കൊച്ചിയിൽ നിന്ന് മാർപ്പാപ്പയ്ക്ക് ഒരാന

 പോർച്ചുഗൽ രാജാവിന് സമ്മാനം 

ആനയെയും കടലിനെയും നമുക്ക് മാത്രമല്ല, മാർപ്പാപ്പയ്ക്കും മടുക്കില്ല. അതിനാൽ, പോർച്ചുഗീസുകാർ കൊച്ചിയിൽ അധിനിവേശം നടത്തുകയും മാനുവൽ കോട്ട പണിയുകയും ചെയ്ത പുതുക്കത്തിൽ, 1512 ൽ, കൊച്ചി രാജാവ് ഉണ്ണിരാമൻ കോയിക്കൽ (ഭരണം 1503 -1537) പോർച്ചുഗീസ് രാജാവ് മാനുവൽ ഒന്നാമന് ഒരു ആനയെ കൊടുത്തു; രാജാവ് അത് ലിയോ പത്താമൻ മാർപ്പാപ്പയുടെ അഭിഷേകത്തിന് (1514) സമ്മാനമായി കൊടുത്തു. ഈ വെള്ളാനയുടെ  കഥയാണ്, വത്തിക്കാൻ ഗവേഷകൻ സിൽവിയോ ബേദിനി എഴുതിയ, 'മാർപ്പാപ്പയുടെ ആന' (Pope's Elephant, 2000). 

റാഫേൽ വരച്ച ഹന്നോ 

കൊച്ചിരാജാവ് ഇത് സമ്മാനമായി കൊടുത്തതോ അന്നത്തെ വൈസ്‌റോയ്‌ അഫോൻസോ ആൽബുക്കർക്കിനെക്കൊണ്ട് വാങ്ങിപ്പിച്ചതോ ആകാം എന്ന് പുസ്തകത്തിൽ ഊഹിക്കുന്നു. പേടിച്ചരണ്ട കൊച്ചി രാജാവ് വെറുതെ കൊടുത്തത്തതാകാനേ വഴിയുള്ളൂ. വാങ്ങിയതാണെന്ന് പറഞ്ഞ് ആൽബുക്കർക്ക്, പോർച്ചുഗൽ രാജാവിൽ നിന്ന് പണം വാങ്ങിയിരിക്കാം.

ഹന്നോ എന്ന് ചരിത്രത്തിൽ അറിയപ്പെടുന്ന ആനയെ ഇറ്റലിക്കാർ വിളിച്ചത്, 'അന്നോൻ' എന്നാണ്. രണ്ടു വാക്കും 'ആന' എന്ന വാക്കുമായി ബന്ധമുള്ളതാണ്. റോമിലെ പോർച്ചുഗീസ് സ്ഥാനപതി ത്രിസ്താവോ കുൻഹയ്ക്ക് ഒപ്പം റോമിലെത്തിയ ആന മാർപ്പാപ്പയുടെ ഓമനയായി വളർന്നു; രണ്ടു കൊല്ലം കഴിഞ്ഞ് മലബന്ധം വന്ന് ചെരിഞ്ഞു. മരിക്കുമ്പോൾ ആനയ്ക്ക് ഏഴു വയസ്സായിരുന്നു.

ആനയെ എത്തിച്ച സ്ഥാനപതി ത്രിസ്താവോ, 1504 ൽ ഇന്ത്യയിലെ ആദ്യ പോർച്ചുഗീസ് വൈസ്‌റോയ്‌ ആയി നിയമിതനായിരുന്നു എങ്കിലും, താൽക്കാലികമായി വന്ന അന്ധത കാരണം, സ്ഥാനമേറ്റില്ല. ആൽബുക്കർക്ക് അടുത്ത ബന്ധുവായിരുന്നു; 1529 ൽ ഇന്ത്യയിലെ ഒൻപതാമത്തെ പോർച്ചുഗീസ് ഗവർണർ നൂനോ കുൻഹ, ത്രിസ്താവോയുടെ മകനായിരുന്നു. 

ഉണ്ണിരാമൻ രാജാവ് സ്ഥാനമേൽക്കുന്നതിന് തൊട്ടു മുൻപ്, 1500 ലാണ് പോർച്ചുഗീസ് അഡ്‌മിറൽ പെദ്രോ അൽവാരെസ് കബ്രാൾ കോഴിക്കോട്ട് നിന്ന് പിൻവാങ്ങി കൊച്ചി തീരത്തെത്തിയത്. രാജാവ് അദ്ദേഹത്തെ സ്വാഗതം ചെയ്ത്, സാമൂതിരിക്കെതിരെ ഉടമ്പടിയുണ്ടാക്കി. കോട്ട പണിതു. കബ്രാൾ പോയപ്പോൾ, 30 പോർച്ചുഗീസുകാരും നാല് ഫ്രാൻസിസ്കൻ പാതിരിമാരും കൊച്ചിയിൽ തുടർന്നു. പോർച്ചുഗീസ് പിന്തുണ ഉറപ്പായപ്പോൾ, കൊച്ചി രാജാവ് ശത്രുവായ സാമൂതിരിക്കെതിരെ യുദ്ധം പ്രഖ്യാപിച്ചു. 1502 ൽ വാസ്കോ ഡ ഗാമ കൊച്ചിയിലെത്തി. 1503 സെപ്റ്റംബർ 27 ന് തടി കൊണ്ടുള്ള കോട്ടയ്ക്ക് കല്ലിട്ടു -ഇന്ത്യയിലെ ആദ്യ പോർച്ചുഗീസ് കോട്ട. ഇതൊക്കെയാണ്, ഒരാന കൊച്ചിയിൽ നിന്ന് കപ്പൽ കയറാനുള്ള പശ്ചാത്തലം.

37 വയസിൽ മാർപ്പാപ്പ 

കർദിനാൾ ജിയോവാനി മെഡിച്ചി, ലിയോ പത്താമൻ മാർപ്പാപ്പയാകാനുള്ള സാഹചര്യങ്ങൾ ബേദിനിയുടെ പുസ്തകത്തിലുണ്ട്. ടസ്കനിയിലെ മാടമ്പിയായ, പ്രബലമായ മെഡിച്ചി കുടുംബക്കാരനായ ലോറൻസോയുടെ രണ്ടാമത്തെ മകനായ ജിയോവാനി, മാർപ്പാപ്പയാകുന്നത് 37 വയസ്സിലാണ്. പുരോഹിതനല്ലാതെ മാർപ്പാപ്പയാകുന്ന അവസാനത്തെ ആൾ. ബന്ധുവായ മാർപ്പാപ്പ ഇന്നസെൻറ് എട്ടാമനോട് ശുപാർശ ചെയ്ത്, ലോറൻസോ മകനെ നേരിട്ട് 13 വയസിൽ ഡൊമിനിക്കയിലെ സാന്താമാരിയയിൽ  കർദിനാൾ ആക്കുകയായിരുന്നു. മൂന്ന് വർഷം കഴിഞ്ഞേ വേഷഭൂഷാദികൾ ധരിക്കാൻ അനുവാദമുണ്ടായിരുന്നുള്ളൂ. ജൂലിയസ് രണ്ടാമൻ മാർപ്പാപ്പ മരിച്ചപ്പോൾ, തിരുസംഘത്തിലെ യുവജനങ്ങളുടെ വോട്ടിലാണ് ജിയോവാനി പരമപദമേറിയത്.

ബേദിനിയുടെ പുസ്തകം 

ലിയോ പത്താമൻ 1517 ൽ അനന്തരവൻ ലോറൻസോയെ ഊർബിനോയിലെ ഡ്യൂക്ക് ആക്കാൻ വലിയ ചെലവ് വന്ന യുദ്ധം നടത്തി വത്തിക്കാനിലെ ഖജനാവ് കാലിയാക്കി. മാർട്ടിൻ ലൂഥറുടെ നേതൃത്വത്തിലെ പ്രൊട്ടസ്റ്റൻറ് നവോത്ഥാനത്തെ മാർപ്പാപ്പ എതിർത്തു. ലൂഥറെ പുറത്താക്കി പത്താം മാസമായിരുന്നു, മാർപ്പാപ്പയുടെ മരണം.

ആന പുറപ്പെടുന്നു 

ഹന്നോ ആന ലിസ്ബണിൽ നിന്ന് യാത്രയായത് ഒറ്റയ്ക്കല്ല; 42 മൃഗങ്ങൾ വേറെയുണ്ടായിരുന്നു. പുള്ളിപ്പുലി, കഴുതപ്പുലി, തത്തകൾ, ടർക്കി കോഴികൾ, അപൂർവയിനം ഇന്ത്യൻ കുതിരകൾ. 140 അംഗ പ്രതിനിധി സംഘം, റോമിലെത്തിയത് 1914 ഫെബ്രുവരിയിലാണ്. ഇന്ത്യയിൽ നിന്നുള്ള സമ്പത്ത് ഒഴുകുന്ന മിന്നുന്ന കാലത്ത് വിരാജിക്കുകയായിരുന്നു, മാനുവൽ രാജാവ്. ജനുവരി 18 ന് മാർപ്പാപ്പ, മാനുവലിന് ഒരു സന്ദേശം എത്തിച്ചിരുന്നു: പണമോ ഖ്യാതിയോ ആകരുത് ലക്ഷ്യം, മതം വളരണം. ഇതിൽ ആഹ്‌ളാദം പൂണ്ടാണ്, മാനുവൽ റോമിലേക്ക് സമ്മാന സഞ്ചയത്തെ യാത്രയാക്കിയത്. 

നെറ്റിപ്പട്ടവും അമ്പാരിയുമൊക്കെ പെട്ടികളിൽ അകമ്പടിയായി. 1514 മാർച്ച് 12 ന് റോമിലെ തെരുവുകളിൽ ആഘോഷമായ പ്രദക്ഷിണമുണ്ടായി. ആന പിന്നിൽ വഹിച്ച വെളിപ്പെട്ടിയിൽ, വജ്രവും മുത്തും ആഘോഷത്തിനായി കമ്മട്ടത്തിൽ അടിച്ച നാണയങ്ങളും ഉണ്ടായിരുന്നു. ആഞ്ചലോ കൊട്ടാരത്തിൽ, മാർപ്പാപ്പ, പ്രദക്ഷിണത്തെ വരവേറ്റു. മാർപ്പാപ്പയ്ക്ക് മുന്നിൽ, ഇവിടന്നു പോയ പാപ്പാൻ്റെ ആജ്ഞപ്രകാരം, ഹന്നോ മൂന്ന് തവണ തല കുനിച്ചു. ഒരു തൊട്ടിയിൽ നിന്ന് തുമ്പിക്കൈ കൊണ്ട് വെള്ളമെടുത്ത് ആന, കർദിനാൾമാരുടെയും  ജനക്കൂട്ടത്തിൻറെയും മുകളിലേക്ക് ചീറ്റി, കേരളത്തിൻ്റെ കൂടി ആശിസ്സുകൾ ചൊരിഞ്ഞു. 

ആനയെ ആദ്യം സൂക്ഷിച്ചത്, ബെൽവേദരെ നടുമുറ്റത്താണ്. അതിന് ശേഷം, സെൻറ് പീറ്റേഴ്‌സ് ബസിലിക്കയ്ക്കും മാർപ്പാപ്പയുടെ അരമനയ്ക്കുമിടയിൽ പുതുതായി പണിത താവളത്തിൽ പാർത്തു. ഈ സൗകര്യം ഒരു അൽമായനും കിട്ടിയിട്ടില്ല. ജനിക്കുകയാണെങ്കിൽ ആനയായി ജനിക്കണം എന്ന് ഏതു കത്തോലിക്കനും വിചാരിക്കുന്ന മുഹൂർത്തമായിരുന്നു, അത്.റോം അന്ന് ലോകത്തിലെ ക്രൈസ്തവ കേന്ദ്രം മാത്രമല്ല, റാഫേൽ, ഡാവിഞ്ചി, മൈക്കലാഞ്ചലോ എന്നീ ദൈവതുല്യരായ കലാകാരന്മാരുടെ ജീവിത കേന്ദ്രം കൂടിയായിരുന്നു. റാഫേൽ വരച്ച ഹന്നോയുടെ ചിത്രം നിലനിൽക്കുന്നു. ധാരാളം ചിത്രങ്ങളിലും ശിൽപങ്ങളിലും സ്ഥാനം പിടിച്ച ഹന്നോ സകല ആഘോഷത്തിലും തലയെടുപ്പോടെ നിന്നു. പ്രഭുവായ പാസ്കൽ മലാസ്പിന ആനക്കവിത എഴുതി. 

രണ്ടു കൊല്ലം കഴിഞ്ഞ് ആനയ്ക്ക് ദഹനക്കേട് ഉണ്ടായപ്പോൾ, സ്വർണം ചാലിച്ച ഒറ്റമൂലി കൊടുത്തു. 1516 ജൂൺ എട്ടിന് ആന ചെരിയുമ്പോൾ, മാർപ്പാപ്പ അടുത്തുണ്ടായിരുന്നു. അവനെ കോർട്ടിലെ ബെലവേദരെയിൽ അടക്കി. റാഫേൽ വരച്ച ആനയുടെ ചുമർ ചിത്രം കാലത്തെ അതിജീവിച്ചില്ല. എന്നാൽ, ലിയോ പത്താമൻ എഴുതിയ വിലാപഗീതം നശിച്ചില്ല. അത് ദേശീയ ഗജഗീതം ആകേണ്ടതാണ്.

നാടകകൃത്ത് പിയത്രോ അരാട്ടിനോ, ആനയെ കേന്ദ്ര കഥാപാത്രമാക്കി, 'ഹന്നോയുടെ ഒസ്യത്ത്' എന്ന പേരിലെഴുതിയ ഹാസ്യകൃതിയിൽ, മാർപ്പാപ്പയെയും രാഷ്ട്രീയ നേതാക്കളെയും വിമർശിച്ചു. മാർപ്പാപ്പ അയാളുടെ ശിരച്ഛേദം  നടത്താതെ, സ്വന്തം സർവീസിൽ ജോലി കൊടുത്തുവെന്നത്, കേരളത്തിലെ മാർക്സിസ്റ്റുകൾക്ക് പാഠമാകേണ്ടതാണ്.

സരമാഗോയുടെ നോവൽ 

ആനയുമായി റോമിലെത്തിയ പോർച്ചുഗീസ് സംഘം, 1515 ഏപ്രിൽ 29 ആയപ്പോൾ, പാപ്പരായി. അവർക്ക് വേണ്ടി, മാർപ്പാപ്പ മാനുവൽ രാജാവിന് ഒരു കൽപ്പന ഉഗ്രൻ സമ്മാനങ്ങൾ സഹിതം, അയച്ചു. ഒരു കപ്പൽ നിറയെ സുഗന്ധ വ്യഞ്ജനങ്ങൾ രാജാവ് തിരിച്ചു സമ്മാനമായി നൽകി. 

ഇതിന് പിന്നാലെ, മാനുവൽ രാജാവിന്,  ഗുജറാത്തിലെ സുൽത്താൻ മുസഫർ ഷാ രണ്ടാമൻ ഒരു കാണ്ടാമൃഗത്തെ അയച്ചു കൊടുത്തു. അതുമായി പോയ കപ്പൽ, ജനോവയിൽ 1516 ഫെബ്രുവരി ആദ്യം അപകടത്തിൽ പെട്ടു. ഇതിനെ ആധാരമാക്കിയാണ്, ആൽബ്രെഷ്റ്റ് ഡൂറർ, റൈനോസെറോസ് എന്ന ചിത്ര പരമ്പര മരത്തിൽ ചെയ്തത്. കാണ്ടാമൃഗം ചത്തതിനാൽ, മാനുവൽ രാജാവിന് തൊലിക്കട്ടിയിൽ മത്സരിക്കേണ്ടി വന്നില്ല.

പോർച്ചുഗലിന് ഒരു ഇന്ത്യൻ ആനക്കഥ കൂടിയുണ്ട് -ജൊവാവോ മൂന്നാമൻ രാജാവ് 1555 ൽ ആർച്ച് ഡ്യൂക് മാക്സിമില്യന് കൊടുത്ത വിവാഹ സമ്മാനം സോളമൻ അഥവാ സുലൈമാൻ എന്ന ആനയെ ആയിരുന്നു. പേരിൽ മതമൈത്രിയുണ്ട്. ഇതിൻ്റെ ലിസ്ബണിൽ നിന്ന് വിയന്നയിലേക്കുള്ള യാത്രയാണ്, കേരളത്തിൽ അറിയപ്പെടുന്ന പോർച്ചുഗീസ് നോവലിസ്റ്റ് ഹോസെ സരമാഗുവിൻ്റെ The Elephant's Journey എന്ന നോവലിലെ വിഷയം. ഇതിൽ പാപ്പാന് പേരുണ്ട് -സുബ്‌റോ. ഹന്നോയുടെ പാപ്പാന് പേരില്ല. പാവം പാപ്പാൻ്റെ ജീവിതം കൊലച്ചോറാണ്.  

© Ramachandran 

AN ELEPHANT TO THE POPE FROM KOCHI

Kochi king gifted it to Portugal

An elephant was shipped to Portugal from the Raja of Cochin, Unni Rama Koyil, in 1512, and it was gifted by King Manuel I of Portugal to Pope Leo X (1514-1521) at his coronation. This fascinating story appears in the book, Pope’s Elephant (2000) by Silvio A. Bedini. The white elephant, called Hanno (c. 1510 – 1516), came to Rome with the Portuguese ambassador Tristão da Cunha and became the pet of the Pope. It died two years later from complications of treatment for constipation with a gold-enriched laxative. Italians called the elephant, Annone.

Cunha was nominated as the first viceroy of Portuguese India in 1504, but could not take up this post owing to temporary blindness. Afonso de Albuquerque, later viceroy, was his cousin. Cunha's son Nuno da Cunha was the 9th Governor of Portuguese India in 1529.

Hanno, sketch by Raphael

Unni Rama Koyil, the king of Cochin from 1503 to 1537, saw the Portuguese embarking on its shores, and conquering the land. Just prior to him, Cochin was the scene of the first European settlement in India. In the year 1500, the Portuguese Admiral Pedro Álvares Cabral landed at Cochin after being repelled from Calicut. The Raja of Cochin welcomed the Portuguese, a treaty of friendship was signed and the Raja allowed them to build a factory at Cochin, and upon Cabral's departure, Cochin allowed thirty Portuguese and four Franciscan friars to stay in the kingdom. Assured of Portuguese support, the Raja declared war on the Zamorin of Calicut. 

In 1502, a new expedition under the command of Vasco da Gama arrived at Cochin, and the friendship was renewed. After securing the throne for the Raja of Cochin, the Portuguese got permission to build Fort Emmanuel at Fort Kochi, named after the king of Portugal. Surrounding the Portuguese factory, to protect it from any further attacks from Calicut, the foundations of a timber fort was laid on 27 September 1503- the first fort erected by the Portuguese in India. 

Leo's rise as Pope

Bedini's fascinating glimpse at a forgotten sidenote to history gives us an elephant's-back view of early modern Europe and the inner workings of the Vatican at the height of its influence. A Vatican scholar and the author of numerous books,  Bedini is Historian Emeritus at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., where he has worked for many years as Deputy Director of the National Museum of History and as Keeper of the Rare Books. While engaged in research in the Vatican museum and archives, he heard that once upon a time an elephant lived at the Vatican. Casual remarks, strange coincidences and a lot of research yielded the exotic story. 

The book also gives curious details of the election of Cardinal Giovani De’ Medici, son of Lorenzo the Magnificent of Florence, the de facto ruler of Tuscany, as Pope, Leo the Tenth, at the young age of 37. His father prevailed on his relative Pope Innocent VIII to name him Cardinal of Santa Maria in Domnica on 9 March 1489 when he was age 13, (1) although he was not allowed to wear the insignia or share in the deliberations of the college until three years later. He was the last non-priest to be elected Pope. (2)

Born into the prominent political and banking Medici family of Florence, Giovanni was the second son of Lorenzo, ruler of the Florentine Republic. His father was worried about his character early on and wrote a letter to Giovanni to warn him to avoid vice and luxury at the beginning of his ecclesiastical career. Giovanni was elevated to the cardinalate in 1489. Following the death of Pope Julius II, Giovanni was elected Pope after securing the backing of the younger members of the Sacred College.

In 1517, the Pope led a costly war that succeeded in securing his nephew Lorenzo di Piero de' Medici as Duke of Urbino but reduced papal finances. In Protestant circles, Pope Leo is associated with granting indulgences for those who donated to reconstruct St. Peter's Basilica, a practice that was soon challenged by Martin Luther's 95 Theses. Pope rejected the Protestant Reformation, and his Papal bull of 1520, Exsurge Domine, condemned Luther's stance, rendering ongoing communication difficult. Pope Leo's death came just 10 months after he had excommunicated Luther.

Hanno's journey

According to the book, King Manuel had either received Hanno as a gift from the Raja of Cochin or had asked Afonso de Albuquerque, his viceroy in India, to purchase him. At that time, in Portugal, King Manuel was basking in the glory of the victorious explorations to the East, including that of Vasco da Gama, to Kozhikode. He dented the Islamic monopoly of the spice trade and religious conversions to Islam. As the riches flowed in from Malabar to Portugal, the Pope communicated in a letter on January 18, 1514, to Manuel acknowledging that ''the Portuguese motive for conquest was not ambition, nor the acquisition of territory and extension of his lands, but the sincere desire to propagate the Law and the knowledge of the faith in those regions.''  

The zeal of the Pope to convert Hindus in Kerala made Manuel happy, and he sent a delegation with magnificent Gifts to Rome 'on a mission of obedience', as was the tradition. Thus, the journey of the Kochi elephant began. The chief delegates accompanied the elephant with his caparisons and paraphernalia packed in trunks.

Hanno and his mahout, 1575, Angers museum

Hanno arrived by ship from Lisbon to Rome, aged about four years. The huge, luxurious embassy of 140 persons made its way through Alicante and Majorca, arriving on the outskirts of Rome in February. They walked the streets of Rome on March 12, 1514, in an extravagant procession of exotic wildlife and wealth of the Indies, with many dressed in "Indian style". Apart from Hanno, the procession featured 42 other beasts, including two leopards, a panther, some parrots, turkeys and rare Indian horses. Hanno carried a platform of silver on its back, shaped like a castle containing a safe with royal gifts, including vests embroidered with pearls and gems, and coins of gold minted for the occasion. The Pope received the procession in the Castel Sant'Angelo. The elephant knelt down thrice in reverence and then, following a wave of his Indian mahout, used its trunk to suck water from a bucket and sprayed it over the crowd and the Cardinals.

Hanno was kept initially in an enclosure in the Belvedere courtyard, then moved to a specially constructed building between St. Peter's Basilica and the Apostolic Palace, near the Borgo Sant'Angelo, a road in the rione of Borgo.

Raphael's portrait of Leo

In 1514, Rome was the centre of the Christian world and the home and workshop of Raphael, Leonardo, and Michelangelo. Pope Leo X was a pleasure-loving pontiff whose court was infamous for its excess, frivolity and impropriety. Hanno became a star in processions and festivals, and the subject of countless paintings, sculptures and fountains.

Hanno in history

Hanno's arrival was commemorated in poetry and art. Italian nobleman Pasquale Malaspina wrote:

In the Belvedere before the great Pastor
Was conducted the trained elephant
Dancing with such grace and such love
That hardly better would a man have danced:
And then with its trunk such a great noise
It made, that the entire place deafened:
And stretching itself on the ground to kneel
It then straightened up in reverence to the Pope,
And to his entourage.

Hanno became a darling of Renaissance Europe. Two years after, he fell ill suddenly, was given a purgative, and died on 8 June 1516, with the pope at his side. Hanno was interred in the Cortile del Belvedere at the age of seven.

Raphael, the great artist, designed a memorial fresco, but it does not survive. The Pope himself composed the epitaph:

Under this great hill, I lie buried
A mighty elephant which the King Manuel
Having conquered the Orient
Sent as a captive to Pope Leo X.
At which the Roman people marvelled, 
A beast not seen for a long time,
And in my brutish breast, they perceived human feelings.
Fate envied me my residence in the blessed Latium
And had not the patience to let me serve my master a full three years.
But I wish, oh gods, that the time which Nature would have assigned to me,
and Destiny stole away,
You will add to the life of the great Leo.

He lived seven years
He died of angina
He measured twelve palms in height.
Giovanni Battista Branconio dell'Aquila
Privy chamberlain to the pope
And provost of the custody of the elephant,
Has erected this in 1516, the 8th of June,
In the fourth year of the pontificate of Leo X.
That which Nature has stolen away
Raphael of Urbino with his art has restored.

Italian playwright and blackmailer Pietro Aretino wrote a satirical pamphlet, The Last Will and Testament of the Elephant Hanno. It mocked the political and religious figures of Rome at the time, including the Pope. The successful pamphlet established him as a famous satirist, ultimately known as "the Scourge of Princes". Hanno's story is told at length in Bedini's book. According to American historian Robert Greene, it earned Aretino a post in the papal service.

By 29 April 1515, the Portuguese had depleted their funds, but they sought a bull signed by the pope, who sent back rich gifts to King Manuel. The king responded with a ship full of spices and, later, an Indian rhinoceros sent to him from the Sultan Muzaffar Shah II of Gujarat. The boat that transported it was wrecked off Genoa on early February 1516, and the rhinoceros was portrayed by Albrecht Dürer in his very famous Rhinoceros woodcuts in June 1516, after sketches of it travelled to Nuremberg. 

Four sketches of Hanno, done in life with red chalk, survive in the collection of the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford.

The elephant stories of Portugal don't end here-In 1551, King João III of Portugal gave Archduke Maximilian an unusual wedding present: an elephant named Solomon or Suleiman. This elephant's journey from Lisbon to Vienna was witnessed and remarked upon by scholars, historians, and ordinary people. Out of this incident, Nobel-winner José Saramago has spun a novel, The Elephant's Journey.

Solomon and his keeper, Subhro, begin in dismal conditions, forgotten in a corner of the palace grounds. When it occurs to the king and queen that an elephant would be an appropriate wedding gift, everyone rushes to get them ready: Subhro is given two new suits of clothes and Solomon a long overdue scrub. They cross the border into Spain at Castelo Rodrigo and meet the Archduke at Valladolid.

Accompanied by the Archduke, his new wife, the royal guard, Soloman and Subhro cross a continent riven by the Reformation and civil wars. They make their way through the storied cities of northern Italy: Genoa, Piacenza, Mantua, Verona, Venice, and Trento, where the Council of Trent is in session. They brave the Alps and the terrifying Isarco and Brenner Passes; they sail from Rosas across the Mediterranean Sea and later up the Inn River. At last, they make their grand entry into the imperial city. The mahout's name, Subhro makes it clear that it was an Indian elephant.

_______________________

1. Williams, George L. (1998). Papal Genealogy: The Families and Descendants of the Popes. McFarland Inc.

2. Löffler, Klemens (1910). "Pope Leo X". In Herbermann, Charles (ed.). Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 9. New York: Robert Appleton Company.

© Ramachandran 

INDIA OPPOSES CHINA'S BRI AT SCO SUMMIT

India also opposes the strategy for 2030

The recent 23rd Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit, virtually hosted by India, discussed some key issues including regional security, economic connectivity and trade. It also saw the inclusion of Iran as a new member and opened the chapter for Belarus’ membership. While Belarus and Mongolia were invited as observer states, Turkmenistan was invited as the guest of the chair.

The summit was joined by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Chinese President Xi Jinping, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, and leaders from four central Asian countries.

The theme of India’s SCO presidency is “SECURE,” which stands for security, economic development, connectivity, unity, respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity, and environmental protection.

New Delhi declaration

The summit issued a joint communique New Delhi Declaration, along with two separate joint statements, one on “cooperation in countering radicalisation leading to separatism, extremism, terrorism,” and the other on “digital transformation.” The Heads of State Council approved the SCO Economic Development Strategy for 2030.

Leaders decided to forge closer ties within the expanding Eurasian bloc but stressed the group is not directed against any other states.

The joint declaration said SCO members oppose bloc, ideological and confrontational approaches to address problems and security challenges. Without referring to NATO’s expansion and Western military assistance to Ukraine, the leaders were critical of the negative impact of “unilateral and unlimited expansion of global missile defence systems by certain countries or groups of countries.”

It called for an inclusive government in Afghanistan with the participation of representatives of all ethnic, religious and political groups in Afghan society.

The SCO Heads of State Council approved the Concept of Cooperation between the member states to decarbonise transport and promote digital transformation and innovative technologies to achieve greater efficiency and sustainability.

It also adopted decisions on the Regulation of the Executive Committee of the SCO Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure and the signing of a Memorandum between the SCO Secretariat and the United Nations Environment Programme.

With the inclusion of Iran, PM Modi proposed an increase in the use of Chabahar Port, located in southeastern Iran, on the Gulf of Oman, for trade and other economic activities. India feels that the International North-South Transport Corridor can serve as a secure and efficient route for landlocked countries in Central Asia to access the Indian Ocean.

Modi said that India would be delighted to share India's AI-based language platform Bhashini with everyone to remove language barriers within SCO.

Referring to Pakistan, Modi said, "Some countries use cross-border terrorism as an instrument of their policies and provide shelter to terrorists. SCO should not hesitate to criticize such nations. There should be no place for double standards on such serious matters."

In an attempt to corner India, Pakistan PM Shehbaz Sharif said, "There can be no justification for the killing of innocent people, regardless of the cause or pretext. Similarly, religious minorities should never be demonized in the pursuit of domestic political agendas."

Sharif's statement comes at a time when there are reports of Pakistan persecuting minorities.

In May, Pakistan Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari visited India to attend a key multilateral meeting of the SCO in Goa, and he was the first Pakistan foreign minister to visit India since 2011.

President Xi warned against attempts to foment a new 'Cold War’. He highlighted the significance of upholding multilateralism. He called upon the leaders of Russia, Iran, and other member states to resist sanctions.

My article 

In his first international meeting since the Wagner mutiny, Russian President Vladimir Putin asserted that sanctions imposed by US-led Western countries are making Russia stronger. He told the summit that Russia would stand up against Western pressure, sanctions and "provocations". Russia views countries such as China, India and Iran as key partners in confronting the United States and resisting what it portrays as U.S. attempts to dictate the world order.

Spat over BRI

India, which holds the presidency of SCO and the G20 this year, is walking a diplomatic tightrope as relations between the West and a Russia-China partnership have been fraught due to the Ukraine war, and Beijing's growing clout in global geopolitics.

At the summit, all members except India supported China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) which rebuilt the old Silk Road to connect China with Asia, Europe and beyond. Also, India did not sign the SCO Development Strategy for 2030, because the document "had too many Chinese catchphrases."

The New Delhi Declaration included a paragraph reaffirming support for China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), which India refused to sign. Earlier too, India had declined to sign the paragraph during the Samarkand declaration in 2022.

India also raised the connectivity issue. "Strong connectivity is crucial for the progress of any region. Better connectivity not only enhances mutual trade but also fosters mutual trust. However, in these efforts, it is essential to uphold the basic principles of the SCO charter, particularly respecting the sovereignty and regional integrity of the Member States," Modi said.

All SCO members, barring India and Russia, are part of BRI, which India objects to, since a major part of its project in Pakistan runs through the Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir (PoK), called the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).

On Modi referring to the BRI, Foreign Secretary Vinay Kwatra said, "The references to sovereignty and territorial integrity came both in the context of the SCO charter and also in the context of the connectivity projects.”

However, Xi Jinping defended BRI and said, "China will hold the third 'Belt and Road' International Cooperation Summit Forum. All parties are welcome to participate in the activities of the forum and jointly pave the road to happiness that benefits the world."

Commenting on CPEC, Sharif said, "The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, a flagship project of the BRI, can be a force multiplier not only for regional connectivity but also for regional stability, peace and prosperity."

Against the West

China’s focus at the summit, however, was the West, as was that of Russia, and India’s protest over BRI is not a worrying factor.

Hence, Xi said, “We uphold international fairness and justice, oppose hegemonic and bullying practices, expand the "circle of friends" of the organization, and build a partnership of dialogue rather than confrontation and partnership rather than alliance, strengthening the progressive force for maintaining world peace and stability.”

Both Xi and Putin pushed for switching to a system under which foreign trade could be settled in local currencies, a move that helps get around the use of the U.S. dollar, especially in the aftermath of sanctions following the Ukraine war.

India has refused to blame Russia for the war and has lifted bilateral trade largely by purchases of Russian oil to a record high, irking the West.

In his briefing, the Indian Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Arindam Bagchi said, "The Russian president spoke of rumble-yuan exchange. We have also been supporting trading in national currencies."

Both Xi and Putin are expected to visit New Delhi in September as India hosts the G20 summit, and U. S. President Joe Biden and leaders of other member nations are also likely to be present.

The SCO summit took place barely two weeks after Modi was hosted by President Biden during a state visit, and the two countries called themselves "among the closest partners in the world".

And, China has repeatedly cautioned India, not to fall into the American trap. India is well aware that China is driving the relationship between India and the U.S. It is the only reason why Washington feted Modi. Hence, India would never throw its full weight behind Biden, if the China-U. S. confrontation escalates into a stand-off. India is just seeking to leverage its warming ties with the U.S. to its advantage. For India, camaraderie with China is precious, as a neighbour and both are civilizational nations.

Edited article in China-India Dialogue : 

http://chinaindiadialogue.com/expanding-the-sco-fostering-cooperation-and-connectivity

NEHRU AS A PRO-SOVIET COMMUNIST CRONY

He was fascinated by the revolution

It is well known that Jawaharlal Nehru, India's first Prime Minister wore a political red hat. S Gopal, in his biography of Nehru, has described how Nehru was pressurised by the Soviet communist leader Leonid Brezhnev to withdraw his resignation, following the failed adventure with China in 1962. Nehru had gone to the Himalayas, seeking peace, when Brezhnev intervened.

But Nehru's tryst with the Bolsheviks dates back to 1927 when he visited Moscow for the first time.

Announcing the arrival of Nehru, on November 5, 1927, Pravda, the communist Daily of the Soviet Union, said: "Pandit Motilal Nehru, one of the outstanding leaders of the Indian National Movement is expected here, today or tomorrow. He will come to Moscow with his son Jawaharlal Nehru, leader of the left wing of the National Congress." (1)

Pravda, the central organ of the Bolshevik Party, in the same issue, reported how invitations to Indian democrats had been sent and the reaction of the British colonial authorities to them. In a special article devoted to India, Pravda said that the invitations had been dispatched in good time to Indian political organisations like the Workers’ and Peasants’ Parties of Bengal, Bombay, Madras and Rajputana. These invitations had been intercepted by the British Government. (2)

Nehru at Brussels, 1927

Invitations were also sent to prominent politicians and public leaders and leaders of the national liberation movement. The delivery of telegrams with these individual invitations had been allowed by the British censor. Published in the Indian press, they caused a “sensation”. But as soon as some of the invitees expressed their desire to avail themselves of the invitations, Pravda said, the British Government refused them exit visas.

And yet, in spite of the prohibitory orders of the British colonialists, a few more Indians, besides Jawaharlal and Motilal, managed to reach Moscow. There were three members of the Anti-Imperialist League, and the well-known Indian revolutionary, S J Saklatwala, who had arrived in the Soviet Union a few days earlier than Nehru and who, according to Nehru, was at the Moscow station to meet him. Virendranath Chattopadhyaya, the revolutionary brother of Sarojini Naidu, was there from Germany.

Shapurji Dorabji Saklatvala (1874 – 1936) was a communist and British politician of Indian Parsi heritage. He was the first person of Indian heritage to become a British Member of Parliament (MP) for the UK Labour Party and was also among the few members of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) to serve as an MP.

On arrival in Moscow, the Nehrus were greeted by officials of the reception committee and Saklatwala, whom Jawaharlal had met in Brussels, during the Congress of Oppressed Nationalities or the International Congress against Colonial Oppression and Imperialism.

In March 1926, Nehru sailed from Bombay with his wife Kamala and daughter Indira to Geneva, where Kamala was admitted for treatment, at a TB sanatorium in Montana. From his vantage point in Switzerland, Nehru "began to see the limitations of a purely political approach" to India's problems; a brand-new constitution alone could not carry India far without those social and economic changes which had been arrested by the natural conservatism of a foreign bureaucracy and its anxiety not to antagonize vested interests. Stimulated by his left-oriented son, Motilal began to show a keener appreciation of the economic factor in Indian politics. (3)

Motilal wrote to Nehru on January 27, 1927: "The present controversy on the current currency question has revealed the fact that many hundreds of crores (of rupees) have been taken out of the country by the simple process of manipulating the exchange and adjusting the tariff to suit the British manufacturer and merchant." (4)

In Brussels

Nehru attended the Soviet-sponsored Congress of Oppressed Nationalities in Brussels on February 10, 1927. At his suggestion, the Gauhati Congress in December 1926 decided to participate in the Brussels Conference and nominated him as a delegate. Jawaharlal wrote to S Srinivasa Iyengar, the Congress President, to ask whether he might define the political goal of the Congress as independence. Motilal wrote back: "We ask for Swaraj and you can interpret it to mean independence, as indeed it is." (5)

The Indian National Congress was determining its position towards international problems against the background of a grim struggle being waged by the anti-imperialist forces headed by the Soviet Union against the forces of reaction. (6) The Hunter Commission, which officially investigated the events which led to the Jallianwala Bagh massacre in 1919, had even picturised the Satyagraha movement headed by Gandhi as a “Conspiracy originated or supported from outside”. This absurd assertion served only as a pretext for pointing at the “Bolshevik intrigues”. From the documents of the sixth volume of the Hunter Commission, one can see an obvious fear of penetration into India of Bolshevik ideas. This fear determined much of the policy of the colonialists.

The organization was founded with the support of the Comintern. Since 1924, the Comintern advocated support of colonial and semi-colonial countries and tried, with difficulties, to find convergences with the left-wing of the Labour and Socialist International and with bourgeois anti-colonial nationalist parties from the colonized world. Another stimulus to create cross-political cooperation was the revolutionary surge in China since 1923 in which the nationalist Kuomintang was in a united front with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

Toying the Soviet line, Nehru attacked Britain at the Brussels Conference and described the early history of British rule in India as "an epoch of predatory war-a period in which freebooters prowled about and committed plunders and robberies in an unbridled manner." He used communist jargon and accused British imperialism of encouraging India's communal divisions, uprooting her educational system and undermining her economy." (7)

He was hopeful that the liberation of his homeland would lead to the liberation of Asia and Africa. There was nothing Gandhian in the resolution on India, drafted and moved by him, which resonated with the communist dependence on the proletariat: "This Congress accords its warm support to the Indian National Movement for the complete freedom of India, and is of the opinion that the liberation of India from foreign domination is an essential step in the full emancipation of the peoples of the world. This Congress trusts that peoples and workers of other countries will fully cooperate in this task; this Congress further trusts that the Indian National Movement will base its programme on the full emancipation of the peasants and workers of India, without which there can be no real freedom". (8)

It has all the nuances of a communist communique.

During and after the Conference, Nehru took a keen interest in mobilizing public opinion against the despatch of British troops to China. In a joint resolution of the British, Indian (read Nehru) and Chinese delegates, the Congress of Oppressed Nationalities demanded the immediate withdrawal of all foreign troops from Chinese territory and waters and urged ''the need of direct action, including strikes and imposition of the embargo to prevent the movement of munitions and troops either in India or China and from India to China." (9)

The Brussels Conference was funded by the Mexican Government, which resented US intervention in Latin America, and by the Kuomintang, the Chinese Nationalist Party, which resented British intervention in China. The Soviet Government was quick to see the propaganda value of the conference, and Marxist phrases were bandied about freely in communiques. (10)

George Lansbury, the British Labour leader presided over the conference and was also elected President of the League Against Imperialism, the permanent organization to which the conference gave birth. Jawaharlal was elected to the nine-member executive committee of the League, which included Madam Sun Yat-Sen.

The inclusion of the word 'league' in the organization's name was a direct attack on the League of Nations, which perpetuated colonialism through the mandate system.

Gandhi not impressed

In his reports to India, Nehru recommended that the Indian National Congress should maintain links with the League Against Imperialism. Gandhi was not impressed. Gandhi wrote to Motilal on May 14, 1927: "I read the public printed report of the (Brussels Conference) from beginning to end and I have now read the confidential report. Both are worthy of Jawaharlal. I appreciate the view he presents about foreign propaganda. But somehow or other, I still feel that our way lies differently. I feel that we will not get the support of Europe beyond a certain point, because after all most of the European states are partners in our exploitation. And if my proposition is correct, we shall not retain European sympathy during the final heat of the struggle." (11)

Gandhi, in a note to Nehru, warned against reliance upon external support. Nehru was in touch with the Indian revolutionaries based in Germany. On April 23, 1927, Nehru wrote back to Gandhi: "I do not think it is desirable, nor indeed is it possible for India to plough a lonely furrow now or in the future. It is solely with a view to self-education and self-improvement that I desire external contacts. I am afraid we are terribly narrow in our outlook and the sooner we get rid of this narrowness, the better. " (12)

Gandhi's thinking, to Nehru, was very narrow. Before long, the League Against Imperialism branded Gandhi as a 'reactionary'. (13) When in November 1929, Gandhi and the Congress welcomed Lord Irwin's declaration on Dominion status for India, the League Against Imperialism hurled abuse in stereo-typed Marxist phrases at Gandhi and the Congress: "Chronic reformism", the betrayal of the cause of workers and peasants." (14) This came just before the launch of the civil disobedience movement. Nehru had no other option than to leave the League in April 1930. 

In India, some revolution-minded Indian patriots gained inspiration from Gorky’s fiction and publicist works. 

From the early days of the October Revolution, Nehru closely followed the socialist transformations in Soviet Russia, studied her experience, and strove to use it in the interests of the freedom movement in India. Nehru studied the works of Marx and Lenin which, by his own admission, substantially influenced his views on the ways and laws of global social development. In doing so, as Nehru pointed out in one of his articles, he was deeply impressed in those years by Lenin’s work, Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism, and the book written by the American journalist, John Reed, Ten Days That Shook the World. (15)

Later, Nehru wrote about that period: “We began a new phase in our struggle for freedom in India at about the same time as the October Revolution led by the great Lenin. We admired Lenin whose example influenced us greatly.”

In Moscow

So, Nehru was elated when he, together with his father Motilal Nehru, was invited by the USSR Society for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries to attend the celebrations of the Tenth Anniversary of the October Revolution. On November 7, 1927, Jawaharlal Nehru together with his father, wife and sister set his foot on Soviet soil for the first time.

In September 1927, Motilal was on a vacation in Europe and in October, he was in Berlin. At Jawaharlal's suggestion, it was decided to attend the tenth-anniversary celebrations of the Russian Revolution. They travelled 28 hours from Berlin on an uncomfortable train to reach the small town of Niegerloje, on the Polish-Russian border. 

The Nehrus arrived a day too late to witness the parade in Red Square but spent four hectic days in Moscow. 

The Soviet press gave much coverage to the visit of the Nehrus. On the eve of their arrival, Pravda published their biographies. The newspaper described them as the most prominent leaders of the Indian national liberation movement. Pravda also gave an account of the activities of Nehru in his capacity as an official representative of the Indian National Congress at the first conference of the Anti-imperialist League, held in Brussels. During the stay of the Nehrus in Moscow, the Soviet media reported the meetings they had and the speeches they made.

Nehru was received in the Kremlin by Mikhail Kalinin, Chairman of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR. Nehru visited several factories and plants, attended Moscow court proceedings, went to the Museum of the October Revolution, and the Bolshoi Theatre, and saw V. Pudovkin’s film, “The End of Saint-Petersburg”.

On November 8, Nehru took part in a festive meeting devoted to the Tenth Anniversary of the October Revolution, held in the Trade Union House. Professor Vladimir Balabushevich, a famous Indologist reminisced later: “Nehru was a little late for the meeting. Nevertheless, when Nehru and his father, Motilal, made their appearance in the hall and were introduced to the audience by the Chairman of the meeting, all those present in the hall rose and gave them a warm welcoming ovation. Already at that time, Nehru was regarded as an outstanding fighter against imperialism and colonialism.”  (16)

Besides calling on Mikhail Kalinin, Nehru met A. Lunacharsky, the First Commissar of Education, V. Kuibyshev, Chairman of the Supreme National Economic Council, the Health Minister Semashko, the French writer Henri Barbusse and the German internationalist Clara Zetkin, Sun Yat-sen’s widow Soong Ching-ling, and the Mexican writer Diego Rivera.

Nehru described later all these meetings and impressions on returning to India in his detailed articles on the Soviet Union, which came out shortly after. Most of the articles appeared in the Hindu, and only one in Gandhi's Young India. The articles were published later as a book, Soviet Russia: Some Random Sketches and Impressions (1929). 

In the foreword of the book Nehru admits that he is publishing it as a book with "considerable hesitation." "I realise," he writes, "more perhaps than the average reader, their deficiencies and how disjointed and sketch they are." He confesses that some of them were written on trains.

Nehru was impressed by what he saw and felt like a juvenile communist that India could learn much from the Soviets in shaking off the feudal past. He noted that in Moscow the contrast between luxury and poverty was less glaring than in the big towns of India and Western Europe (17) and that high officials in Moscow didn't live lavishly; that the State Opera House was patronized not only by the upper class but also by the commoners; that literacy was increasing fast; that the legal and economic status of women had risen; that conditions in prisons had improved.

He was astonished to see M. Kalinin, President of Soviet Russia, wearing peasant clothes and receiving a salary that was nearly the same as that paid to his subordinates.

While showering praise on the "transformation" in the Soviet Union, he laments the situation in India, thus: "We are a conservative people, not over-fond of change, always trying to forget our present misery and degradation in vague fancies of our glorious past and an immortal civilisation. But the past is dead and gone and our immortal civilisation does not help us greatly in solving the problems of today." (18)

Nehru in Moscow, 1955

So what is the way out? Nehru hints at a revolution: "If we desire to find a solution for these problems, we shall have to venture forth along new avenues of thought and search for new methods. The world changes and the truths of yesterday and the day before may be singularly inapplicable today." (19)

Nehru then proposes for India, the Russian model: "Russia thus interests us because it may help us to find some solution for the great problems which face the world today. It interests us especially because, conditions there have not been, and are even not now very dissimilar to conditions in India. Both are vast agricultural countries with only the beginnings of industrialisation, and both have to face poverty and illiteracy. If Russia finds a satisfactory solution for these, our work in India is made easier." (20)

He also extols the October Revolution as "one of the great events of world history, the greatest since the French revolution, and its story is more absorbing from the human and dramatic point of view than any tale or phantasy.” (21) It is now known that the actual change was in February, in the absence of Lenin, and the October revolution was just a 24-hour coup which unsettled Kerensky, after the return of Lenin. To cap the absurdities, Nehru has devoted an entire chapter to describe Lenin's "virtues". He quotes Romain Rolland at the end to extol Lenin as "the greatest man of action in our century, and at the same time most selfless." (22)

Nehru failed to foresee the tragedy the revolution had in store. He just linked communism with opposition to colonial rule and economic inequality. In his autobiography too,  he praised communism: "Whatever its faults, it is not hypocritical and not imperialistic." He thought the constructive side of the Soviet model was amazing-the so-called massive assault on poverty, disease illiteracy, bigotry and the push towards industrialization. It was Stalin on the throne and Nehru failed to see the skeletons on the cupboard of the dictator, Lenin. 

So, J Coatman wrote in his book, Years of Destiny (23): "Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru has now one secret ambition, which is to rival Lenin or Stalin in the history of Communism." But as we all know, Gandhi was a roadblock to Nehru, on the way to the destructive and violent journey to a communist revolution. 

Gandhi wrote to Nehru on January 4, 1928: "You are going too fast. You should have taken time to think and become acclimatized." Nehru tried to explain, but that made matters worse. Gandhi wrote back: "The differences between us are so vast and radical that there seems to be no meeting ground between us." (24)

Gandhi claimed to be a socialist. "I have claimed that I was a socialist long before those I know in India had avowed their creed," he said."But my socialism," he wrote, "was natural to me and not adopted from any books. No man could be actively non-violent and not rise against social injustice wherever it occurred. Unfortunately, Western socialists have, so far as I know, believed in the necessity of violence for enforcing socialistic doctrines. I have always held that social justice, even unto the least and the lowliest, is impossible of attainment by force." (25)

After becoming the PM, Nehru went ahead with the Soviet model of five-year plans and got stuck discouraging the private sector. He took a leftist, V K Krishna Menon as his defence minister, failed miserably against China, and left the arena as a political disaster.

(This article was published in Indusscrolls: https://indusscrolls.com/nehru-as-a-soviet-communist-crony )

____________________________

1. B R Nanda, The Nehrus, Oxford, 1984, pp 258
2. Leonid Mironov, Nehru's First Visit to the Soviet Union, Mainstream, Vol XLVI No 47, 15 November 1975
3. B R Nanda, The Nehrus, Oxford, 1984, pp 256
4. Ibid, 253
5. Ibid, 255
6. A I Yunel, The Russian Revolution and India, 2020, Routledge
7. B R Nanda, The Nehrus, Oxford, 1984, pp 255
8. Ibid
9. Ibid
10. Ibid, p 256
11. ibid
12. Ibid 256-257
13. Ibid
14. Ibid
15. Nehru, Jawaharlal, Soviet Russia: Some Random Sketches and Impressions, 1929, Chetana, Bombay
16. Leonid Mironov, Nehru's First Visit to the Soviet Union, Mainstream, Vol XLVI No 47, 15 November 1975

17. Ibid, pp 13-14
18. Ibid
19. ibid
20. Ibid
21. Ibid, pp 36
22. Ibid, p 39-48
23. Cotman J, Years of Destiny, pp 95. John Coatman (1889–1963) was the director of public information for the Indian Police Service and the British government in India. He was made a Companion of the Order of the Indian Empire in 1929 and was a member of the secretariat during the first Round Table Conference (November 1930 – January 1931). His writing promoted the benefits of the British Empire.

24. B.R Nanda, The Nehrus, Oxford, 1984, pp 293

25. Gandhi, Harijan, April 20, 1940

© Ramachandran 

പുസ്തകം: ഹിന്ദുത്വം ഉറപ്പിച്ച കുമാരനാശാൻ

കുമാരനാശാൻ്റെ  ഭാരതീയ മുഖം 

എൻ്റെ പുതിയ പുസ്തകം, ഹിന്ദുത്വം ഉറപ്പിച്ച കുമാരനാശാൻ, ഡൽഹി ഇൻഡസ് സ്‌ക്രോൾസ് പ്രസിൻ്റെ ആദ്യ മലയാള പുസ്തകവുമാണ്. കുമാരനാശാൻ്റെ വലിയ കാവ്യങ്ങൾക്ക് മുൻപുള്ള രചനകളുടെ പശ്ചാത്തലത്തിൽ, അദ്ദേഹം ഭാരതീയ തത്വചിന്തയ്ക്ക് നൽകിയ സംഭാവനകളുടെ പഠനമാണ്, ഈ പുസ്തകം.

വില 150 രൂപ. 

വേദാന്തം നന്നായറിഞ്ഞ ആശാൻ, ശങ്കരാചാര്യരെ വിശേഷിപ്പിച്ചത്, ലോകഗുരുവായി തന്നെയാണ്. ആശാൻ ആദ്യമായി പരിഭാഷ ചെയ്തത്, ശങ്കരാചാര്യരുടെ ‘സൗന്ദര്യ ലഹരി’ ആയിരുന്നു. ജാതിവിവേചനത്തിനെതിരെ പോരാടാനുള്ള ഊർജം കുമാരനാശാന് കിട്ടിയതു തന്നെ, ശങ്കരനിൽ നിന്നാകണം. അദ്വൈതം പോലെ രമണീയമായ ഒരു സിദ്ധാന്തം ലോകത്ത് വേറെയില്ലെന്ന് ആശാൻ സമർത്ഥിച്ചു.

1907 ല്‍ ‘വീണപൂവ്’ എഴുതുന്നതുവരെ അദ്ദേഹം സ്‌തോത്ര കൃതികളാണ് രചിച്ചിരുന്നത്. അവയാകട്ടെ, അദ്വൈതസത്ത നിറഞ്ഞു നിൽക്കുന്നവയുമാണ്. പിൽക്കാലത്ത് ആശാനിൽ കണ്ട ബുദ്ധമത ധാരയും ഭാരതീയം തന്നെ. 

ഈഴവർ ബുദ്ധമതത്തിൽ ചേരണമെന്ന വാദങ്ങൾക്ക് മറുപടി ആയാണ് ആശാൻ, ‘മതപരിവർത്തന രസവാദം’ എഴുതിയത്. ഈഴവർ ഹിന്ദുമതത്തിൽ ഉറച്ചു നിൽക്കണം എന്ന വിശ്വാസത്തിൽ ആശാൻ എത്തിയത്, അഗാധമായ ആർഷജ്ഞാനം നിമിത്തമാണ്. അതിനാൽ, ഭാരതീയതയ്ക്ക് മേൽ കത്തിവയ്ക്കുന്ന ഏത് മതവിശ്വാസത്തിനും അദ്ദേഹം എതിരായിരുന്നു. അദ്വൈതം ആത്മാവിലുള്ള ആശാൻ , ഹിംസയിൽ ഊന്നിയ പ്രത്യയശാസ്ത്രങ്ങളെ വർജ്ജിച്ചു. അതിനാൽ, ഹിന്ദുവംശഹത്യ വരുത്തിവച്ച മാപ്പിളലഹളയെ ധീരമായി അദ്ദേഹം കാവ്യരൂപേണ ചെറുത്തു. മാർക്സിസം തിന്മയുടെ തത്വശാസ്ത്രമായതിനാൽ, സമകാലികരായ കാൾ മാർക്സ്, ലെനിൻ എന്നിവരെപ്പറ്റി ഒരക്ഷരം പോലും ആശാൻ എഴുതിയില്ല. 

ഹിന്ദുമതത്തെ ഉറപ്പിച്ചു നിർത്തി കുമാരനാശാൻ നടത്തിയ കാവ്യ, സാമൂഹിക പോരാട്ടങ്ങളെപ്പറ്റി വ്യത്യസ്തമായ ഒരു പഠനം.

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NEW BOOK: R S S FAVOURS WOMEN ENTRY AT SABARIMALA

Controversial book in English

R Hari, the RSS ideologue, had written a controversial book, Mattuvin Chattangale, in Malayalam, pleading for the Sabarimala temple entry of Women. It had been the RSS' official position, till the Supreme Court verdict, allowing access of women at Sabarimala. After the ruling, the RSS publishing house, Kurukshetra Prakashan, stopped book sales. Now, the book has been translated by me into English and published by India Book House, Indological Trust, India Books,vellariyil garden, MM Ali Road, Palayam, Calicut - 2. Rs 150. Phone 9447394322

Off with the Outgrown Customs. R Hari on Sabarimala entry of women. Translated by Ramachandran.

CHINA CUTS ITS US TREASURY HOLDINGS

Instead, it invests in Gold

China has been cutting down its holdings of U S Treasury securities gradually. But where are the China funds going from the US?

China, the second largest non- U S holder of U S Treasuries after Japan, reduced its holdings to the lowest in February 2023. China's holdings fell to $848.8B in February from $859.4B in January. The figure stood at $1.03 trillion at the same time last year. It was the seventh straight month of decline.

In January, the holding stood at $7.4 Trillion; it was $7.7 Trillion in February 2022, according to US Treasury data released in April 2023.

China ratcheted up its US Treasury bond purchases starting in 2000. Its buying spree peaked in 2014, dropping below the magic US$1 trillion mark in April 2022.

China has already trimmed its holdings by 34.1% over the past 10 years, including a 16.6% cut in 2022.

The reasons

China has three reasons for the move:

• It needs to diversify its foreign reserves, amid “external risks.” The risk is the trade war between the two countries.

• Beijing is wary of the US dollar’s dominance, as it is facing financial sanctions from Washington. 

• US Treasury yields declined following the US Federal Reserve’s progressive interest rate increases last year. The hikes resulted in a fall in the price of US treasury bonds.

De-dollarizing moves

China is trying to internationalize its currency, the yuan. For instance, the proportion of yuan in Brazil’s international reserves has reached 5.7%, while the Euro is 4.7%. Yuan is now Brazil’s second-largest reserve currency.

Yuan found a place in Brazil’s foreign-exchange reserves four years ago, as its US dollar assets fell to 80.24% at the end of 2022 from 89.93% in 2018.

Russia, which has been kicked out of the US dollar system and SWIFT after the Ukraine invasion, has already increased its holdings of the yuan in foreign-exchange reserves and sovereign funds, with more than two-thirds of bilateral trade settled in yuan or rouble.

Hiding in tax havens

Along with the decline in US Treasuries, China’s Treasury holdings in the tax havens, the Cayman Islands jumped by $38.5B and Bermuda by $7B.

China may be hiding some dollar assets in there, to sidestep Western sanctions

Investing in gold

Beijing is replacing some of its US Treasury holdings with gold. China increased its gold reserves for the sixth consecutive month in April to 1893 tons, growing by about 102 tons, in the face of heightened political risks.

The largest single purchase of gold in February was by the People’s Bank of China, which added 25 tons. It added around 18 tons in March alone.

© Ramachandran 

LESSONS FOR CHINA AND INDIA FROM META CRISIS

Stale Vision Led to Crisis

The parent company of Facebook, Meta, cutting 11,000 jobs, or 13 per cent of its workforce, did not come as a surprise to the global techie world watchers, since it was waiting to happen. Though the tech giant has termed the retrenchment as an attempt to become “leaner and more efficient,” it is a well-known fact that American tech companies are in the throes of an unprecedented crisis. The “American dream” is falling into a dark abyss.

The Meta crisis is the beginning of a turbulent era in Silicon Valley, which so far stood as a gigantic bastion of economic power. The United States has always boasted that this bastion is recession-proof, but now the Fort has been breached; according to Crunchbase, 50,000 U.S. techies have been laid off this year alone. Elon Musk gave marching orders to half of Twitter’s workforce; Peloton, a maker of internet-connected exercise bikes, has more than halved its workforce, Robinhood, a popular stock-trading app, also has cut its labour force by 30 per cent, and fin-tech platform Stripe has announced layoffs. Google and Amazon have decided to lay off 10,000 employees, each.

The crisis of Meta

In the case of Meta, apart from inflation, rising interest rates, and recession, aggressive COVID-era expansion is partly to blame. Meta increased its workforce by nearly 60 percent during 2020- 2021. Facebook grew its staff by 28 per cent, to 87,314, in the 12 months ending in September.

My article in China-India Dialogue

"At the start of COVID, the world rapidly moved online, and the surge of e-commerce led to outsized revenue growth," Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Meta and FB, wrote, announcing the layoffs. "Many people predicted this would be a permanent acceleration that would continue even after the pandemic ended. I did too, so I decided to significantly increase our investments. Unfortunately, this did not play out the way I expected. I got this wrong,” he lamented.

He got it wrong, because, he was not pursuing realistic dreams. The social-media platforms of Meta, such as Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, have a traditional business model that relies on advertising. It was hit hard by the recession. Several digital advertisers pulled back in the face of inflation and the instability caused by the Russia-Ukraine conflict, and customers scaled back spending. As the tech companies tightened their belts, the labour force became the first casualty.

In October, Meta posted its second-quarter revenue decline and its profit was cut in half from the prior year. Valued at more than $1 trillion in 2021, Meta's market value has since plunged to around $250 billion. It ceased to be the behemoth, once it was. Meta's stock lost more than 71 per cent of its value this year, and it became the worst performer in the S&P 500.

The gamble of the metaverse

Once a niche concept contained in the cyberpunk novel, Snow Crash (1992), the metaverse became a buzzword when Facebook rebranded itself as Meta on October 28, 2021.

The metaverse is a virtual world that exists parallel to the physical world. In the metaverse, our digital and physical lives are overlapping, in the domains of work, socialization, productivity, shopping, and entertainment. It is enabled by advanced technologies, such as VR, AR, and MR. It is the next-generation internet for businesses, investors, and developers.

The entry point for the metaverse is, Extended reality (XR), which is a combination of augmented, virtual and mixed-reality environments that are accessible and interactive in real time. It is the pioneer of inventive applications in fields such as gaming, entertainment, enterprise solutions and simulations, as well as in military and defence.

Also, blockchain technology will play a major role in building the metaverse. While the proponents o this aspirational technology are western, the global metaverse discourse is influenced by economic giants such as China and South Korea. An array of positive factors suggests that India has a prime role to play.

The Zuckerberg company, Meta's crisis came as it is taking a gamble on building the metaverse. The hiring boom at Meta has focused on building immersive digital realms accessed through virtual reality. Zuckerberg has maintained that it will be the next great computing platform after mobile phones. He expects metaverse to replace some in-person communication. Since it is a gamble based on a stale vision, the crisis was inevitable.

There seems to be little hope for Meta’s technology which Zuckerberg claims is his company’s and our future. But,  none of us or the world at large has so far viewed him as the Messiah. Also, the multipolar world has ceased to view the U.S. as the saviour, anymore. 

Renowned technologists, who study designing use behaviour in virtual worlds, had always felt that Zuckerberg’s vision is stale and the future of Meta is on the rocks. So, the stale vision is to be blamed for the current crisis, rather than the global recession. 

There are 3D multiperson chat environments that were popularized by online games, Second Life, and now Horizon Worlds. Microsoft’s V-Chat, Comic Chat and V-worlds and the tools for creating and customizing digital avatars were the initial forays into Zuckerberg’s dream world. But it was evident to Microsoft in the 1990s itself that trying to harness the potential of the metaverse amid dramatic shifts in our digital lives, was not worth the extravaganza.

The dreams seem endless, and it is like kids create and then abandon, as in Minecraft. The magical architecture of virtual worlds is possibly a critical ingredient in the user experience and hence Meta is keen on creating 3D environments for people to hang out. But techies at Microsoft had found that these “stage sets” did not play a particularly critical role in shaping user behaviour. Instead of roaming in the virtual space, one has to work one’s way into the social structure to figure out how are things happening. People don’t encounter any sense of real life while wandering around for hours in virtual life. The virtual gathering space then becomes boring and ultimately they become empty and abandoned. This is termed a “cold state problem” by former Microsoft technology expert, Robert Fabricant.

Meta's metaverse division posted a loss of $ 9.4 billion in the first nine months of 2022, but Zuckerberg pumped in $ 36 billion between January 2019 and September 2022 to prop it up in the hopes that, at some point, people will be fools to show up at the party. When the party was about to begin, the world was pushed into penury, and no one turned up!

A decade ago, when Facebook was at a critical inflexion point as a desktop web platform with a very limited HTML 5 browser-based mobile offering, the leadership failed to recognize the smartphone revolution. They didn’t shift their focus to a mobile-first product offering in time. By pursuing the metaverse, Zuckerberg is imagining that Meta is defining the next paradigm. But in doing so, Meta has forgotten the fundamental lesson of mobile computing: Only the computing experience that is with people all the time wins. Computing that accompanies people in the world will always win over computing that takes them out of the world. 

Hence, nobody is really playing Horizon Worlds, Meta's free-to-play virtual reality metaverse that lets users create and visit “worlds” with friends or strangers. WSJ reports that of all the user-created worlds in the game, only about nine per cent are visited by more than 50 players. The rest are never visited by anyone, except Zuckerberg. The end result is empty, barren digital lands.

So, Zuckerberg’s metaverse vision is just a nostalgia trip to escape a world of complex, multilateral reality and hence his metaverse has progressed very little, scripting an American tragedy. The creative imagination of a brilliant student can any time overtake Meta’s flimsy vision and invent a compelling digital world. And it is beginning to happen.

China and metaverse

China’s Fintech Development Plan for 2022-2025 mentions metaverse while discussing reshaping financial services with intelligence, as a key task. The plan proposes that “relying on the features of 5G with high bandwidth and low delay, visual technologies such as virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), and mixed reality (MR) will be deeply integrated with banking scenes to promote physical branches to upgrade to multi-horizontal, immersive, and interactive smart branches.”

In a paper on metaverse in October 2021, the China Institute of Contemporary International Relations (CICIR), linked to the Ministry of State Security, warned of the need for lawmakers to deal with virtual crimes. Similarly, in November 2021, the government of Zhejiang province organized a “metaverse industry development symposium.”

On November 1, China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology unveiled a five-year plan for 2022 to 2026, for the development of the VR industry, aiming to achieve a target exceeding 350 billion yuan ($48.1 billion) in 2026.

This action plan is China’s first national-level policy that supports metaverse development. The document bats for creating fundamental technologies that support immersive AR, VR, and mixed-reality experiences. The policy calls for innovation in fields like full-body motion capture, gesture, eye, expression tracking, and technologies for rendering graphics.  

In China, so far over 16,000 metaverse-related trademark applications have been filed. Six of China’s tech giants – including Baidu Inc, Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, and Tencent Holdings Ltd (collectively known as BAT) – made it to the top 10 firms globally, that filed the most VR/AR patent applications in the past two years. In 2019, most of these developments happened in the fields of retail shopping, education, gaming, marketing, information display, and industrial manufacturing.

China’s VR industry accounted for about 44 per cent or US$8 billion of the global market, by the end of 2020. Big Chinese firms lack the expertise to develop VR devices, and they are investing in startups. China has over 900 million smartphone users, making VR accessible through smartphones, a priority.  AR generates less revenue than VR, and AR revenues reached RMB 21.3 billion (US$3.09 billion) in 2021. Virtual reality and virtual idols are booming, comprising an industry that is worth RMB 51 billion (US$8 billion) and RMB 3.5 billion (US$548 million) respectively.

Deloitte-China estimates that the metaverse market in China will hit 40 trillion yuan ($5.79 trillion) by 2030, equivalent to 20 per cent of China's GDP, and the electronic products and wearable devices in the metaverse will be worth $100 billion. 

According to a report by Morgan Stanley, leading Chinese tech firms have already begun to invest in a metaverse market that may be worth up to US$8 trillion in the future. J P Morgan, in a September report, suggested that the metaverse could triple China’s online-gaming market to $131 billion from $44 billion. The Bank estimates a $4 trillion total addressable market (TAM) for the metaverse in China from “converting offline consumption across physical goods and services.”

The metaverse development will have a notable impact on the entire technology, media and telecom (TMT) ecosystem. Tencent, NetEase, Bilibili, Sea, Krafton and Bandai Namco stocks could benefit from the metaverse.

Software and service vendors, such as Sight Plus, Hisense, and Mayitegong, have entered the AR market. Baidu launched a metaverse app on Chinese history, in December 2021, called “Land of Hope.” Tencent, the creator of WeChat, launched on the QQ platform, a new feature called Super QQ Show, which introduced a 3D interactive space where users can interact and play games together. 

A new app called Jelly, launched this year and developed and owned by Beijing Yidian Entertainment Technology, allows users to create online avatars of themselves and engage with up to 50 pals. It surpassed WeChat to become the most downloaded app in China’s iOS store. Byte Dance, the parent firm of TikTok, has designed two metaverse apps: Party Island for the Chinese market, and Pixsoul for the Southeast Asian one.

Metaverse was a key theme of the 5th World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC2022), in Shanghai in September. Chinese internet platforms offered a "metaverse-like" viewing experience enabled by 5G and virtual reality (VR), during the Qatar World Cup soccer carnival.

Metaverse in India

China’s neighbour India is in the vanguard to build the metaverse. With the Government trying to foster a digital economy worth up to $1 trillion, the market of video streaming and gaming is seeing fresh heights. Reports project that the Indian gaming market will more than triple to $7 billion by 2026. 

 

India released its National Blockchain Strategy in December 2021. The pilot of the blockchain-backed Digital Rupee will be issued by the Reserve Bank of India, in December. The spectrum auctions to the rollout of 5G mobile services, would accelerate demand for cloud applications – including those for gaming and the metaverse. 

 

The operational challenge of building the metaverse remains, and if India is to take a leading role, investments in the private sector need to accelerate. The 18 months to August 2021 saw over $1bn of capital infused into the local video games ecosystem – more than the preceding five years combined.

 

Deloitte has predicted that the metaverse industry in India could have an economic impact worth between $79 billion and $148 billion by 2035. 

The report notes that India is among the pacesetters in the industry and that India was one of the first jurisdictions to include the metaverse in its policy considerations on cyberbullying and sexual abuse. With the country inching toward unveiling the Digital India Act, it is expected that a proper framework will be established to prevent the crimes of inciting violence and spreading misinformation on the metaverse.

India has stated that it will provide an enabling environment for Web 3 firms to experiment with new offerings for consumers in the industry. Union Minister of State for Skill Development and Entrepreneurship Rajeev Chandrasekhar announced that nothing prevents firms from exploring metaverse or non-fungible tokens (NFTs).

However, the country has signalled to use its G20 presidency to push for global digital asset regulations. The government has been relying on distributed ledger technologies (DLT) in recent months, using them for its central bank digital currency (CBDC) and streamlining local land registries’ operations.

The future of the metaverse can likewise be a big contributing factor to the development of the virtual economy. 

The ethical questions on meta-governance

India is debating the regulation of the technologies that will underpin the metaverse. The budget levies a 30% tax on income from transfers of Virtual Digital Assets (VDAs). Owning and trading non-fungible tokens (NFTs) is a pathway towards a new digital economy and this will impact the development of the metaverse. 

Beyond crypto, the metaverse raises ethical questions on privacy and security. Online risks may worsen the metaverse, through pervasive, intrusive and unwanted contacts. Pioneering efforts to find governance mechanisms for virtual worlds have to be in place and should be supported with digital literacy, safety, security and privacy which guarantee meaningful participation for participants in online communities while navigating through harmful content and behaviours.

Within the tech ecosystem, several standards have been proposed for the metaverse, but the incentives for adopting them are governed by the self-interests of a few western companies in taking control. It will not be possible for a single metaverse to exist if laws for monetising and moderating the metaverse are made and enforced differently around the world. Until recently, the western policy agenda has dominated companies, products, and rules.

The European Commission has suggested that plans to create an all-encompassing virtual reality environment would pose new challenges for antitrust regulators in the EU and has demanded further scrutiny of the development of the economic models of the metaverse. 

South Korea recently created a ‘metaverse alliance’ to facilitate the development of virtual and augmented reality platforms. In China, a metaverse industry group, the Metaverse Industry Committee, formed under the state-supervised China Mobile Communications Association in December 2021, has the stated objectives of strengthening innovation and integration among metaverse builders, organizing the training of professionals, and promoting new thinking.

India always has espoused the doctrine, of Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam, a Sanskrit phrase found in ancient texts such as Maha Upanishad, which means “The world is one family”. This expression is a constant refrain in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s speeches. During his speech at the Davos Agenda 2022, he indicated that a collective and synchronized, global approach is needed towards addressing challenges with cryptocurrencies. 

This policy of oneness should be applicable, in the case of the metaverse, too. All the Indian scriptures expound on the victory of good over evil, and in a war between reality and virtual reality, in a conflict between reality and metaverse, reality has to be victorious and spread its wings even in the mythical and mysterious horizons.

© Ramachandran