On Calamity & Courage

British Historian, Victor Kiernam wrote that active involvement in the present can develop the right sense of touch for the past is a true one, but so is the converse,

British Historian, Victor Kiernam wrote that active involvement in the present can develop the right sense of touch for the past is a true one, but so is the converse, that only familiarity with the past can impart the right touch for the present. We cannot act on things gone by, but they continue to act on us, and the past and present combine to make the future. A distinguished historian, Victor had special interest in South Asia and Indian history. What could be timelier then releasing the Indian edition of Belinda Morse’s Calamity & Courage: A Heroine of the Raj, in the April month of Manipur?  The book was released on April 20 by the Governor of Manipur, in the presence of the author. Though the book’s first edition was released in 2008, the second edition has a greater significance as it is being released in Manipur; the very place where the historical events took place. Alongside, April is the month that witnessed the epoch making event of the Anglo-Manipur war that took place in 1891. The tiny kingdom of Manipur lost its sovereignty to the hands of British India. Popularly known as the Khongjom War, it was the deciding battle fought between Manipur and Queen-Empress’ army. The war paved way for effective control of the kingdom by the British. Every year April 23 is observed as the ‘Khongjom Day’ as tribute to the martyrs who lost their lives fighting for Manipur.

The writer puts on record, in her forward, that Ethel Grimwood’s My Three Years in Manipur, has been her inspiration for writing the book. She realised that “nothing can equal her own first-hand account of her ordeal”.   Victorian artist John Hanson Walker was the writer’s great-grandfather. A portrait of a lady painted by the artist that hangs in her house kindled in her a quest to know more about the lady. The lady was none other than Ethel Grimwood, wife of Frank Grimwood who was the then political agent of British India, stationed in Manipur. Who would not know of My Three Years in Manipur, and of course, the Grimwood husband and wife, in Manipur? The book and its author have been able to reside in the historical imagination of the readers of Manipur. Historical references from the book has been cited by scholars of modern Manipuri history repeatedly. Therefore, for readers who have been intimate with My Three Years in Manipur, would have an uncanny feeling of reading the same book while reading Calamity & Courage. Almost every chapters of the book has immensely been faithful to the personal accounts of Mrs Grimwood, which is inevitable while writing a biography of the lady. Yet, the writer gives us more insights by weaving in from sources like The Times, records from the British Library, Letters and Journals of Queen Victoria, Illustrated London News and other rare documents. A Manipuri historian or a scholar would have found it difficult to get access to the kind of references that the writer has managed to use. Chapter five onwards, the writer grippingly steers us more on the life of Mrs Grimwood, after her ordeal in Manipur and her remaining life in England and America. Tales of Ethel and her second marriage to Andrew Cornwall Miller, of Ethel ‘teaching music for a living’, inventing a new persona for herself as ‘Evelyn Miller’; and the gloomy dusk of Ethel’s life suffering from ‘toxic psychosis’. Needless to say, Belinda Morse has gone through an arduous research to write the book. She had personally come to Manipur in 2006 following Ethel’s footsteps. The turmoil which she read about Manipur from the headlines of Imphal Free Press saddens her.  We would say, till today there has been not much change. But the historical juncture where we stand together, cutting across the political boundary and the continental distance, as citizens of the world have drastically changed. Reiterating Victor Kiernam’s, the present can develop a right sense of touch for the past, the present and past combine should make a future – a common future. We truly acknowledge the calmness and courage of Belinda Morse, in her and in her work.

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2014/04/on-calamity-courage/