Two things strike you after reading this work. Firstly, the monumental effort in terms of research that has gone into its making. Secondly, it is Deborah Baker's writing style. Although the book is a historical biography for it deals with historical events in Europe and British India, it is written in the manner of a novel.
Through the lives of a few British officers and Western educated Indian intellectuals, Deborah Baker narrates the social and political upheaval taking place in Europe and British India preceding and during the Second World War and how their lives crisscrossed leading to joy, love, suffering and agony. The similarity in the social struggle of the working class against the ruling elite is poignantly etched out. For example, the coal miners' strike in England in 1926 and the class struggles within the Indian society as a subset of the broader struggle for self-rule are indications of that.
The author portrays a vivid picture of how the policies of the British Raj over the decades brought about a gradual transformation in the thinking of the English educated Indian elite.The initial positive sentiment generated as a result of marriage of Western education with Indian thought among the early beneficiaries was seeing a gradual shift among the subsequent generation. For example, after being a silent witness to the mass deaths during the Bengal famine in 1943 (result of British inaction), Sudindranath Dutta started to question his father, Hirendranath Dutta's belief that marriage of West and East has brought prosperity to Bengal, something he also had alluded to for a long time. Tagore's letter to Foss Wescott before his death is another reflection of it.
It was also a time of fierce rivalry among the Imperialist nations. The power play of Imperial politics played out in the terrain of mountaineering as well, the intense competition among the British, Germans and Americans to be the first one to summit the Mt. Everest is a testimony to that. The highest mountain in the world, named after an Englishman, had proved out of reach of the British despite repeated expeditions throughout the 1930s.
Although the author's writing is essentially descriptive, barring a few paragraphs describing the Himalayan expeditions, it never gets monotonous for she alternates between the private lives of her characters and the political happenings in Europe and British India. Her use of sarcasm is mild and mature handling of the deaths and destruction in Europe during the War and the communal riots in Calcutta deserve appreciation. Her characters appear aptly woven into the narrative of the World War and the Indian Independence movement across the two continents.
The British may have left India decades ago and English names replaced on account of Indianisation in the ensuing decades but a few remnants will forever remind us of their contributions. For example, one of the most dangerous passes in Rudagaira Valley in Garhwal in known as Auden's Col, named after John Bicknell Auden, the first one to climb the dangerous pass in 1939. John Auden, Director of Geological Survey of India was perhaps the last English officer to leave India in May 1953.
The Last Englishmen provides a poignant narrative about India and Britain of the 1930s and 40s especially for current generations far removed from those times.
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