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Mohan Lal Kashmerian
These lines were written as Forward to Prof. Hari Ram Gupta’s
biography on Mohan Lal from Allahabad on July 13, 1940.
--Editor
By Jawaharlal Nehru
M any
years ago - it is so
long that I have forgot
ten where and when it
was, in England or in India - I
came across two battered volumes,
heavy with age, as I was indulging
in the pleasant pastime of
browsing in a bookshop. They had
been published in the early forties
of the nineteenth century in England
and the title attracted me.
They were the Memoirs and Journal
of Mohan Lal Kashmerian.
The title was attractive and even
more so the picture of a remarkably
handsome young man which
was given as a frontis piece. Who
was this very attractive young Indian,
I wondered, hailing from my
old homeland of Kashmir, who
had ventured so far, and, what is
more, written about his travels in
the English language, so long ago?
I had never heard of him. I was
filled with excitement, as of a new
discovery, and concluding my bargain
with the keeper of the
bookshop, hastened away with
these volumes.
I read them and my interest and
excitement grew. Here was a person
full of the spirit of adventure,
to whom adventure came in full
measure before he was out of his
boyhood. He did not shrink from
it, but welcomed it, and wrote
about it, so that others might share
it a little with him. Danger and
difficulty were his constant companions,
and disasters sometimes
overwhelmed his party. But he
never seems to have lost his resourcefulness
and his quick mind
and soft tongue were equal to any
occasion. He had an amazing aptitude
for the ways and intrigues
of diplomacy, and it is astonishing
how he could win over even
hardened opponents to his side.
The British power profited by
Mohan Lal's ability fully. Often,
as Mohan Lal admits sorrowfully,
he gave definite pledges on behalf
of the British authority, which
were not subsequently kept.
In a free India a man like
Mohan Lal would have risen to the
topmost rungs of the political ladder.
Under early British rule,
whatever he might be or whatever
he might do, he could not rise
higher than the position of a Mir
Munshi or at most a Deputy Collector.
After his first exciting fifteen
years or so, his life seems to
have become dull and empty.
There was apparently no place or
activity suitable for him in India,
and he must have lived largely in
the past when he was the
honoured guest of the rulers of
Asia and Europe, or when he was
a central figure in a stirring drama
of life and death. Probably this
very prominence that came to him
early in life became an obstacle in
later years. His superior British
officers were jealous of his ability
and of his contact with sovereigns
and others, who were beyond
their reach. Mohan Lal's later
years are pathetic and depressing.
Accustoming himself to an expensive
standard of living, he was
continually in debt and sending
appeals to the British authorities
for help or compensation for the
moneys spent by him during the
Kabul campaigns. These appeals
were rejected.
When I first read Mohan Lal's
Journal and Memoirs, I was eager
to know more about him. I managed
to obtain his life of Dost
Mohammed, but this did not help
me much. I enquired from Sir Tej
Bahadur Sapru, who is a repository
of all manner of curious information
and knowledge. Sir Tej
Bahadur knew of Mohan Lal and
his family but he could not enlighten
me much. I was delighted
to learn, therefore, from Dr SK
Datta that one of his students had
undertaken to write a life of
Mohan Lal. Shri Hari Ram Gupta
has evidently taken great pains
over this work and he has done
something that was worth doing.
This book, enables us to know
something about a fascinating person.
It gives us intimate and revealing
glimpses of the early days
of British rule in north India, of
the Punjab under Maharaja Ranjit
Singh, of the British campaigns
through Sind and in Afghanistan,
of the disasters in Kabul, and of
the prevailing conditions in Central
Asia in the thirties of the nineteenth
century.
These glimpses
are not flattering to the British.
For a student of history and of
economic and social conditions
this book has importance. There
is one thing, however, that I miss
in it. There is very little about
Mohan Lal as a man or about his
personal life. That he was an adventurer,
there is no doubt, but he
was something much more, and
even his adventures have a high
quality - welcoming risk and danger,
and facing death often
enough, he was yet a lover of pleasure
and the soft ways of life - a
politician and scholar, with something
of the poet and the artist in
him, which peeps out continually
from his Memoirs and Travels. In
the middle of a narrative of political
happenings and economic
data, he begins to admire the
charm of nature, or to describe the
beauty of the women he saw in the
market-place or drawing water
from a village well. I should like
to know more about this unusual
and attractive and much married
man. I should like to know what
happened to his daughter who was
sent to England for her education.
Perhaps now that attention is being
directed to Mohan Lal by this
book, more information will be
forthcoming from various sources.
Pt. Mohan Lal was a brilliant Diplomat
M ohan
Lal was a typical
Kashmiri Pandit. From the
race he derived good looks,
natural grace of expression and virile
courtliness. To his own family he was
indebted for sensitive pride and capacity
to put up with the rough and tumble of
political conflicts. He inherited from his
parents a shrewd instinct for getting and
keeping, a distinct gift of courtiership, and
great enthusiasm for things of the mind.
He was tall and very handsome with classically
regular features. "In appearance
Mohan Lal is agreeable with pleasing
manners, his features are marked and
countenance intelligent". His slim and
manly figure, his majestic turban, his fine
dress, his well-trimmed moustaches,
sharp-pointed nose and large, prominent
eyes, all inspired an emotion of their own,
and gave an added interest to his conversation.
His laugh was melodious.
He possessed a sweet disposition and
scattered sunshine and good cheer by giving
a kind word and throwing a pleasant
smile to every one. Few of those living in
his company ever found it possible to resist
his fascinating and merry charm. It
was not so much that he was extraordinarily
witty in society; but he created an
easy atmosphere, in the midst of which
every companion thought and talked with
ease and spontaneity. He was a fine talker.
His demeanour, his humility, his impulsiveness,
his effective delivery, and his
magnetic personality, made him a delightful
companion. He could therefore dominate
both men and women. A. Burton, the
Deputy Commissioner of Ludhiana, says
:
"When I first came here I cultivated
his acquaintance from a desire to hear
from him an account of those stirring
events in which he had borne a part and
likewise from a feeling that a man who
had been so well-received in England and
other parts of Europe by the very first
people, Kings and Queens not excepted,
should not be ignored by the British society
of this country as I found Mohan Lal
was and thus be driven back in his heathen
and ignorant associates to the inevitable deterioration
of the enlightened ideas he had
acquired in his European tour".
"I like Mohan Lal. I find him a very
agreeable, well-informed, companionable
man, plenty to say, and by no means unobservant.
He got into bad hands, as was natural,
for the best English society seems not
to have been open to him. I have been told
he drank at military messes and made himself
disagreeable to the army officers in that
way. Then his associating with Nubee
Buksh and Mr. Hodges was of course
against him; but he has had no fair chance
on his return from Europe; from dining with
princes he found himself shut out except
from the converse of men like Hodges, a
discharged clerk of this office who drank
his champagne and encouraged him to
drink it likewise.”
Another remarkable trait in his character
was intuition, subtlety and divination
which enabled him to understand and appreciate
those who came into contact with
him. He was cool and courageous. He was
never so happy and so resourceful as when
confronted with most serious problems. His
fierce and restless energy was a great asset.
When required, he could work for long
hours with enthusiasm and even with relish.
He was an adept in the art of pleasing.
His personality always attracted, never repelled.
There was a heartiness in his expression,
in the smile, in the handshake and
in the cordiality with which he greeted
people.
Capable of both thought and action, and
equally at home in matters of daily routine,
he was at his best in the midst of miseries
and misfortunes. In the time of political
crisis alone he could display his great talents
to the full. Then he found a continuous
interest in political work and a constant
compulsion to use his full weight in the
game. He could then force co-operation
with men of different classes and temperament.
At such times he showed that he was
endowed with mental powers of the first
order, and that his readiness and resources
were extraordinary.
He was at his best when he was required
to persuade people, not ordinary persons,
but leaders of men. Then he could bring
everyone to the point at which he could be
used not by deception but by suggestion.
In a word he was a born diplomat and
the real field of his work was politics.
He had a passion for beauty and for
beautiful things. He was at home with literary
men in the library, with sportsmen in
the field, and with poets in moonlit gardens.
He was familiar with the best that the Persian
poets had sung, and the loveliest that
the artists had created in form and colour.
He loved with the charm of roses and lilies,
singing birds and green boughs. He
enjoyed life, and believed that this world
was really a place worth living in. He was
never too tired for more festivities, more
songs, more wine and more women.
"Wherever he went he managed to take
a new wife unto himself, usually marrying
in the highest circles".
When forced to lead a life of retirement
at the young age of thirty-four, he found
himself freed of all obstructions, usually
imposed by public life. Consequently, passion
now found itself untrammeled. Formerly,
he was carried away by the love of
glory, and snow, he was swept away by the
love of wine and women. He could not devote
himself to a pursuit, whether politics
or pleasure, half-heartedly; it possessed him
entirely. He did everything with a gusto,
every nerve and every fibre. He was a man
of literary taste, and had a library of his
own. This escaped destruction at the
hands of the mutineers in Delhi, and was
donated by him at his death to the Municipality
of Ludhiana. He was a writer
of no mean merit. His Journals, Travels
and
Life of the Amir Dost
Mohammad
Khan of Kabul clearly show that he possessed
deftness and exterity in writing his
personal experiences. All these works
suggest considerable possibilities. He is
said to have kept a detailed diary for the
last forty-five years of his life. If it comes
to light he will undoubtedly rank as the
greatest Indian diarist of modern times.
His numerous letters in manuscript
display an easy style of English in spite
of his eccentric phraseology. He had a
command of language and a felicitous
touch in sketching an incident or a character.
In reading these letters we feel that
his aim was truth rather than effect. His
observations on persons and places are
interesting and illuminating. He was free
and frank while giving counsels to his
superiors on events and tendencies which
affected the grave issues of peace and
war and the lives of thousands of men
and women.
Exhilaration of spirit, buoyancy of
mind, vigour of body, keenness for
achievement, will to power and the
awareness of great faculties - these were
the elements of his success.
All that remains of Mohan Lal's activities
in this world are his three books
mentioned above. At Ludhiana he built
a religious place for the Shias known as
Agha Hasan Jan's Imambara. Close by
it there ran a road bearing his name. His
grave in Lal Bagh, Delhi, was in ruins in
1939 and has now disappeared.
Mohan Lal's life does not challenge the attention of the world, but modestly
solicits it.
(Source: Punjab, Central Asia and the First Afghan War)
Source: Kashmir
Sentinel
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