Obituary: Anthony David Nuttall

At Oxford, I wrote my M.Phil. thesis on the antinomian elements in the poetry of William Blake under the supervision of Tony Nuttall. He was an exceptional tutor and, as one of my friends memorably commented, the Funes Memorious we had known. I still remember him quoting passages from the Aeneid during his stupendous lectures on the roots of (European and British) Romanticism.

I was introduced to Nuttall some years before I actually went up to Oxford. My teacher at Jadavpur University - after an engaging conversation on Herbert's poetry - had lent me Nuttall's book Overheard by God. It was a compelling read that made a fascinating argument about Puritan poetics. Few years later, within the confines of his office at New College (and with a dash of embarrassment), the author himself would recommend his Alternative Trinity: Gnostic Heresy in Milton, Marlowe and Blake to me. It was an intellectual thriller. It was the start of one of the most intellectually stimulating phases of my Oxford student-life.

I remember Tony Nuttall from my Oxford days as a demanding tutor who expected me to fight him "with [my] intellectual sleeves rolled up" (his words). And he was extremely generous with his learning.

In many ways an epitome of the idea of an Oxford don, Nuttall was a staunch humanist who stood apart from the dour exemplars of human erudition for his extremely quirky sense of humor. For instance, not many Oxford dons would - to drive home the point about the Gnostic elements in Blake's poetry in an academic publication - compare the poet to Hugh Heffner. Or veer off from a passionate discussion on antinomianism with his student to deliberate whether the Ranter Abezier Coppe preached in Oxford fully clothed or in the buff?
 
Tony Nuttall passed away on 24 January, 2007.

These are his obituaries from a few UK newspapers:
The Guardian
The Times
The Daily Telegraph
The Independent

GIVE TRADE A CHANCE

Sandeep Banerjee

A couple of years ago, the Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI) pipeline was the policy issue in India and provided a subject for endless editorials as well as relentless debate in political and diplomatic circles. Pakistan had cleared the proposal but the United States had made clear it was not too keen on this tripartite arrangement. So when Indian journalists met the visiting Pakistani commerce minister in New Delhi, they were curious to know if the US wanted Pakistan to opt out. Pat came the reply from Humayun Akhtar Khan: “Jab mian bibi razi, to kya karey ga kazi.”

This was an unusual articulation of South Asian unity. It didn’t mean India-Pakistan relations had reached a state of conjugal ecstasy but simply that the pipeline made good business sense for both Pakistan and India and they were responding to a sound business proposal. But even though they seem to agree more when they use their economic faculties, India and Pakistan seldom talk business. The political crowding out the economic, Indo-Pak talks almost always end in political rhetoric. And political rhetoric — used to negotiating the semantics of ‘boundary’ and ‘self-determination’ — is incapable of addressing issues like duty structures or non-tariff barriers. The net result is dismal trade figures: Indo-Pak direct trade stood at a little over US$600 million in 2004–05. Compare that to Sino-Indian trade of over US$17 billion in 2005–06.

But to be fair, official India-Pakistan trade data doesn’t paint the complete picture. There is a huge volume of illicit trade as well as trade in goods which originate in either country but are imported through a third country. The most conservative of estimates puts unofficial trade at three to four times that of trade through formal channels. Supplementing official figures with this data would show that despite unfavourable conditions, there exists substantial (though unofficial) trade between India and Pakistan. Indian and Pakistani establishments acknowledge this fact; they now need to code this reality into their actions.

In the past, opportunities to uncouple economics from politics haven’t succeeded in negotiating the rough terrain of India-Pakistan relations. Take, for instance, the South Asian Free Trade Agreement (SAFTA) that proposes a free trade area in South Asia. As Pakistan notified the agreement, it issued a positive list for trade with India, citing the old faithful — security concerns. This meant that the goods that could be traded were spelt out. The international norm is to trade on the basis of a negative list (trade is allowed in all goods except those listed). In response, the Indian Commerce Minister Kamal Nath has written to the SAARC (South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation) secretariat claiming Pakistan is sabotaging the SAFTA, a claim that is not without merit.

Some say it is difficult to love thy neighbour, especially if you have fought three wars with each other and have a territorial dispute that goes back six decades. But then, India-Pakistan relations would do well to follow the Sino-Indian paradigm. Like Pakistan, China too has a boundary dispute with India; China and India claim portions of each other’s territories as their own. They also fought a war in 1962.
But they still manage to trade. And even speak of Free Trade Agreements.

In fact, Indian commerce ministry projections show China could be India’s largest trading partner (surpassing USA, and a figure of US$20 billion) by 2008. The contentious issues — of boundary and territory — haven’t been forgotten. It’s just that they don’t impinge on business.

Today, as we speak of globalisation, the global economy and the global village, we say capital has no nationality or race. This world-view is constantly undermining the older ethic of nation and of political boundaries. That is the nature of the world we live in and political establishments the world over are only gradually grasping this new radicalism. China and India — by de-linking politics from economics — perhaps show they have not just imbibed the message of globalisation, but have also internalised it.

Chinese and Indian embrace of globalisation isn’t a matter of simple ideological predilection. These countries are home to a huge chunk of the world’s poor. The performance of these two economies — dubbed the Asian powerhouses — are gradually lifting their populations out of poverty and giving them a better life. This is not just a function of welfare. There is a deeper political import. Economic prosperity essentially leads to durable regimes and consequently, stable countries. And in that, there is perhaps a message for Pakistan.

With the dialogue process once again chugging, there is need to reassess the old salients. Progress on Kashmir need not be linked to movement on commerce; cross-border terrorism cannot be the reason for a lull in cross-border trade. Pakistan needs to bring enlightened moderation to the table. India, with the balance of trade hopelessly in its favour, simply needs to be more gracious about trade concessions.

Pakistan and India are home to over 1.4 billion people. The governments of these countries owe it to their citizens to help them lead better lives. And there really is no substitute for economic activity to generate more jobs and fight poverty. India and Pakistan have been trying, for long, to give peace a chance. It is time to change tack and give trade a chance. The rest will follow.
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This article was published in Daily Times, Lahore on November 16, 2006. The original article can be found here.

SELECTIVE AMNESIA

Sandeep Banerjee

Pope Benedict XVI is 'deeply sorry.' Sorry, because some bits of his speech – on violence, jihad and Islam – at the University of Regensburg have offended Muslim sensibilities. So the Pope apologised in person; a rather gracious act, no doubt.

What exactly does this apology achieve? It probably helps the aggrieved forget the wrong. The Pope's sorry also allows for a selective appeal to memory, helping the individual and the collective negotiate history effectively.

Negotiating history is tricky because it requires skilful use of memory, of forgetting. So when the Holy Father in his speech quotes a Byzantine Emperor Manuel Paleologus as saying that 'violence is incompatible with the nature of God,' one cannot but help think that Papa Ben is indulging in some gratuitous forgetting of his own.

The Big Ben forgets, perhaps conveniently, that violence too is coded into the fabric of Christianity – it was Jesus (according to the Gospel, Matthew) who said, 'He that is not with me is against me' long before George W. Bush made this line his own.

As for the history of the Catholic Church: The Spanish Inquisition could lay claim to being one of the bloodiest chapters of human history, scripted by the Vatican's Holy Office of the Inquisition. Today this is called the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, an office the current Pope headed before his elevation. The Holy See also blessed the cleansing of the indigenous populations and cultures of the Americas. And the silence of Pope Pius XII as Hitler performed his danse macabre, wasn't exactly golden, was it?

Being German, the Pope knows the importance of forgetting since Germany stands at a curious psychological juncture of memory and amnesia. That country wants to forget its murderous Nazi past, Europe doesn't – because to forget murder is to absolve the perpetrator. Remembering the holocaust is to perpetuate guilt.

But in Germany, even remembering isn't an easy task. Ask Gunter Grass. After insisting that his countrymen must never, ever forget, he has just chosen to remember his own past in his forthcoming autobiography – that he was a member of the Nazi SS.

A snippet from his autobiography: As a prisoner of war in the Bad Aibling camp, Grass came across a shy 17-year-old boy called Joseph. Grass wanted to be an artist, Joseph wanted to go into the church. Grass can't remember if Joseph is Pope Benedict XVI though Papa Ben admits he was indeed a prisoner of war in that camp.

Strange, indeed, are the ways of memory.
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This article was published in the editorial page of the Times of India, New Delhi on September 20, 2006. The original article can be found here.

OXFORD, ROUGHCUT

Sandeep Banerjee

Oxford, one of my friends once suggested, was a town that had pretensions of being a picture postcard. I never argued with his evocative turn of phrase. After all, it is an exceedingly pretty university town.

The buildings showing off their gothic splendour in the afternoon sun, the chimes from the university chapel, the blossoming cherry trees, the swans on the Thames (or the Isis, as it is called in this part of this island) all affirm the picture postcard nature of the town. And then there are the gargoyles too, smirking at the tutorial ravaged Oxford student and the Big Mac chomping American tourist alike. One could then sum it all up in one word - idyllic (minus the tourist, of course).

While idyllic it is for most of the week, come Friday night and Oxford strives to transcend itself: to put its more exotic facets on display. What is possibly most striking about Oxford on a Friday evening is the panache with which its male residents, Townies and Gownies alike, set about relieving themselves - post beer binging at the pubs - in public.

On one solemn occasion, as I was entering the hallowed precincts of University College, I managed to get my shoes wet, courtesy some enthusiastic Englishman who had taken the steps of the college to be his personal flower-bed. This, I confess, was not a novel experience for me. I have had similar experiences with cows in the narrow gallis of Varanasi. But then they, quite understandably, never wished me 'good evening' like my Oxford benefactor.

And then there are the public phone booths. On weekends, they are a strict no-no as they usually bear the full brunt of the Friday excesses. The exceedingly brave-hearted often have to navigate a sea of beer-induced urine within the booth to then find the much sought after handset covered in - ummm … let's phrase this delicately - puke, de profundis some fellow Oxonian.

You might want to call these reality checks that are coded within the grand Oxford experience which unflinchingly champions the establishment of the mens sana in corpore sano. And indeed, while it remains perpetually etched in popular collective memory as the 'sweet city with her dreaming spires,' there is an Oxford that is far removed from the rarefied atmosphere of the university. It exists only in an oblique relationship to the gowned students and the manicured lawns of the colleges.

This urban reality - rendered more shockingly real owing to the contrast to its 'fairytale-ish' counterpart, the universally acclaimed brand name - is the one inhabited by the tramp, relentlessly chanting his beer-drenched and marijuana-inspired: cud'ya spair sum chainge mait; and the young Bosnian mother who asks the passer-by for money to feed her child on a pram.

I think back to my pre-departure orientation that was organised by the British Council before I left Calcutta. It was an extremely helpful exercise that ensured, among others, that we did not get lost in the dazzling maze of Heathrow. We were also warned against this peculiar entity called 'culture shock' and I was on the lookout for it the moment my feet touched Her Majesty's realm.

And when I did finally encounter it, I have to admit that I was taken aback just a little bit. I had not been told that the young Bangladeshi mother begging for her child at the traffic light on Calcutta's Park Street would re-invent herself for me in Oxford. The garish saree had given way to a pair of jeans and T-shirt, the bangal accented Bengali had become English with a distinctly Eastern European twang and stutter. And yes, she was much more self-assured than the familiar face from back home.

No, I am not being perverse. Nor am I pushing the soft nationalist line of the mera Bharat mahaan variety. Oxford can be brutally real at times, something that adds a refreshing dimension to this medieval English university town. And being the humanities student that I am - hopelessly so, I would argue - I just like seeing parallels even where none apparently exist.
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A revised version of this article appeared in The Statesman, Calcutta in 2001.