Religion, and Love: The Story of H. H. Asquith, Venetia Stanley, and Edwin Montagu, rates Montagu’s diary highly. ‘[It] was more than a travelogue and a description of sunsets, flame trees, panther shoots and wild birds. Its chief importance lies in its political observations and warnings. The language of the diary was often sharp and brutally frank and included Montagu’s evaluation of the Indian Civil Service, the military, the police, the Viceroy and the Council, Muslims and Hindus, the abject poverty that existed side by side with the extraordinary luxury of the British raj and the Indian ruling classes and the attitude of the Muslims to Turkey. Most importantly, the diary was a condemnation of British snobbery and racism and the hostility it was creating among educated Indians, which Montagu correctly foresaw as encouraging extremism and ultimately destroying British rule.’

Here are several extracts.

18 November 1917.
‘Lord Chelmsford, Maffey and I left last night at a quarter to eleven for Gagrania. We slept in the train, had an early breakfast, and an excellent but very hard day’s snipe shooting. Net result, thirty-five brace. I think we all shot very well, considering it was very hot and we were up to our knees in water, having to pull our legs each time out of the mud, so that by half-past three we were all exhausted, Chelmsford and I physically, and Maffey being unable to shoot straight. It was a jolly, long gheel completely overgrown - the old bed of the Jumna. All the arrangements, including the carriage to drive five miles, and the bullock wagons, three, to drive one, had been made by a little local Nawab. Bitterns, demoiselle cranes, marsh harriers, fish eagles, big white-breasted blue kingfisher, a jackal, seven sisters, sparrow hawks, shrikes, innumerable doves were the chief birds we saw, and one cattle egret and a large heron. Two of the snipe were painted, and there was a large proportion of jacks in the morning.

The day was by no means wasted. I got far closer to Chelmsford than I have ever got before. I like him better than ever, but I cannot find any vigour or personality in him: great conscientiousness, eager desire for smooth running, complete armoury of consultation. He assured me that he was one of the majority of his Committee. He tells me that the Council were unanimous about Mrs. Besant. I am to see Tilak in a deputation, but not in an interview. He feels that the cross-examination which I submit people to is doing a lot of good. He seems hardening against the splitting of the Viceroyalty. I ventured to come closer to expressing the inadequacy of the Government of India scheme, but I would not express an opinion until I had seen my colleagues.

I forgot to record on Saturday night that we had just had the most depressing information that General Maude was critically ill with cholera. Just before leaving late on Saturday night we heard the news that he had taken a slight turn for the better. I gather that any improvement in cholera is usually hopeful.

We have just heard that General Maude died last night. It is a horrible tragedy at the most critical moment in the Mesopotamian trouble. After consultation with Lord Chelmsford, I felt that I should send a telegram to London suggesting that Sir Charles Munro should go at once to Mesopotamia, and that Kirkpatrick, whom Chelmsford assures me could carry on here, should act as Commander-in-Chicf, subject to the possibilities that the Acts of Parliament permit this arrangement. However, I saw Munro on Monday morning, and although he admits the advantage that he probably knew more intimately Maude’s plans than any other living man, he feels himself, with much regret, too old for Mesopotamia, and as he is very lame and looks very old, I think this is probably true. I hear to-night (Monday) that the War Office have appointed Marshall.’

3 December 1917
‘I suppose I must keep up this wretched practice, so boring to me, and so difficult to discharge efficiently, of recording my proceedings. I do not think I give a thought, waking, and, I fear, sometimes sleeping, to anything but Indian reforms, except for the hour a day which I try to keep for exercise. I read my papers before breakfast, and begin the serried series of deputations and memoranda, copies of which for yesterday and to-day are appended to these notes.

To-day began with four formal deputations. Here it is not necessary to go to a tent. We have a large room with two thrones on the first floor, the drawing-room at nighttime, and certainly under Gourlay’s management these formal deputations go very quickly.

One of these deputations was from the Anglo-Indian Association, which really repeated very much the same tale as we had heard from the All-India Association, this being the Bengal branch.

The other three were interesting. One was from the Bengal Chamber of Commerce, and contained the leaders of the great movement which so forcibly protested against my visit, headed by Sir Hugh Bray, all English; and another was the Calcutta Trades Association of retail traders, equally English and even more prejudiced. Sandwiched between them came the British Indian Association, a more or less conservative body, headed by the Maharajadhiraja Bahadur of Burdwan, the best type of conservative Indian.’

5 December 1917
‘To-day we have had the usual weary round - deputations from various Moslem bodies this morning, the Moslem Association, the Moslem League, and so on, and this afternoon we have had two deputations from Assam.

The Moslem Association pretends to be more conservative than the Moslem League, but submitted an appendix to its suggestions, which was really just as extreme. They were very nice people, and explained that we were to take no notice of the appendix, which really did not represent their views.

The Moslem League was very, very vehement, and I had a long and interesting argument - because he was a very intelligent man - with one of their members, Aminur Rahman, who is certainly very sincere, and does not see any of the difficulties of the Congress Moslem League scheme. He certainly helped me to come nearer to responsible government.’

4 January 1918
‘Breakfast at nine, and the start for the scene of slaughter at quarter to eleven. Twenty miles drive through typical Gwalior country, along dusty roads, with sparse bushes in the sandy and rocky desert. No wonder that it is a good country for tigers, because a tiger, wandering round this detestable and appalling country, finds a beautiful ravine, with water in it, luxuriant, with trees and thick jungle, and remains there; so you know where to look for him. We got to our meeting place, where there were horses and three elephants with howdahs to ride, a dandy in which anybody could be carried who wished it, a whole group of coolies, and a regiment of 400 soldiers to beat. I got on to an elephant and was hurtled over the rocks for about one and a half miles - a very uncomfortable elephant to sit on. Then we got down and walked on tiptoe into the ravine. Right across this ravine stretches a high wall, or rather two high walls, with a passage down in the ravine between them. In the very bottom of this ravine on the wall is a three-storied tower, at the top of which, sheltered partly by a stone awning, sit the guns. The middle story is occupied by a luncheon-room, and the lower story by a sort of cellar. Beyond the tower comes an interruption, and then a smaller wall going up the other side. We got into the tower very quietly and stood whilst the beat came up to us from the shorter side of the ravine. It came quietly, making no noise, and there was no tiger. Nothing appeared, save one peacock and some squirrels. Then we turned round and faced the other way. This time a longer drive took place, accompanied by what the Indians call - a name which we have borrowed - a hullabaloo. Tomtoms beat; there were great shouts and dreadful noises, so that the tiger should start a long way off and come quietly. Nothing had apparently been expected from the first drive; from the second drive great things were hoped for, because a buffalo had been killed on the top and dragged by the tiger down to the valley. It was not long after the beat started before, right in the middle of the ravine, and by some water, I saw the tiger coming out, walking very slowly, about 60 yards away from me - walking towards me, showing his left side at an angle of 45 degrees. I aimed as carefully as my excitement would let me, and had the satisfaction of seeing the tiger sit down on his hind legs, put his head right up, and then roll right over. Before I could get in another shot, however, he was off, crawling lop-sidedly, and leaving behind much blood. The beat was then stopped; the elephants were obtained, but nobody was allowed to go on them because they were notoriously unsteady, and there were reported to be bees in the jungle. They soon sighted the tiger going back towards the beaters. These were then removed, and Gwalior went round to join the beaters. What happened afterwards took almost till dark, but I gather that the tiger was seen crossing a ride towards us, turned by a shot by one of Gwalior’s staff, which missed it. He is not popular for this. He then charged an elephant which was sent for in the middle of the beat. The elephant bolted, and has not been seen since, but a man on the elephant, who was much hurt in the flight, succeeded in getting two shots at it, one of which hit it. It then, now severely wounded, charged a man, and I fear hurt him, but not badly, and was finally despatched lying in some water. It is a fine male tiger, 9 ft. 5 in. long, with a short tail. I do not know how one ought to have dealt with the matter; certainly things were much bungled after the tiger was wounded, I think because of the extraordinary, almost impenetrable, nature of the jungle and the fact that we had no tracker. However, I looked at its body. No shot could have been better than mine; it hit the tiger in exactly the right place. I cannot think why it did not kill it. I am not at all sure that I am happy about Laverton’s split bullets. However, the day was successful. I cannot help thinking about the man, about whom I am sure everything is all right.

We came home thoroughly tired with excitement; could hardly keep awake for dinner, and went to bed immediately afterwards, where I slept from ten to six without moving, a great deal for me.
When they came after the tiger, throwing at it hand grenades, firing blank cartridges, and so forth, in order to move it and prevent it charging back, flying foxes were disturbed from the trees, peacocks moved backwards and forwards, parrots flew about; four sambhur passed before my first shot at the tiger, but I am afraid I did not see them. It is a very artificial form of sport, but it gave me sufficient thrill to last me a lifetime.’

Philippine hero’s birth date

Carlos P. Romulo, one of the most decorated Filipinos in history, was born 120 years ago today. Although there is widespread disagreement across the web about the date of his birth, it’s a diary clue that seems to provide the most reliable date. He was a president of the United Nations General Assembly in its early years, and a long-term foreign minister at home - he served, in one capacity or another, eight Philippine presidents. There is no evidence that he was diarist, but he does feature in the diaries of various other leading politicians of the day, as revealed by The Philippine Diary Project - a database of diary entries concerning Philippine history.

Romulo was born in Intramuros, the historic centre of Manila, on 14 January 1898, though his well-off parents soon moved to live in Camiling, Tarlac, some 150km north of Manila. After graduating from the University of the Philippines in 1918, he studied for a masters at Columbia University. Back in Manila, he was appointed professor of English, and chairman of the English department at University of the Philippines, eventually succeeding to become, first, a regent of the university, and then president. In 1924, he married Virginia Llamas, and they had four sons.

In 1931, Romulo was made editor-in-chief of TVT Publications. In the late 1930s, he helped found the Boy Scouts of the Philippines movement. In 1941, he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for a series of pioneering articles on the politics of Southeast Asia; and that same year he joined the staff of General Douglas MacArthur as press relations officer. He also served as secretary of information and public relations in the wartime cabinet of Manuel Quezon (for whom he’d acted as secretary earlier in their careers). As aide-de-camp to MacArthur, he rose from the rank of colonel to brigadier general.

In 1945, Romulo acted as Philippine delegate to the United Nations Organization Conference in San Francisco; and he was then Philippine ambassador to the UN from 1946 to 1954 (including a period as president of the General Assembly). In 1950-1951, he acted as secretary of foreign affairs and, from 1952 on (with some gaps) he served as Philippine ambassador to the US. Terms as president of the University of the Philippines and as secretary of education followed, before he returned to the post of secretary/minister of foreign affairs, a position he held from 1968 to 1984. He died in 1985, having become one of the most decorated Filippinos in history. He also published nearly 20 books, politicial, historical, autobiographical and even fiction. Further information is available from a website hosted by The Carlos P. Romulo Foundation, and maintained by Romulo’s great granddaughter (Liana Romulo), Wikipedia, Encyclopaedia Britannica, or the United Nations.

There seems to be an interesting controversy over when Romulo was actually born. The UN website gives his year of birth as 1901, Encyclopaedia Britannica says 1899, and Wikipedia says 1898 at the top of its biography but 1899 in the side box of facts! However, the Romulo website displays several pages from the diary of Romulo’s father, Gregorio Besacruz Romulo. One of the pages, in translation, reads: ‘On 14 of January 1898 at 3:45 pm (Friday) my wife, thank God, happily gave birth to a boy in the house Legaspi No. 19 (Intramuros) and nine days after his birth he was baptized, his godfather Don Enrique Llopis y Becerra (lawyer).

Another entry reads: ‘On Wednesday 23 of March 1898 at 10 am I had my two children Lourdes and Carlos vaccinated - the first was one year and 10 months old; the second [. . .] two months and 9 days old. The doctor who vaccinated them was my friend Don Jose R. Torres, recently licensed.’

There is no evidence that Romulo himself kept a diary, but he does feature in the diaries of several other leading politicians of the time. The excellent Philippine Diary Project contains many diary extracts from Philippine history, and a search for Romulo brings up the following extracts, among others.

Diary of Francis Burton Harrison

24 August 1942
‘Quezon, whom I had not seen for nearly a month, looks well but complains that he cannot make any great effort; and that his blood pressure is still very high. He spends most of the day in a silk dressing wrapper. He was closeted in his room for some time with Carlos Romulo, whom he afterwards characterized to me as politically “foolish” but adds that Romulo is a man who carries out everything entrusted to him.’

9-10 January 1943
‘Bernstein then presented the question of a movie drama in Hollywood, now in course of preparation, showing an American nurse and an American officer’s adventures on Bataan. A Filipino doctor had been proposed, and Romulo considered it, and insisted that he should appear as himself! Quezon said quietly that Romulo did not look sufficiently like a Filipino - was more like a Chinese. Proponed Dr Diño, his personal physician instead - said he was a real Malay type and also had had previous experience of acting.

Knowing as I did, from another source, of the terrific row Romulo and Quezon had recently had over Romulo’s book I saw the Fall of the Philippines, I was somewhat diverted by this calm discussion. Quezon had been so angry with Romulo that he had told him, “to get the hell out of here, and never come back” and had deprived him of his uniform as a Lieutenant Colonel of the Philippine Army when he was on the lecture platform.’

Diary of Antonio de las Alas

19 May 1945
‘Don Vicente Madrigal talked also of Gen. Carlos P. Romulo. He said that Romulo is even rougher and more uncompromising than Confesor and Secretary Cabili. One day he saw copies of the Philippines Herald being sold in the streets. He learned that the newspaper’s daily publication started a week before. Romulo appears as Chief Editor. Don Vicente sent word to Romulo stating that he was glad that the Philippines Herald was already being published. It must be remembered that Don Vicente is practically the owner of the Philippines Herald as he owns the majority of the stocks. Romulo offered his regrets and apology to Don Vicente for not having informed him. Romulo added that the publication of the Herald would have to be suspended as Gen. MacArthur did not want any of the old newspapers to begin publication. Later the Free Philippines began its publication.

When Romulo arrived from the U.S., he did not visit Madrigal nor offer any help to him. Madrigal considers Romulo the most ungrateful man he has ever known. He bought the Herald upon the entreaty of Romulo who did not want the Herald to fall into the hands of the Roceses. He made Romulo the Editor. Romulo wanted to go to Chunking and other places in the Orient to be able to write on the conditions in those places. He had no money, however. Don Vicente granted him an unlimited credit that allowed Romulo to visit many places in the Orient and write a series of articles. These made him very famous in the literary world. The articles earned him the Pulitzer Prize, which also brought in some cash. After all he has done for Romulo, as Mr. Madrigal puts it, Romulo’s attitude of indifference towards him was the height of ingratitude.’

4 July 1945
‘In connection with Romulo again, after the nomination for candidates for Senator in 1941, Romulo, who was an intimate friend of mine, showed coolness towards me. I attributed it to the fact that I was nominated and he was not. His resentment was absolutely unjustified. We all worked for him and we were able to get a big majority in the convention promise support for Romulo. Although Pres. Quezon always said that he wished the convention to act freely, the fact was that he controlled the nominations. He was the one who prepared the list of candidates and the names in his list were the ones nominated in the convention. When we submitted the name of Romulo, the President flatly refused for two reasons: he belonged to the same organization (Philippines Herald) as Don Vicente Madrigal. As Madrigal had already been chosen, Romulo could not be a candidate. The other reason was that he was not supported by a majority of the delegation from his own province, Tarlac. How could he expect other provinces to support him when his own province would not even vote for him? But there was a clear majority in favor of Romulo in the convention. It was probably influenced by the Free Press poll in which he got first place among an array of big men. Because of this, I had been calling him “Senator”. When later I was nominated and he was not, I noticed that he changed, probably believing that if I had not been included he would have been nominated. But it was all in accordance with the desire of President Quezon.’

17 July 1945
‘It was reported that there was a plan to launch a team composed of Osmeña for President and Romulo for Vice President. It is also said that Romulo had declined. It is too bad. We wish Romulo were a candidate so that the people can show that they do not consider Romulo the hero he seems to think he is.’

Diary of Ferdinand E. Marcos

20 February 1970
‘But Romulo is getting senile. That note of his in answer to the stiff protest of the Americans was off the beam. It speaks of there being valid ground for the attacks against the Americans and the Americans to ponder on the solution of the problems between the two countries. I have to replace Romulo soon. This is not the way to treat a wounded ally.’

Suffragists of every religion

‘I almost had to pinch myself to make sure that I was alive. Really this day has been one of the happiest of my life - now I have shaken the hands of Mohammedan, Hindu, Buddhist and Confucian suffragists, and I’ve seen many a Christian missionary show contempt for the cause. [. . .] And I am in China - China!!!.’ Carrie Chapman Catt, born 160 years ago today, was a powerful figure in the American women’s right movement, leading up to adoption of women’s suffrage in 1920. She was also an important figure in the international movement for women’s suffrage, travelling widely, not least to China. She kept diaries on these travels, none of which have been published, although one biography does contain some extracts.

Carrie Lane was born on 9 January 1859 (though some sources give 9 February) in Ripon, Wisconsin, but moved to Charles City, Iowa, when seven. She studied at Iowa Agricultural College (now the state university), where she joined the Crescent Literary Society and helped bring about a change to the rules so as to allow women to speak. She also started an all-female debating club. She graduated with science degree in 1880, becoming a teacher and then a superintendent of schools in Mason City, the first woman to take that role in the district. In 1885, she married Leo Chapman, a newspaper editor, though he died the following year of typhoid. Subsequently, she worked as a reporter in San Francisco, again the first woman to do so in the city.

In 1887, Catt returned to Charles City; and in 1890, she married George Catt, a wealthy engineer, who supported her campaigning for women’s suffrage. She served as state organiser for the Iowa Woman Suffrage Association, and then began working nationally for the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA). In 1892, she was asked by Susan B. Anthony to address Congress on proposed changes to woman’s suffrage. Catt, herself, was twice elected president of NAWSA, in 1900-1904 (she resigned early due to her husband’s ill health - he died in 1905) and 1915-1920. During her second term especially, Catt successfully led NAWSA and the suffrage movement in general to win support from President Woodrow Wilson in 1918, and to the adoption of the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (which prohibits US states and federal government from denying the right to vote to US citizens on the basis of sex) in 1920.

In 1902, Catt had helped found the International Woman Suffrage Alliance, and was its president from 1904 to 1923. Thereafter, she continued to remain an active campaigner for women’s suffrage internationally. In the 1920s and 1930, she embraced the peace movement, and turned her focus towards anti-war causes, being particularly active in campaigning to change immigration laws so that Jews, being persecuted in Germany, could more easily take refuge in the US. For her efforts she was rewarded with the American Hebrew Medal. In 1941, she received the Chi Omega award at the White House from her longtime friend Eleanor Roosevelt. After the death of her second husband, Catt had two long-term close friendships with, first, Mollie Hay, and then Alda Wilson. Catt died in 1947. Further information is readily available online, from Wikipedia, Wisconsin Historical Society, Carrie Lane Chapman Catt Girlhood Home and Interpretive Center, Historical Dictionary of the 1940s, and Encyclopaedia Britannica. Some pages of Kristin Thoennes Keller’s biography, Carrie Chapman Catt: A Voice for Women (Compass Point Books, 2006) can be previewed at Googlebooks.

Catt seems to have been a busy diarist when travelling. The Library of Congress has some of her diaries, but those from her 1911-1912 round-the-world trip are held by University of Wisconsin-Madison Libraries. The latter gives the following summary of its holdings: ‘Diaries of Carrie Chapman Catt, a noted leader in the woman suffrage movement, written during a trip around the world. Included are descriptions of places, people, and activities, including meetings with women's suffrage groups and their leaders; details of daily life; and commentary on area politics. The diaries are especially detailed for Catt’s visits to Palestine, South Africa, Ceylon, India, the East Indies, the Philippines, China, Korea, and Japan. Most of the diaries are original with some typewritten copies and some summaries written later by Catt.’

The only source online I can find for information on these diaries is Jacqueline Van Voris’s biography, Carrie Chapman Catt: A Public Life (The Feminist Press, 1987). This can be previewed at Googlebooks and Amazon. Van Voris makes the following general comment: ‘Running through Catt’s diary is a startled appreciation at discovering women who had been fighting bigotry and sex prejudice all their lives. She was gratified to find feminists everywhere: often the women were not aware that they were part of a worldwide movement.’

In one annotation, Van Voris explains: ‘There are eight typewritten diaries of varying lengths covering Catt’s trip around the world in 1911-12. The diaries are neatly typed on standard 8½" by 11" paper. Throughout Catt pasted postcards, some newspaper clippings, and a few snapshots. [. . .] The collection consists of 589 pages as follows: 1. South Africa, 181 pages; 2. the Holy Land, 55 pages; 3. Ceylon, 31 pages; 4. India and Sumatra, 46 pages; 5. Java, 98 pages; 6. the Philippines, 39 pages; 7. China, 95 pages; 8. Korea, Japan, and Hawaii, 44 pages.’ Elsewhere, in another annotation, Van Voris records: ‘Catt kept a diary of her travels in Europe and South America from October 8, 1922 to March 17, 1923. It had apparently been started in 1917 (although she later misdated it 1916) but had only three days’ entries. Catt had come across it when she was cleaning out her apartment and decided to keep it on this trip.’

Here is one extract from Catt’s diary quoted by Van Voris. ‘We met nine splendid, sweet, refined, enthusiastic, hopeful, lovable young women, and three equally splendid young men. We told them about the Alliance and that we wanted to have China join it. We asked them what they had done and were doing. What a splendid story they told us. I almost had to pinch myself to make sure that I was alive. Really this day has been one of the happiest of my life - now I have shaken the hands of Mohammedan, Hindu, Buddhist and Confucian suffragists, and I’ve seen many a Christian missionary show contempt for the cause. How curious is the plan for the onward march of the world’s army of humans! Now my dear Chinese suffragists are going to give me a reception. And I am in China - China!!!.’ Van Voris adds this comment; ‘Catt did not use exclamation points often but in her excitement she splattered her diary with them.’

Nanda’s views on planning

Gulzarilal Nanda, a Punjabi politician twice interim prime minister of India, was born 120 years ago today. As a young follower of Gandhi, he was imprisoned a couple of times for non-violent protest, but later he served the new independent nation’s government in various roles for more than 20 years. There is very little information about him readily available in English, but a biography (available to preview at Googlebooks) was published to celebrate the 100th anniversary of his birth, and this refers to, and quotes from, diaries he kept.

Nanda was born into a Hindu family on 4 July 1898 in Sialkot, Punjab, then a Province of British India but now part of Pakistan. He studied in Lahore, during which time he married Lakshmi. They would have three children. He also studied at Amritsar, Agra and Allahabad, taking up a social studies research post at Allahabad before being appointed Professor of Economics at National College in Bombay in 1921. He joined the Non-Cooperation Movement that same year, and the following year become Secretary of the Ahmedabad Textile Labour Association (for which he worked until 1946). He was imprisoned for Satyagraha (a form of Gandhian non-violent resistance) in 1932 (and again between 1942 to 1944). In 1937, he was elected to the Bombay Legislative Assembly, subsequently serving in various capacities. He is credited with launching the Indian National Trade Union Congress, and, later, he became its President. In 1947, he went to Geneva, Switzerland as a government delegate to the International Labor Conference.

In 1950, Nanda was made vice-chairman of the Indian Planning Commission, and the following year he was appointed Planning Minister in the Indian Government. After being elected to the Indian Parliament (Lok Sabha) in 1952, he was reappointed as Minister for Planning, Irrigation, and Power. He was re-elected to the Lok Sabha through several general elections up to and including one in 1971, though for different constituencies, serving in several ministerial positions (Union Minister for Labour and Employment during 1962-1963, and Minister for Home Affairs during 1963-1966). Most significantly, he was Prime Minister on two occasions, each time for 13 days, the first after the death of Jawaharlal Nehru in 1964, and the second after the death of Lal Bahadur Shastri in 1966. He was awarded the Bharat Ratna, India’s highest civilian award, in 1997. He died in 1998, aged 99. There is a little further biographical information available online in English, at Wikipedia, PM India, or History of India for example. However, there is also a biography of Nanda by the journalist Promilla Kalhan which is available to view at Googlebooks: Gulzarilal Nanda: A Life in the Service of the People. This was first published in 1997 by Allied Publishers for the Indian Association of Social Science Institutions.

Nanda was a diarist, although there is very little information about his diaries readily available online. Certainly, there is no sign they have been edited or published. However, Kalhan does mention them several times in her biography, and she quotes from them occasionally. Here are several relevant extracts from her narrative (those which include quotations from Nanda’s diary).

Pages 30-31
‘Nanda’s views on planning are spelt out in short notes he jotted down in his diary during the 1950s in his inimitable style - short, crisp and indicative. The following are some of the extracts from his diary on the subject of the Five-Year Plans:

“Planning: The people of the country have taken to planning, from the start - accepted it... At the top there were doubts, differences. Now the acceptance of planning is almost unanimous in the country.

The importance of industrialization has always been accepted. Gandhiji’s emphasis on cottage industries... Cottage industry, however, will not suffice. He said - produce cloth in the country and dispense with foreign machines etc. for producing cloth. But whatever foreign machinery cannot be dispensed with must be produced in the country e.g. for Railways etc. Even for development of cottage industries at a higher level the help of steel, electricity, irrigation is needed.

There are however differences still regarding the kind and degree of planning. Those are related more or less to some basic differences in the objective of planning or the relative emphasis inter se - or a kind of economic and social set up we are working for.

Two chief aims of planning:
(i) Best utilization of resources, i.e. no under-utilization and no waste.
(ii) The utmost realization of the objectives i.e. programme should be on lines calculable to activities and objectives in the optimum manner.” ’

Page 34
‘Moreover, as he pointed out in jottings in his diary, a shift from the private to the public sector was not without its dangers. If allowed to function unchecked, the bureaucracy could end up by ushering in state capitalism which would be difficult to dislodge. It could result in a kind of dictatorship, like that of Hitler or Stalin. It would lead to centralised power rather than democratic socialism. New habits of work through co-operatives had first to be formed. The aims of the working class could not be achieved by strikes and a slow down but by assuming greater responsibility and producing better results. Employment for everyone with a suitable level of income was an important step towards ushering in socialism.

Jawaharlal Nehru had said that he could not expect to see socialism established in his lifetime. But Nanda did not see why this should not be possible during the course of a few years, given the right outlook, promulgating the right institutions and leadership. He wrote in his diary: “Success of public enterprises is not simply a matter of internal efficiency, but adjustment to an environment so that a public enterprise can function effectively in conformity to social objectives of making the best use of all resources, human and material”. He had in mind employment and cottage industries among other needs. “In all this effort”, Nanda added “corruption is a serious hindrance to the development of a socialist pattern. The Prime Minister (Nehru) had described the problem in terms of food, clothing, shelter, education, medical aid and equal opportunity. When there is scope for corruption, there cannot be equal opportunity.” He said that “Some attention has to be paid to the well-being of women, landless labourers and tribals among others - and equality of opportunity to all children. The ideology underlying a socialistic pattern is not an exclusive concern of any one Party. It is the concern of the whole nation. Loyalty to the community is important to promote its abiding progress. Loyalty to one’s immediate personal interests comes later. Democratic socialism is a way of expressing it. Gandhian socialism is more expressive. Sarvodaya has a great deal to do with it. But it is better not to call it Sarvodaya. Its implications are far wider and deeper.” ’

Page 41
‘Prohibition found a place in the Second Five-Year Plan. In an entry in his diary dated January 1956 Nanda had this to say :“Prohibition: We have to make it successful. To whatever extent we go forward it must be attained effectively. We are told that only a very small percentage drink in India. That should be an added reason for carrying out prohibition because it should be easier to make it successful. When large numbers drink there is no strong public opinion against it. But if ninety per cent do not, it is a reservoir of public opinion which if utilized properly is a guarantee of success of prohibition.” ’

Page 90
’Nanda was in the habit of keeping a diary, to be exact, not one diary but notes on various subjects and therefore a number of diaries.’

Page 173
‘The last page of the diary, his most recent jotting consists of one word, repeated several times. The word is: Gayatri [famous Hindu mantra addressed to Savitr, the sun god].’

As notes in his earlier diaries reveal, Nanda was interested in Kurukshetra, starting colleges, possibly even a University devoting itself to the teaching of Indian culture and research. This not only became a reality but today the Kurukshetra University has become a full-fledged institution teaching other subjects as well.

Nanda’s diary indicates that he has been deeply concerned with the future governance of various institutions and welfare work started in Kurukshetra by him. He mentions the names of various people, including Sadhus he knew there, who might take over the responsibility. Nanda also bought some land in Kurukshetra with money he borrowed from one of his two sons, to set up some welfare projects. That he has been responsible for the upliftment of Kurukshetra is recognised by everyone.’

Painting with brother

‘This morning I painted the Parsee Widow’s jacket and Sari, while brother retouched the Nizzam’s head for Mr Schleicher.’ This is from the diary of the artist Raja Varma, recently published to provide a portrait of the diarist’s older brother, Ravi Varma, one of the most famous painters working in India in the late 19th century and early 20th century. Although Raja Varma’s diary provides few specific details about his brother (who is only ever referred to as ‘brother’ in the diary), their working lives were so intertwined that almost all of Raja Varma’s diary entries use the plural pronoun ‘we’ and refer to Ravi as well as himself. According to one expert, Ravi Varma (born 170 years ago today) was the most important academic artist produced by colonial India, and without the wealth of detail found in his brother’s diary both artists would have remained ‘shadowy figures’.

Raja Ravi Varma was born on 29 April 1848 in the village of Killimannur, Travancore (now the state of Kerala), in the very south of the Indian subcontinent. At the time, Travancore was one of many Princely States in India, and Ravi Varma’s family had long held connections to the Travancore royal family. His father was a scholar and his mother an artist and poet. He was the oldest of four children, but was particularly close to his brother Raja Raja Varma 12 years his junior. Ravi Varma was married to 12-year-old Bhageerthi Bayi, of royal birth in 1866, and they had five children. Subsequently, thanks to a complex system of succession, two of their grandchildren were adopted into the royal family of Travancore; and one of their great grandchildren was Chithira Thirunal, the last ruling Maharaja of Travancore.

From early on, Ravi Varma showed a keen interest in painting. This was nurtured by an uncle, an artist of the Tanjore style, who helped him meet artists in the court of the Maharajah of Travancore. He received instruction in water colours, but was also much influenced by the European oil painter Theodore Jensen who was in residence at the Maharajah’s palace for a while. Edgar Thurston, the British superintendent at the Madras Government Museum, played a significant role in promoting Ravi Varma’s career. His fame started to grow after winning an award for an exhibition of his paintings in Vienna in 1873. In 1881, the newly crowned Maharaja of Baroda (a princely state in present-day Gujarat) invited Ravi Varma to paint his ceremonial portrait. He was so impressed that many more commissions - mythological paintings and portraits - followed, and soon Ravi Varma’s paintings, a fusion of Indian traditions with European techniques, were much in demand all over the country.

In 1895, Ravi Varma set up a studio, in Bombay, fashioned on the practice of European artists, with his brother a constant companion and collaborator. Together they also set up a lithographic printing press, called the Raja Ravi Varma Press. It became the largest in the country, printing many thousands of oleographs of Hindu gods and goddesses, and thus helping popularise their art. However, when the business ran into too much debt they sold it to their printing technician, Fritz Schleicher (originally from Germany), who then ran it successfully for many years. In 1904, Ravi Varma was awarded (on behalf of King Edward VII) the Kaisar-i-Hind Gold Medal. Early the following year, his brother Raja Varma died, and then, in 1906, Ravi Varma died. Although considered the foremost Indian artist of the time, he came in for severe criticism from later artists for imitating Western styles, and thus producing art which was only superficially Indian. Further biographical information be found online at Wikipedia, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Cultural India, Gulf News, Spectrum or Ravi Varma Oleographs.

Apart from a lifelong role working in support of his brother’s projects (co-worker, assistant, secretary, business manager), Raja Varma was an important early landscape artist in his own right. But his own significance, in a historical context, is brought into clearer focus because of a diary he kept, chronicling his own life and that of his brother’s. The diary has recently (in 2005) been published in a lavish edition by Oxford University Press (New Delhi) as Raja Ravi Varma - Portrait of an Artist: The Diary of C. Raja Raja Varma. Edited by Erwin Neumayer and Christine Schelberger, it includes a foreword by Partha Mitter, Emeritus Professor of Art History at the University of Sussex, a long introduction as well as 50 pages of plates. According to Mitter: ‘The importance of the diary lies in the fact that it allows us to understand the life and working methods of Indian academic artists in the colonial period, and especially the achievements of Ravi Varma, the most important academic artist produced by colonial India. Without the wealth of detail that we encounter in the diary, the artists would have remained shadowy figures.’

Mitter’s foreword is particularly enlightening on the trend, during the British Raj, for Indian artists to maintain diaries. To understand this, he says, it is necessary to consider ‘the transformation wrought by the introduction of colonial institutions such as art schools and art societies’ whereby ‘artistic outlook and practice, genres or art, as well as status of artists underwent profound changes’. Previously Indian artists had low status (other than a few honoured by earlier Mughal emperors). ‘The new Western-literate, self-conscious graduates of impersonal art schools now looked to the public for appreciation. [. . .] They sought inspiration in European romanticism and, above all, in the image of the artist as a lonely outsider relentlessly pursuing a transcendental idea against all the odds.’

According to the editors’ preface, Raja Varma began the diary as a collection of preparatory notes for a travelogue, fashioned on the accounts of European gentlemen travellers on the tiger-shooting and elephant-hunting circuit in India. They continue: ‘It was meant to have been published after the upper India tour undertaken by Prince Martanda Varma, along with Ravi Varma and Raja Varma, and a retinue of fifteen other persons during the cool season of 1894-5. Although the book was never published, the completed manuscript [. . .] was privately circulated one year later. From the following year, no diary entries seem to have been made. The diary appears to have been continued only in May 1898 and entries were made regularly until August the same year. Thereafter, Raja Varma kept up the habit of making daily notes when on a journey. It was only during the years 1902 and 1903 that daily notes were written even in his native place.’

In their introduction, the editors analyse the diary, showing how it sheds light on some aspects of the brothers’ lives, but also how it fails to provide any information on others:
- ‘[The] diary chronicles the long periods away from their native Travancore, attending to their flourishing portraiture business or looking after the affairs of the printing press.’
- ‘The diary enlightens us about many of the rather down-to-earth problems of the painters’ professional life.’
- ‘The diary is a multilayered document on the development of the aesthetics of mass communication in India. It deals with art, but under the surface, the blunt reality and contradictions of the colonial period around 1900, when British Imperialism was at its peak, show clearly.’
- ‘The diary, although giving important hints as to the cause of the financial fiasco of the press, hardly gives a glimpse of the technical processes involved in the production of the prints.’
- ‘The artistic areas on which the diary remains silent are probably the very areas where the confessed artistic ethos clashed with the artistic practice of the Varma brothers.’

Here are several extracts taken from the published version of Raja Varma’s diary (square brackets are as found in the original).

6 March 1902
‘We paid a visit to the Nawab [+++] the premier noble of the state. He sent a carriage and [+++] two of his sowars for us. His palace is a very big and extensive pile of buildings. He is confined with rheumatic complaint. Ms Pestonji, his wife, daughter and son-in-law came this evening to see our pictures.’

13 March 1902
‘Our opinion of Ms Faridinji, the Dewan’s private secretary is that he is a glib talker, but insincere in the extreme. He is ever intent on pleasing Europeans and do[es] not seem to care much for natives.’

14 March 1902
‘We paid a return visit to Ms Ulit who has got fine old copy of Rembrandt. It cannot be the original as I remember having seen printed copies of the same. It is a very beautiful work. Ulit is a man of taste.’

17 March 1902
‘Since coming here we have got other students too. One is Shankar Rao son of Captain Madhava Rao of the Nizam’s Artillery, and the other is Mr Calastry’s son. As we teach gratis there are boys always coming to us for tuition.’

20 March 1902
‘We paid a visit to the Meeralum Tank about 5 or 6 miles from here [ChaddrighautJ. I made a sketch of the lake and hills surrounding it with the sun setting. The drive was hot and dusty.’

21 March I902
‘We are glad to hear that our eldest cousin’s state of health is not now so serious as it was some time before. He is now undergoing treatment at Kilimanur at the hand of Chiruttaman Moos the younger. He wants us to return home soon, but we are in a dilemma.’

2 April 1902
‘Last night the Nizam entertained Lord Curzon at dinner at the Chow Mahal Palace. We had also gone there. The streets from the Residency to the palace were splendidly illuminated. The palace itself presented a scene of unrivalled splendour. When the dinner was over there was a fine display of fire-works, after which the party dispersed, big drops of rain from a passing cloud having commenced to fell to the inconvenience of those present.’

15 September 1903
‘Received a cheque for Rs 300 from Sir Arthur Mundrial Fund being the balance due for a portrait of the Ex-Governor. In the afternoon visited the old pictures in the different parts of the palace. None of the old pictures could[?] be made out. Of course the best pictures are those by the European painters. We were [sic] are pleased to hear that the Ooman Palli Kara [Omanpallikara] appeal was dismissed by the Dewan. The other party intends instituting a civil suit against us.’

18 September 1903
‘We visited Mr Nagamiah settlement, Dewan Peshkar, who, it is rumoured is in the running for the next Dewan Peshkarship. We have just finished his old mother’s portrait and he expressed himself highly pleased with it. I gave him the short account I have written of our family for his state manual. He thought that it was rather too short. He wants us to give him as much information as we can relating to the Maharajas court and manner of today.’

23 September 1903
‘We went this morning to the temple of Lalu Kavu to worship the Goddess, since this is the second day of the Navrathrie-Dusserah. On my return home I remitted two money orders one for Rs 6 to the manager of the Malayale Manorama and the other for Rs 4 to the Manorama at Calicut, the former being the last year’s subscription to it and the latter this year’s subscription.’

28 October 1903
‘In the morning called on Sir Balachandra to get medicine for Brother and to consult him with regard to the complaint. Our cook Chathu is suffering from [+++]. In the afternoon I wrote a letter to Messrs Arbuthnot & Co. enclosing a draft of Hundi for Rs 4000 to be credited to my account and invested on fixed deposit for one year at 5 percent interest payable half yearly in the same way as the Rs 6000 invested with them on the 20th instant. The draft was obtained from the Chartered Bank of India, Australia and China. I next visited Messrs Marks & Co., Hussainally Abdulally, Kump and Co. etc. Returning home at about 5.30. Bapuji and Pannuswami Pillai came.’

29 October 1903
‘Last night we witnessed the performance of Sinjit Saubhadra of Kirloskar Dramatic Company at one of the Grant Road Theaters. This is the best Mahratta dramatic troupe. A carriage has been engaged from today at a rate of Rs 3 per day for our use. Its owner is a Parse[e] who had given his carriage on former occasions too. We drove to the Fort, gave Brother’s watch to Charpie & Co. for repairs, ordered Laidlaw & Whiteaway for two long coats for summer weather.’

30 October 1903
‘In the morning we paid a visit to Mr Jagmohan Das Vandravandas Bhaiset our friend who had been suffering lately from [a] paralytic attack. He has fortunately escaped from the first attack and is now alright. In the evening Mr Bapuji and we two went to Mr Soundy and purchased tickets for the London Comedy Company’s play of ‘H.E. The Governor’. Next we attended a discourse on Mahabharat by a clever Banares Pandit as he spoke in Hindusthani we could well understand him.’

1 November 1903
‘This evening we removed to a bungalow on the Gamdevi Road near the fire engine, as Kalbadevi Road was too noisy and crowded to be agreeable for residence. The new residence requires a lot of cleaning.’

4 November 1903
‘Last night we witnessed the Comedy of ‘H.E. the Governor’ at the Novelty.
I did not like it much nor did Brother or Bapuji. There was not much for the display of an actor’s skill. The whole thing was a domestic incident and nothing else. This morning I painted the Parsee Widow’s jacket and Sari, while brother retouched the Nizzam’s head for Mr Schleicher. In the evening we returned the visit of our Hyderabad friend Mr Permanand Das. He lives in the palace of Devaki Namdas Maharaja, one of the high priests of the Vaishnavas of the Vallabhachari persuasion. The building is splendid.’

6 November 1903
‘Early this morning we paid a visit to Mr Puroshotram Vishram Moraji in whose house on the Kalbadevi Road we had put up during the first few days of our arrival here. He is a man of taste and is writing a history of Shivaji the great Mahratta Hero. He has visited all the scenes connected with his exploits. He has got some good pictures and picture books. There are few Bhalias with artistic and literary taste.’

8 November 1903
‘This morning we went to Mr Chaturbhuj Khinji’s to photograph him and his wife who are anxious to have their portraits painted by us. On our return we were pleased to see Mr A. Raffin whom we had known 10 years ago as a boy at Grant Road.’

9 November 1903
‘Today we have severed all connection with our press known as ‘The Ravi Varma Fine Art Lithographic Press’ selling it to Mr Fritz Schleicher for a consideration of Rs 25,000 over and above paying all the debts connected with the establishment amounting to Rs 5 or 6 thousand. Out of this amount Rs 12,000 has been invested on fixed deposit in my name with Messrs Arbuthnoth & Co. bearing interest at 5 percent. The proprietorship of the Press was in my name though it was called after Brother.’
 
13 November 1903
‘Not having been well for the last three or four days, I opened my bowels this morning with Rubinat Water. In the afternoon I went to Phadkis Studio to make an enlargement of a negative. This done I returned home and went again with Brother to the market to purchase curtains and other things for our studio. On return home we saw Mr Chaturbhuj Khinji waiting for us. His request is that we should make some reduction in our charges.’

18 November 1903
‘This morning I was engaged in painting the body and sari of Dr Dawar’s wife while Brother painted his mothers head. As I did not feel well we drove in the afternoon to Dr Mathai’s dispensary at the Chakle[?] and he was pleased to give me a mixture. My complaint is unequal temperature of the body going up to 99 1/2 towards evening and a trouble headache. We gave Mr Naoroji a loan of Rs 30 when we met him at the Band Stand from where we went to the Apollo Bunder and hence returned home. Bapuji was with us.’

23 November 1903
‘I had to spend this day also at home not feeling quite disposed to go out, did little in the way of work, as too much concentration of mind produces headache. Chathu is making favourable progress. The wound is fast healing. He has slight fever on [?] for which Dr Mathai is treating him. Brother out as usual for his evening drive.’

25th November 1903
‘I went out with Brother for a drive this evening and got back his watch which had been given to Messrs Charpia & Co. for repairs which cost Rs 25. My health is much improved now. I purchased a bottle of Fellow’s Syrup from Madow & Co. for Rs 1-12-0 and commenced taking it this evening. Dr Mathai has recommended [to] me [to] take it regularly for some months as it relieves one of headache, poverty of blood and other complaints.’

27 November 1903
‘This morning Dr Dawar came and had a look at his wife’s portrait and said that he could not recognize her. Though it requires improvements we did not think it was so great a failure. These are the difficulties of portrait painting especially from Photographs. An other Parsee youth came with a profile of his deceased brother and wants a three quarter face made from this profile.’