DURING THE nearly half century from early
sixties till his final days, Henry has been a keen observer as well as
participant in the public affairs of his country as well as elsewhere.
Throughout, he maintained a healthy skepticism and a sense of humour that
turned out to be devastating at times. He refused to conform to the received
wisdom of the times, charted his own adventurous course and kept his ears close
to the ground.
The last of these qualities saved good money for
the company he worked for in the seventies. It was called Charter, a mining
company connected to the Anglo American Group. He was posted to Persia those
days. Tony Shaw describes the incident: About 1977, he was sent to Tehran. He
was expected to mix with the business and diplomatic corps. However, he spent
most of his time at the lower, scruffier end of the main bazaar amongst the
antique dealers, the porters, the cheap coffee and hubble-bubble...He had an
ear for its gossip. He reported back to Charter that the Shah was about to be deposed.
“Nonsense,” said Charter, “the foreign office advises that the country is
stable, our consultants say everything is okay.” However, Henry could persuade
Charter to pull out in time, saving millions of pounds for the company as the
Islamic Revolution broke out soon after.
As an observer of social and political
movements, he never allowed himself to be swayed by personal affiliations or
emotions. In the sixties, Europe exploded as the youth came out into the
streets in Paris and revolutionary movements spread all over the world. Some of his close
friends were deeply involved, but that did not stop him from a clear-eyed
analysis of the situation:
“1968 was never really as big in Britain as in
say France, and there was no real likelihood that the government would fall.
But it was an exciting time. The activists were a very loose coalition of
various shades of Marxists and Trotskyists, along with anarchists, pacifists,
soft left and a lot of people who just enjoyed rebelling. As my best friend Tony
Shaw put it, 'I really joined the peace movement because I liked the violence.'
No doubt Hobsbawm was right that many of the participants later reverted to the
professional middle class careers they would have had anyway, though some of my
friends have kept the faith. I am not part of this phenomenon. Firstly, by 1968
I had left university and was working for a mining company. But, as I have
explained, I was always a social democrat, never a revolutionary.”
He was, however, worried about the rising trend of
xenophobia and rightwing extremism in the early 21st century. It was a global
phenomenon and it shook the foundations of the post-war liberal order. But he
was aware why the people were agitated, why they were going to the extremes.
This is how he put the emerging global situation in mid-2014 when Narendra Modi
took over as India’s prime minister:
“This has been a pretty
dismal week politically, with successes for the right in India, Thailand,
Europe and no doubt Egypt. Colombia and Ukraine are the only countries
which voted for relatively middle-of-the-road candidates. As I have said
before, the European vote is mainly a protest one, and the successful anti-EU
parties are deeply divided both internally and among themselves about what they
actually want. In the most troubled economies (Greece, Italy and Spain) the
poor justifiably feel that all the burden of the economic crisis has fallen on
them while the ruling class which created the problem has largely escaped. In
all these countries there is a lot of corruption and tax avoidance. The Front
National in France is hyper-nationalist and has not really come to terms with a
world where the French economy is shrinking in relative terms and France no
longer calls the shots politically for the EU.”
He could see xenophobia rising all over the
place, even in his own country. It was not an easy subject and would call for a
deeper introspection on the part of all parties concerned:
“Of course fear of immigration is a common
feature in the protest vote, again with some justification. Britain is in a
rather different situation. The economy is recovering and there is quite high
employment, so the idea that Britons are being driven out of jobs by cheap
immigrant labour is a bit of a myth. Of course existing Brits have a right to
bring over their families. There is an image of a British girl originating from
say Pakistan Kashmir who does well at school, enjoys pop music, and has white
school friends,as well as Muslim ones who might be seen as potential husbands.
But at 16 she is sent home to her village 'to visit her aunty' and comes back
six months later with a 40-year-old husband who doesn't speak a word of English
and expects her to walk five paces behind him with a pot on her head! This is
obviously a rather racist stereotype, but the person who told it to me is the
son of a London imam so it is controversial even within the community.”
Popular frenzies and mythologies and imagined
histories played a great role in the political convulsions of our time. He had a
global historical view of how xenophobia and the hatred for the other came into
the mainstream public sphere:
“I don't suppose that the Sangh Parivar will
wax eloquent about the virtues of, say, Mahmud of Ghazni. India is far from
being the only country where absurd origin myths are believed. My friend Prof.
Farish Ahmed-Noor, a Malaysian academic, writer and human rights activist, is
scathing about this: "If one were to listen to the nonsense talked by the
ulama one would believe that Malay/Indonesian civilisation began the day that
the first Arab stepped ashore. Archaeology proves that it existed thousands of
years earlier. Anyhow, haven't these guys ever been told that our sultans are
descended from Iskander?"
It was not a virus that was exclusive to Asia
or the Arab world. Europe was no better:
“The Germans were another country where
nonsense was uncritically received. Tacitus had depicted the German tribes as
wild but fearless warriors who typified virtues which he saw the decadent
Romans as losing. The Germans accepted this self-image uncritically. It got all
mixed up with Norse mythology and with early sagas like Beowulf. The
'civilised' south was depicted as the 'other'. Wagner and his contemporaries
put great art into popularising it, and of course Hitler swallowed it hook,
line and sinker. Germans were seen as pure in blood, which was quite the
opposite of the truth since armies from all over Eurasia had been
criss-crossing the region for millennia. So racism was taken to unbelievable
extremes, and systematic genocide was seen as quite acceptable.”
And this could prove to be the biggest
challenge for the country he loved, India. It was a wonder how it held
together, despite its violence and its diversities:
“I am always amazed at how
cohesive India is when one considers that it is almost the size of Europe and
with as many ethnic groups. There are strong centrifugal forces but there are
also strong centripetal ones. But do large parts of India really see separatism
as the way forward? Regional barons such as Jayalalitha and Mayawati may suffer
a short-term reduction in their influence, but sooner or later the BJP's grip
will weaken and the regional parties will bounce back. I would have thought
that a more likely scenario is that the RSS will inflame communal tension. For
instance, the Babri Masjid is not the only mosque that may be built on a former
temple. I have heard the same said about the Mambram shrine. Even the Cheraman
Masjid in Kodungallur has a granite foundation similar to a temple and has an
incorrect qibla orientation. If the RSS stirs up controversy about this sort of
issue it will play right into the hands of Muslim extremists, so that one will
have two groups of religious fanatics feeding off each other.”
In the UK, demands for Scottish independence
were rising and a referendum was in the offing. He was worried about its
outcome. “Today is polling day, and if the vote goes against us I will be too
upset to want to talk about it.”
But his comments were scathing:
“Of course separatism is a
very topical subject in Britain because of Scotland's impending vote on
independence. Scots are brought up on a tradition of how they have been
persecuted by the English. Historically there is some truth in this, but there
are few grievances these days which one could regard as genuine. Scotland is
heavily subsidised by the English taxpayer, and Scots have provided a
disproportionate number of our political and other leaders. But myth is often more
powerful than sober calculation. It must be said that devolution has not
succeeded in defusing the issue. Every concession has become the basis for
further demands.”
And this bickering has been part of the history
of the two people, the English and the Scots:
“It is certainly part of
their history, and there is a certain type of Scot who talks as if 1320 was
yesterday. For years English people visiting pubs in rough areas would find
that, round about the third whisky, Scots would bring up all sorts of old
battles such as Flodden and Culloden, which are about as relevant as Indians
talking about Mahmud of Ghazni or the Battle of Panipat. This is not to say
that the Scots do not have a case. In medieval times the English kings made
unjustifiable claims to a vague overlordship over Scotland, and this was not
resolved until 1603 when King James VI of Scotland was invited to succeed the
childless Elizabeth I as King James I of England. So it was eventually the
Scottish king rather than the English one who united the two countries. Real
Scottish purists argue that the present Queen should be known in Scotland as
Elizabeth I rather than Elizabeth II.”
For Henry, these are political issues as well as
personal affairs. A case where personal turns political:
“Personally I do not have any
Scottish blood but I wish that I did, as one has all the advantages of being
English and something more as well. My late brother-in-law was a Scot, and last
week my nephew Chris attended the Royal Caledonian Ball, which is a big
Scottish social event. He even won the prize for the best dressed man, mainly
because he was wearing his grandfather's kilt, plaid, sporran and dirk (full
highland dress).”
He was
truly English, coming from a family of army people:
“I come from an army family,
and some of my relatives passed through Malabar. One (who is my near namesake
since I am Henry Christopher Quin Brownrigg, and he was Lieut. Henry Quin
Brownrigg) was bringing out a draft of recruits for the war with Tipu, when his
ship, the 'Winterton,' was wrecked in shallow waters off Madagascar. He managed
to get ashore and in due course stole a boat with some other Brits, sailed it
to Tellicherry, and was in time to be present at the Siege of Seringapatnam...
Later in the century another Brownrigg was captain of an anti-slavery ship
called the 'London' which was based in Zanzibar. He was killed when trying to
board a slaver dhow armed only with a swagger stick.”
History ran through the
arteries of the family. He was proud of it:
“Today Europe is in the
throes of celebrations of the D-Day landings. Obama, Hollande, the Queen and
even Putin are all in Normandy watching parades and meeting some of the
survivors. My father took part in that battle as captain of one of the cruisers
bombarding the German fortifications. When I was a boy he took me to see this
fortification. The concrete, which was twelve feet thick, was never pierced,
but everyone inside had been killed by concussion.”
He loved history and to tell tales of it that often told you how the past clung
tenaciously to your heels in the day-to-day life:
“In Britain this is a year of
anniversaries. The first was Magna Carta. To be frank, the Americans get much
more excited about it than we do. Historically Magna Carta was about entrenching
the rights of the feudal aristocracy against capricious behaviour by the
king. The Church was of course also protected, as to a point were the
upper bourgeoisie in the towns. But it was no declaration of rights for the
bulk of the population, who continued to be oppressed by the nobility as they
always had been. So Magna Carta deserves half a cheer from posterity but not a
great outpouring of emotion.
“The next anniversary was the
Battle of Waterloo, which was a rather shameless display of patriotic fervour.
There was a big reenactment in Belgium by thousands of volunteers from all over
Europe. It was attended by the Kings of Belgium and Holland, Prince Charles,
and sundry descendents of Napoleon, Wellington and the Prussian General
Blucher. The next day there was a service in St Paul's Cathedral, to which I
was invited, and this too was attended by Prince Charles, the current Duke of
Wellington and lots of military types in uniforms smothered in gold braid and
jangling medals. I wore a suit and felt positively naked. Opinion is still
divided about Napoleon, who, apart from being undeniably one of the greatest
generals in history, was also one of the greatest self-publicists. He
undoubtedly swept away a lot of absurd feudal relics which were a barrier to
the modern age, and his rule was meritocratic rather than aristocratic. But he
was no democrat. Arguably he set the pattern for later charismatic warlords, of
whom Hitler was only the worst. And the trouble with being a warlord is that
you cannot easily stop and settle down as a peaceful head of state living
quietly with your neighbours. You have to sustain your myth by yet greater
victories, and you have a powerful army which is always demanding new
challenges. So hundreds of thousands of
Frenchmen, Russians, Germans, Britons, Dutch, Spaniards, Portuguese and
Egyptians died in wars that had no real purpose except to put Napoleon's
talentless relatives on half the thrones of Europe. And France, which in 1789
had seemed like a light of liberty, by 1815 was seen as an oppressor from whose
rule most of Europe was determined to free itself.
“Our next anniversary will be
another Anglo-French clash, the Battle of Agincourt. A few years ago the
London terminal of the Eurostar rail express was moved from Waterloo station to
St Pancras. A worthy person wrote to The Times saying what a relief it was that
one's French friends did not have to arrive in London at such a tactlessly
named station as Waterloo. Two days later another letter appeared suggesting
that St Pancras should be re-named London-Agincourt. "Fly like an arrow
straight to the heart of France". This continued Anglo-French
rivalry keeps both sides happy.”
What is history and how its
lessons are to be taken?
“...Yes, but history does not
lead us in a single direction. In my lifetime so many things have changed out
of all recognition, and many of the changes are entirely beneficial. Most of
all there has been the end of the Cold War, and the threat of mutual nuclear
destruction. There has been a huge decline in appalling but once common
attitudes such as racism, imperialism, social snobbery, economic injustice,
male chauvinism and sexual intolerance. So in many ways Britain is a vastly
better place than when I was a child. Is this true of the world generally?
Well, we are still only scratching the surface of Third World poverty and
disease. There are still huge variance in living standards both between rich
and poor countries and between the rich and poor within countries. Nationalism
and other forms of intolerance are rife. Islam, a religion which I have always
admired, has revealed an extremely unattractive side and great capacity for
senseless violence. And countries are still choosing dreadful leaders such as
Trump (well, one hopes not). So the balance sheet shows a mixed picture.”
He was writing soon after the
Brexit vote in the UK, and at a time Donald Trump was emerging as a major
contender for presidency in the United States. He hoped his country would
choose to remain in the European Union, but when he found the people’s verdict
was otherwise, he remained optimistic and looked for silver linings in an
otherwise cloudy sky.
“Brexit is quite a small
issue in this context. The EU is a rich man's club, so its prosperity really
only benefits its own citizens. I am generally in favour of big national units
rather than small ones. India's greatest achievement is to unite most of a
whole sub-continent. Well okay, not Pakistan but even so a larger and more
diverse area than in Mughal times. Which is why Modi and Hindutva are such a
disaster. If Scotland or Catalonia or Flanders can claim independent status,
then why not Tamil Nadu or West Bengal or Kerala? But there is a trade-off
between the gains and losses of being part of a larger union, and a small
majority of Brits have decided that this price is not worth paying. I do not
agree with this decision, but it is by no means an irrational one.”
I wonder whether he would be
holding the same views at this point of time, if he were alive, as his country
is struggling with the Brexit fallout.
Before I conclude this part,
let me revert to an early incident in Dubai when Henry donned the mantle of
economic cloak and dagger guy tracing the route gold smugglers took in their
adventurous career to make big bucks in India. He described the story at the
time when we were talking about my daughter’s impending marriage:
“This question of gold and
stridhana is the reason I made my first visit to India. At that time I was
working in the economic research department of a mining company called
Anglo-American which was the world's largest producer of gold. We were
commissioned to do a report into the non-monetary market which nobody knew
anything about. I was given the job of finding out what happened to the gold
which simply disappeared in places like Dubai. The answer was that it was
smuggled to India by dhow, was transferred outside territorial waters onto
local fishing boats operating from places like Kasaragod, and was then either
taken around India in the form of ten-tola bars ('biscuits') or was melted down
into bangles to be more anonymous.
“Morarji Desai reacted to
this with a crazy Gold Control legislation which involved all goldsmiths having
to fill in quarterly forms explaining the source of their gold supply. There
were said to be lakhs of goldsmiths, mostly illiterate, so there were lakhs of
scribes to help them complete their forms, and no doubt lakhs of policemen
trying to catch them. The whole legislation was a complete waste of time
because it was easily avoided, and indeed, like recent controls on ivory and
rhino-horn, it was totally counter-productive because it sent out the message
that gold was rare and important and likely to keep rising in price.
“My first stop was in Dubai,
where the merchants/smugglers were happy to talk freely as they were breaking
no law in Dubai. Then I went to India, met people from the Ministry of Finance
in Delhi, the Customs, the Enforcement Directorate etc., as well as people with
big ornaments shops in Bombay and Calcutta. This was my first experience
outside Europe so it was an eye-opener for me and it gave me a reputation in my
firm of being sensitive on Asian subjects. This led to my being appointed a
year later to an important job in Iran. However, it nearly brought me into your
profession. While I was in Dubai I asked one of the smugglers whether he would
let me go on a 'run' in one of his dhows. He thought that this was a great
joke, but he said that I could go so long as I did not take a camera and
allowed myself to be blindfolded during the handover. I thought that both these
restrictions were probably negotiable. I returned to London full of enthusiasm
and offered to write this 'run' up as an article for what was then the Friday
colour supplement of the Daily Telegraph.Then I did something unbelievably
stupid. I gave them copies of my notes. So nobody was more surprised than me to
open the colour supplement a couple of months later and find my article over
the byline of one of their staff reporters...I sent the paper a furious letter,
but of course I had no redress as I was not a member of the National Union of
Journalists. It was then that I decided that a career in journalism was not for
me.”
Interestingly, decades later,
when he told me this story, Henry was still angry with the newspaper for its
treachery. When I asked his permission to use the incident in my writing, he
said, “Mention the Daily Telegraph's name: it will serve them right, and I do
not suppose that they will sue me for defamation after forty years... After I
wrote to them they did offer me a small sum in compensation, but I was in no
mood to accept it and spat in their face.”
Photographs: Henry as a young
man; Henry’s article on India’s fascination with gold featured in the trade
journal, Ultima, 1982.
(To be continued in part
three.)