The range of Sam Dalrymple’s book Shattered Lands is expansive. An ambitious debut, it talks about the five partitions of the lands that comprise modern India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Myanmar—as well as parts of the Gulf. The opening line of the book gives you the idea of what you’re diving into. Sam writes, “You can’t see the Great Wall of China from space. It’s a myth. Even if you were to squint your eyes while peering down at Earth from the International Space Station, you would not be able to see it. But the border wall dividing India and Pakistan is unmistakable.”
The book frames modern Asia’s history in a way that keeps the reader hooked through 536 pages. From archival research to anecdotes, Sam’s storytelling will make South Asians look at their own land with wide-eyed wonder. The amount of information to process might feel a little overwhelming at times. But a subject so vast which includes five partitions tearing apart the Indian Empire in a span of just 50 years cannot be easy. From carving out new nations, redrawing maps and leaving behind a legacy of war, exile and division, the book takes you through it all.
The first major partition of the Raj was that of Burma (now Myanmar). The racial tensions in Burma had become worse. An anecdote by a Tamil shopkeeper named MP Mariappan in the book mentions how the relations between Indians and Burmese people were strained. Many Dalits like Mariappan had migrated to Burma from India to escape the stigma of caste. Remembering an incident of racial discrimination, Mariappan says, “Some Burmese even called me a kala now and then. Sometimes they would come to my shop drunk and ask for something. I had to give them what they wanted, or they would start a fight… When they began to call us kalas, we no longer got the respect that we deserved.”
The writer has mentioned incidents of migrations based on caste in multiple places in the book. It gives the reader a deeper understanding of caste-based discrimination practiced in India during that time, forcing people to displace. This forced displacement lead to humiliation and never-ending treatment as an “outsider”, thereby making them more vulnerable to violence.
Burmese politician who served as Prime Minister of British Burma during the colonial era before the Second World War played a big role in instilling the sense of oneness among Burmese people. And this he did by promoting discrimination against Indians. Sam writes, “Saw declared it his government’s ‘sacred duty’ to promote Buddhism’s proper practice. He set about passing bills that were prejudiced against Indians, including making visas to Burma too expensive for most Indians.
An interesting thing about Sam’s writing is that it is cinematic. Picking up a book that covers complex history can get boring. Where’s the lie? Especially if you’ve been in a reading slump. But with Shattered Lands, there is a very slim chance of that happening because you might have heard about Jinnah being popularly referred to as Quaid-e-Azam but not know much about his love for ham sandwiches. Sam mentions an incident where Jinnah’s wife, Ruttie, drove to meet him at the town hall with packed ham sandwiches. Jinnah screams at her, saying, “What have you done! If my voters were to learn that I am going to eat ham sandwiches for lunch, do you think I have a ghost chance of being elected?” Now, that reads straight out of a dramatic Bollywood script. Anecdotes like these make you want to keep going.
Sam’s research on the Raj’s westernmost protected states—reconstituted today as Yemen and five of the seven Gulf states—is not as extensive. The reader is also bound to make comparisons with the in-depth research about the east. However, he digs up many forgotten histories from dusty archives. Sam mentions Muhammad Ali Luqman, a Gandhi-loving Arab journalist in Aden, who once thought that the city’s “connection with India was organic”. By the time of the Suez crisis in 1956, he’d become a staunch Yemeni nationalist, arguing that South Asian residents, who’d lived there for decades, should “quit our country”.
With little mention of commoners, their story and struggle here and there, the book majorly focuses on the key players of history. Nonetheless, the anecdotes by those swept up in these wars and mass migrations provide a deeper view of the story of partition. Sam’s debut doesn’t disappoint.