Review: Journeying with India; Memoirs of a Civil Servant by YN Varma

YN Varma’s memoirs offer a delightful peek into colonial and newly independent India, when the country’s diversity was its hallmark and all energies were directed at making it modern and resilient.

Varma (1913-1984) was a prominent civil servant who joined the Provincial Civil Service in 1936 at the age of 22. He held several important positions in a career spanning more than 35 years. He retired from service in 1971.

Varma’s memoirs have been posthumously published by his grandson Anupam Varma, who remembers seeing his grandfather sitting at his mahogany office desk with a table fan running by his side. He began writing his memoirs in the mid-1970s, a few years after he retired from the civil service and completed the first draft in 1981. His carefully preserved handwritten pages were discovered by his family and sent to the press 40 years later.

Varma had humble beginnings. He hailed from a small village near Faizabad (Ayodhya). Anupam writes in his introductory note, “…(Varma) served his country and his people – through the upheavals of the Second World War, the heady days of the Quit India Movement, the tragedy of Partition, the euphoria of Independence and free India’s first elections, and then the excitement, challenges and high idealism of nation-building in the 1950s and 1960s.”

In this memoir, Varma documents rare cases that he experienced during his long service – which range from winning the trust of English officers to “taming” them or dealing with the hot-headed zamindars. The ones closest to his heart are where he tries to save fellow Indians as an officer of the British Empire.

It is difficult to suppress a chuckle when reading accounts of Indian officers who challenged their British superiors. When the deputy collector of Hardoi, Raj Bahadur Singh, was cornered as his writing was illegible, Singh announced he would go back to being a talukdar if dismissed. He pointed out that according to the custom then, the British officer would be obliged to pay the talukdar a visit. This angered the officer further and he abused Singh, who in turn beat him up with his shoes.

Varma’s writing style is understated but the content very perceptive. Having had the advantage of working with British officers at close quarters and at a time when Indians were a rarity in the civil service, he presents an objective view of the times. He steers clear of the Us vs Them divide, devoting a sizable chunk to praising the spirit of fairness of British officers he worked under. He narrates a couple of incidents to drive home the point – such as a rather rude English officer named JK Coghill apologising to Varma, and some others wholeheartedly supporting young Indian officers when they blundered.

The Indians needed to build a good rapport with English officers and once they were sure that they would not do anything prejudicial to His Majesty’s government it was a more or less smooth ride, he writes.

Often an Indian and British officer bonded if they did not get along with a certain other Indian or British officer. Once, in a clash between two Indian officers, the junior officer slapped his senior. The junior officer was transferred out. His new English boss asked him, “Is it a fact that you gave a beating to your Collector? I wish I could do the same to my Commissioner.”

The author recalls getting into trouble because he was ignorant about the etiquette of landowning zamindars. The zamindars would offer token money (silver coins known as nazar), and the officer had to nod and touch the money and later distribute it among the orderlies. During one of his postings, Varma and his wife were surprised to see “a large retinue of men carrying huge baskets on their heads” – a gift from the zamindar. When Varma politely refused to accept the gifts, the Rajput zamindar showed up at his door with the gifts and said that never before had he been so insulted and humiliated. He warned of a rebellion in the area as Varma had broken a 200-year-old tradition.

On his part, Varma tried to save his own people from the wrath of English officers whenever he found an occasion, especially when the movement to free India of colonial rule was gaining momentum.

Having watched the Quit India Movement – which was then called the “Congress Rebellion” – Varma writes that the disturbance was controlled in less than three weeks. The major leaders had been arrested, the processions lathi-charged or fired upon, and the saboteurs sent to jail.

He makes an interesting observation here, “I dare say, on the basis of what I saw and felt at the time, that the Quit India Movement lay soon in shambles, and if the British, if they so wished, could have continued to rule without much trouble. It was their weak economic and political position after the Second World War that forced them to grant Independence.”

188pp, ₹599; Speaking Tiger

The pangs of the Partition of India that the author experienced are captured in some detail. One such heart-wrenching account is of an 18-year-old Muslim married woman from the newly-created Pakistan, who sought refuge in India. A young Gujjar man took her home and married her in mid-1947. Later, in 1948, when a movement was launched for the recovery and restoration of women left behind in India and Pakistan, the woman’s husband came from Pakistan and applied for her production in Varma’s court.

“She stood in court with her two husbands on either side and a small baby about three months old in her arms… I then put it to her whether she wanted to go with her former husband, or stay with her current Gujjar husband. I recall vividly how her big moist eyes looked at one and then at the other helplessly,” Varma writes.

Varma recalls with a lot of fondness his association with former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and his friendship with legendary poet Josh Malihabadi. My favourite anecdote from the book is when Malihabadi recited poetry at a mushaira in the Red Fort in 1950 in the presence of Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. The couplets were “fiery and critical of the affairs of the government”, and to his horror, he was called to the Prime Minister’s house the next morning. Expecting the worst dressing down, Malihabadi met Nehru, who praised his poetry and asked him to recite the couplets once again for his daughter Indira.

Anupam Varma is pleased to have published the memoirs, something his grandfather would have patted his back for. However, he isn’t certain if his grandfather would have been equally pleased with his siblings or him for not cracking the civil service exam.

Varma, who died over 40 years ago, explained why he felt the urge to record his life’s experiences. “The rush and speed of modern civilisation is like an avalanche which is obliterating all pillars and pyramids of history…When the river rushes on, the mountain stays and remembers.” He has indeed done a great job of presenting a side of India that the contemporary reader encounters only in fictional accounts. Journeying with India is a recommended read.

Lamat R Hasan is an independent journalist. She lives in New Delhi

Read more news like this on HindustanTimes.com