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Literary Review
One heck of a book
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Batting for the Empire is so well researched that it damns Ranji almost beyond redemption, says KEKI N. DARUWALLA.
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THIS is one heck of a book. It changes lots of notions about the great Ranjitsinhji, legendary cricketer, Jam Saheb of Nawanagar, who, some of us thought, spent his life in modernising Jam Nagar. It is so damnably well researched that it damns Ranji beyond redemption. Almost. But the book is more than that. It gives a good idea of the politics of our princes during the Raj, how hard they strove against India's independence and how frightened they were of a democratic set up.
The political biography is preceded by a fine chapter on Ranji's cricketing career. We get some splendid quotes from the likes of Gilbert Jessop, "who wrecked the roofs of distant towns/ when set in an assault." And Jessop said of Ranji that he was "indisputably, the greatest genius who ever stepped on to a cricket field." W.G. Grace went one better: "I assure you that you will never see a batsman to beat the Jam Saheb if you live for a hundred years." Most memorable quotes are here, including the one about Ranji never having played a Christian stroke in his life. But apart from his fabled leg glance and the late cut, he was also a very powerful hitter of the ball especially in his later years when he had become burly. A story handed down by my father remains vivid with me. He was just out of school and was bowling to Ranji at the nets in probably the Bombay Gymkhana. There was a crowd (and hence confusion) at the bowler's end. As the straight drives cannonaded off Ranji's bat, father stopped bowling lest he get hurt! And my old man was no chicken — he faced Nissar comfortably on the fastest pitch in the world, the cement wicket at Chail.
It was not just Ranji's artistry but also his consistency. He scored 3000 runs in two successive seasons, 1899 and 1900. He hit two centuries on the same day. And he scored over a 1000 runs in a month twice in the same year. He was the first batsman to hit a hundred in one session of a test match, as he hit Ernest Jones's bouncers to the fence. That too on his debut at Old Trafford where he scored 154 against Australia. No other batsman could exceed 19 in that England innings.
But he was also a Raja who became a Chancellor of the Chamber of Princes. "He was also" as Mario Rodrigues puts it, "an imperial symbol and an icon of the empire... a statesman who represented his country at the League of Nations... and he waged a heroic, if futile battle to secure princely interests, which were aligned with that of the British Raj even as the battle for swaraj intensified on the subcontinent."
As a grandson of the Raja's cousin, he had to cultivate the British to lay claim to the Jam Nagar throne, which was granted to him in 1907. (His rival was the offspring of a Muslim wife and that damned him.) Jam Nagar then was 3791 square miles in area, had 400 villages, a population of 350,000 and an annual revenue of 21 lakhs.
In spending the money of his tax-paying subjects Ranji scored even more prolifically than on the cricket field, entertaining all and sundry. Reginald Reynolds in his White Sahibs in India put the "scorecard" of the Jam's expenses for visits by British dignitaries as follows: "50,000 pounds on Lord Sydenham, 80,000 on Lord Willingdon, 115,000 each on Sir George Lloyd and Lord Reading, 200,000 on Lord Irwin." No wonder he landed himself in perpetual debt. Fifty per cent of the state's budget was spent on himself. He was often in debt and ducked the bouncers of his creditors through his solicitors Redfern, Hunt and Co. and an indulgent British government. The Indian press, which accused him of "sucking the blood of his subjects", was so hostile to him both because of his spendthrift ways and because he was "one of the lodestars of imperial politics."
He was an absentee landlord, living more in England and running up debts, than in his native state. Along with the Maharaja of Gwalior, he was in the forefront, in welcoming the Prince of Wales to India in 1921. The country boycotted the visit. Princes toadied up to His Royal Highness. So did some Christians, Jews, and the inevitable Parsees (though to save the modern Bawaji's blushes, it can be said that Dadabhai Naoroji's wife led the agitators in Bombay). Foreign cloth was burnt and liquor shops (owned mostly by Daruwalas!) along with it. Tramcars were burnt as well and people beaten up. (The aunt of a close relative of mine was beaten up so badly by the rioters that Mrs. Naoroji called on her to commiserate, but was sent packing out of the room by the infuriated aunt!) Ranji's sycophantic speech at the Imperial Durbar held in the Diwan-I-Aam makes one squirm.
Ranji's contribution to Indian cricket was zero. He could easily have played for the Indian team that toured England under Maharaja Patiala in 1911, but didn't. Mario Roderigues has devoted an entire chapter called "Crumbs for Indian Cricket."
Like other princes, he could never think of a united or democratic India. There are some real nuggets in the book, Macaulay's opinion of Indian princes, for instance: "sunk in indolence and debauchery... chewing bang (bhang), fondling concubines and listening to buffoons." But in Ranji's defence one must say that he indulged in none of the above. And if he listened to buffoons, they were English buffoons or English rogues, like that Rushbrook Williams, who headed Indian intelligence, according to the author. Ranji was not like some other princes. (Lala Amarnath, while coaching us, told me and others at Chail, [1956] that Patiala asked for a woman even on his death bed!)
To defend Ranji further, one can only quote Auden. "Time that with this strange excuse/ Pardoned Kipling and his views/ And will pardon Paul Claudel/ pardons him for writing well." Time will pardon Ranji also for playing so brilliantly.
Batting for the Empire: A Political Biography of Ranjitsinhji, Mario Rodrigues, Penguin, p.277,<243> Rs. 299.
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