William Dalrymple, who was in Chennai recently, gets chatting with us about his latest book, Afghanistan and more...
Was your move from writing travel to history a conscious one?
It was a conscious move but it really isn't as big a move. There's a huge amount of history in all my travel books. It was very also very much determined by how my life was changing — when I wrote In Xanadu, City Of Djinns, From The Holy Mountain: A Journey In The Shadow Of Byzantium and The Age Of Kali, it was from the ages of 20 to 35 and then, suddenly, I had a family. I wanted to see my kids growing up and spend time at home. And, writing history allowed for this.
With the Return Of A King: The Battle For Afghanistan 1839-1842, you focus on Afghanistan. Why this region?
Oddly enough, though the title refers to Afghanistan, I see it very much very much as part of the trilogy I have been working on — with The White Mughals on one side and The Last Mughal on the other. The three books are all about the relationship between Britain and south and central Asia in the crucial turning point between the end of the Mughal Empire and the beginning of the Raj. The White Mughals ends in 1805, this book begins in 1877 and The Last Mughal ends in 1858. So, it's quite a compact 50 years and there are characters that appear in all the three books. I think there's a strong continuity in the books. I have chosen to write this book obviously because there's an incredibly close and direct bearing on the current mess in Afghanistan.
Did you find any parallels between the Afghanistan of then and today?
What surprised me was that often when one gets into the details of things, parallels fall apart and you can see the differences. But in this book, the opposite happened.
As I went into micro-detail, there were so just many parallels. It turned out - which I have never read anywhere else - that President Karzai is from the same sub-tribe, Popalzai, as Shah Shuja. Likewise the tribe that brought down Shah Shuja was the Ghilzai who now are part of the Taliban. So the same tribal battles continue 170 years apart.
Why has this region in the world been so difficult to conquer?
It's a very interesting question. I believe that it has to do a lot with economics. It's not that you can't conquer Afghanistan, people have conquered\ it - but it's economically ruinous. They don't produce anything as a country. So f you conquer it, you'll get only stones and hills and poverty. There's nothing to plunder and yet the cost of garrisoning the country is horrific and has bankrupted so many people. The ambitious empire wants to conquer it because it's at the crossroads and there's a strange continuity to this.
Do you think there'll be another Wazir Akbar Khan?
We spoke about the parallels but there are also important differences. President Karzai is an elected leader which is important. Secondly, the Taliban today is much more fractious and disunited than the rebellion warriors of the past. Wazir Akbar Khan and Mohammed were widely respected as were other leaders too who were often forgotten then. But it is interesting. There is no Wazir Akbar Khan today. Mullah Omar is no Akbar Khan.
Do you think the western world understands the importance of Afghan tribes?
No, clearly not. (Laughs) But there are some fantastic experts on this region like Nile Green and others. But there are huge failures of knowledge at the highest level and you can see that right from the beginning of the occupation. There was every opportunity after the fall of the Taliban to make things right by spending very small quantities of money on road-building, sanitation, women's health and so on. This would have created a huge amount of goodwill. Instead, we sank $6 billion in security and this just leads to more insecurity on the ground. It's quite tragic. There's nothing remotely comparable in India. Patna looks like Manhattan compared to Kabul!
Does the Taliban oppression of women today have anything to do with foreign troops having illicit relations with them during the 1839 battle?
No. It's an interesting question. The Afghan women were wearing the burqa then and it was a more severe form of covering than what was common in the plains. But Afghan women had a level of independence which you don't hear about so much today. You have these powerful matriarchal figures that one heard about then (which are in the book).
There's an interesting footnote where you talk about the Chippendales of Islamic heaven...
(Laughs) I've never been asked by anyone about a footnote! This is a first. Everyone writes about houris (nymphs of Paradise) and I wanted some stuff for the girls as well.
Can history be made enjoyable to the lay person?
When we went to school in England all of us loved history and we would despise Maths, Chemistry and Physics. You guys seem to love Maths, Chemistry and Physics and hate history! (Laughs) I have been having a discussion recently with my friend Ram Guha and he believes that many Indian authors are writing history for the general population in Hindi and Bengali. And he knows this field better than I do. But the bookshops are not groaning with that type of history book. I try to write the kind of history books that I enjoy and admire - which is based on years of primary research but which is written with a lightness of touch and a literary style which reads as well as any literary novel. To be able to take history and turn into a work of literature is a wonderful thing.
What's your most favourite place in India?
It changes each year. I used to think it's the wonderful Mandu in Madhya Pradesh. I had a theory thinking it was Goa then I moved on thinking it was Kerala. I love the Tamil south - Tanjore and all the gorgeous temple towns.
Do you like south Indian food?
I love it. I have put on so much weight eating dosa for breakfast everyday and uthapam at the airport and idli.com elsewhere. (Laughs)
You live on a farm in Delhi.
It's one of the few farms in Delhi that is a farm! We have goats - we milk them and eat them. We grow our own vegetables. It's very self-sufficient actually.
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