On the long flight back from Delhi I watched the film, 'Gandhi'. It seemed appropriate, as he had followed us around our tour from his birthplace at Porbander, via the museum in Mumbai, to his cremation in Delhi. He had often been referred to in lectures. But it was more being reminded of the circumstances around his death that struck me than his life - the inability of the Hindus and Muslims to reach agreement on governing together, partition between Pakistan and India, and the bloody slaughter of millions on both sides as Hindus uprooted from Pakistan and Muslims from India.
But not all Muslims left India. They today total circa 180m of India's 1.3b population and live side by side with the Hindus, but separately. The separate cultures seemed obvious as we travelled around and were emphasised even down to the different coloured lorries in Kochi. What a pity religion divides rather than unifies.
There surely cannot possibly be as many different gods as all the different religions suggest. If one is a believer, it would seem more likely that one's devotion is to the one same God, seen by all believers but in different ways. But our Golden Triangle tour guide, Kapil, said he had been brought up as a Hindu and, if his grandmother said there are 300 Hindu gods, that was good enough for him. I fear it seems likely that the cultural divide in the name of religion will tend to be an ever more divisive factor.
While we were in India we read of the Prime Minister, Narendra Modi's, clean-up campaign. He had his ministers out in the streets cleaning up the rubbish one sees everywhere. From what we saw, he has a mighty job on his hands!
He has an even more difficult job to introduce Indians to toilets. It has been reported since our return that Mr Modi has set up an army of inspectors to check that state-built lavatories around the country are being used for the purpose they were intended. The government has constructed more than half a million latrines in the past few months mainly in the poor rural interior. However, many have been converted for other uses such as storerooms and sheds, because many Indians prefer to defecate in the open. This is linked to Hindu beliefs about the source of pollution and impurity. Another daunting task for Mr Modi, as nearly half the Hindu population are without toilets.
Our cruise lecturer, Sir Roy Strong, recommended reading William Dalrymple on India and I've read one of his books since returning. A really good read, but I was disappointed to find a less than flattering picture of Shah Jahan, the broken-hearted builder of the Taj Mahal, as 'capable of bouts of cold-blooded brutality'. To come to power as emperor he had murdered two elder brothers, their two children and two male cousins. He treated his own children little better and ended up being imprisoned by one of his sons, who went on to seek out and murder his three brothers, before crowning himself emperor.
Perhaps a bright ray of hope to end on. We enter the 800th anniversary year of Magna Carta and the important clauses of justice for all are not only enshrined in British and U.S. legislation but also in India's. It may take another 200 years to the 1,000th anniversary to solve some of India's problems but, if they can ensure equal justice to Hindus, Muslims and others alike, there really would be hope.
Robert Cole
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