Book Review: The Fall of Idi Amin

Book Review

Title: Culture of the Sepulchre-Idi Amin’s Monster Regime
Author: Madanjeet Singh
Publisher:Penguin Viking, 2012
Pages: 237.
Price: Rs. 499/-

The Fall of Idi Amin

In the tradition of the ICS Collectors of the 19^th century, a former Indian Ambassador to Uganda has written an engaging first-hand account of his experiences in Uganda during the latter part of Idi Amin’s rule. Such memoirs prove to be very useful accounts of a time and place when information on the inner workings and doings are not generally accessible.

 This book is a personalised account of the chaotic last days of Idi Amin’s blood-soaked regime through the recollections of then Indian Ambassador Madanjeet Singh. The Indian perspective from that time is important because Idi Amin triggered the largest Asian refugee exodus from Uganda to the UK, Canada, America, India and other places in the Seventies.

 In his zeal to blame these industrial and trading classes who had served to build the country for generations, Amin expelled all Asians without distinction. Amin labelled them disloyal and was angry with their perceived refusal to integrate with the native Ugandan, particularly by way of marriage.

Today it is seen that Uganda’s loss was the gain of all the countries that received the desperate refugees, including some neighbouring African countries such as Kenya and Tanzania. Many of these erstwhile exiles have proved to be highly successful, starting afresh from scratch in their new domiciles. And some have even gone back to their beloved Uganda.

The book makes for interesting reading today, three decades or more after the rule by terror, intimidation, torture, subterfuge, outright lies and assassination described in it. This precisely  because such tactics have not disappeared even today. Also in the annals of recent African history, Idi Amin’s brutal rule and tribal fratricide was not that atypical or exceptional.

Depicted as a buffoon in this and many other accounts, Idi Amin  may well have been underestimated. Witness that he died comfortably abed, decades after his fall from power, in luxurious exile in Saudi Arabia. He was granted asylum there with all the trappings and status of a former ruler, in recognition for his services towards the promotion of Wahabi Islam in Uganda.

Amin’s other notable friend and benefactor while in power, Muammar Gaddafi of Libya, was himself hounded to death in his own country for a style of governance and  performance not unlike Amin’s. Colonel Gaddafi’s attraction for Amin was due to the latter’s vociferous support of the Organisation for African Unity. The OAU was and remains an elusive quantity, but nevertheless caught the imagination of the strong man of Libya as a desired bulwark against big power manipulation.

And of course, militant Islam, an off-shoot and possibly unintended consequence of state sponsored Islamisation, has a lot to answer for in our current era of continuous terrorism and retribution. Today it seems clear that the promotion of Islamism results in extremism overtaking the accepted norms of nationhood. And Idi Amin’s experiment in this regard not only opened up religious and tribal fissures at the time but also ended badly.

Idi Amin did very well for a semi-educated army cook risen to absolute power. He practiced classic British style divide and rule policies with considerable panache. Amin did this amongst his own supporters and Government appointees in his dictatorship. He exploited tribal and religious rivalries by playing one off against the other. He used the semi-foreign Nubians, originally from neighbouring Sudan, to carry out his suppressions and oppressions. He killed or exiled his perceived opponents or they jumped ship on their own to save their lives. And yet, his Opposition, both at home and abroad remained sorely divided amongst themselves.

In addition, Amin also exploited big power rivalries. He milked the Soviets for guns, troops and technicians by leaning towards “African Socialism” and by offering them a sphere of influence. He did the same with the Libyans and Saudis, obtaining money and armaments through or paid for by them, in exchange for his commitment against “Imperialism” and for “African Solidarity”.

And yet, Uganda’s greatest export and revenue earner, Coffee, was purchased largely by the Americans and Europeans. Ironically, it is when, to counter-balance Soviet influence, the US embargoed purchases from Uganda, that Amin’s hold on power began to unravel. Nevertheless, this proactive foreign policy worked for a very long time for Amin.

Madanjeet Singh has written his book in the form of a memoir, and this gives it authenticity, particularly as he peppers it with events from his own personal life. And remarkably, for a career diplomat, he demonstrates extraordinary courage. He refused to leave Kampala throughout the defeat of Amin’s forces by those from Nyerere’s Tanzania, the installation of the new government and all the instability and lawlessness that accompanied those dangerous days. But having said that, there is more than an occasional whiff of self promotion in the book which however can be forgiven in favour of the sincerity it exudes.

 (802 words)
20^th March 2012
Gautam Mukherjee

Published in The Sunday Pioneer and online at www.dailypioneer.com in the AGENDA Section BOOKS Page on       

The New National

The New National

The authors of the Indian Constitution provided for a quasi-federalism in order to separate so-called local issues from national and international ones. And, significantly, to subordinate the States to the Centre to make for greater cohesiveness and strength.

This worked after a fashion for the initial decades of one party rule, even though the States were often, and infamously, dealt with more imperiously than they might have been. The matrix of Union subjects, State subjects and Concurrent ones, conceived by the founding fathers, was, it is now seen, only adequate to meet the demands of a bygone era.

Also, as the time went on, the limitations of the old notion of exclusively State Subjects which include “public order and police”, became evident, given the rampaging externally instigated terrorism and Maoist violence that many regions are facing.

A graphic image to remember in this regard is the invasion of the Taj Mahal Hotel and Mumbai’s Jewish Chabad House on 26/11, by terrorists first and the NSG commandos later. That was in 2008, already a few years ago, and a lot more has happened, both before and since, to underline the new reality. And this, without the Republic of India properly coming to grips with the problem even to date as scores of innocents continue to be killed.

Law and order, as visualised at the state level, was meant to address simple security and crowd control issues. These, the local police are indeed trained and equipped to tackle. But the bigger challenges of politically motivated assassination attempts on politicians, kidnapping of prominent citizens or their relatives, subversion, bombings, planned sedition etc. call for national and international intelligence sharing and coordinated action, often involving several States, the Centre, and foreign governments. While this may be self evident, what has remained sadly unchanged is the attitude of a weakened Central Government nevertheless thinking it can impose its views on the States without consultation.

Still, having tasted the power of controlling their own security, albeit augmented by para-military, military, intelligence, investigative and other central forces, brought in on the State’s invitation, the States are now unwilling to have the Centre oversee or worse, overrule them in their own backyards. And this, crucially, because many of the States, not run by the ruling coalition at the Centre, are not beholden for their electoral success or standing to the Union Government.

Apart from security as in “public order”, another important State Subject, “Public Health,” is also woebegone and apathetically dealt with, almost from the start. This is because the States rarely have the funds themselves, or the wherewithal to properly administer central or foreign funds to conduct programmes, or create facilities to the standard necessary. And yet, the reform in this vital regard has not really been forthcoming.

One reason for this is because it enables the Centre to blame the States for poor public health administration rather than take responsibility for its betterment themselves.

“Education”, which is on the Concurrent List, does not fare much better, again because of divided responsibility and weakened accountability. The whole area of “Criminal Law and Procedure” and “Civil Procedure”, also on the Concurrent List suffers from the ravages of dual responsibility and local manipulation.

But the answer towards betterment in all this is probably not greater centralisation. Because, when it existed and prevailed through the long years of the Nehru and Indira Gandhi eras, it did not deliver the requisite results. It didn’t, probably because, combined with Socialism and its chronic shortages, and a GDP growth rate of between 1.8 to 2.2 per cent, there was very little money to throw at development, let alone those issues designed to modernise organisation and methods. Besides, there was no credible political Opposition, or even the kind of factionalism now rife, to threaten the ruling party. All this is now history as the recent results in the just concluded Assembly elections in four states have shown.

In 2012 also, the notion of quasi-federalism itself is facing spirited challenges. The authority of the Centre has been eroded steadily since the era of coalition politics settled in properly. Today, the definition of “national” and “regional” when applied to political parties too is undergoing a sea change. 

A National Party like the BJP for example, derives a great deal of its authority and presence at the Centre from the fact that it is running an increasing number of States. And likewise, regional parties such as the BSP, the SP and the TMC are no longer content to confine their electoral pitches only to their home states, and are winning seats in other state assemblies also.

In the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha too, it is the tail that wags the dog, more often than not, with coalition partners exercising near veto-like influence on the initiatives of the largest coalition partner in the ruling UPA.

And the Opposition BJP also often finds itself in the peculiar position of facing many of the problems of the Congress Party both at the Centre and in the States.  What we are witnessing is a weakening of the mooring bolts of our quasi-federation, and this fact has not been lost on the various regional parties.  To them, pushing for more power, both at the Centre and in the States, this is a welcome development.

Nor has the implications of this trend been unnoticed by the several powerful State Chief Ministers from both the principal national parties or their allies in their respective coalitions, who also happen to run some of the States. Some States in turn are even running local coalitions of their own. 

The Centre has undeniably been performing very poorly for several years now, stymied and conflicted about how to go forward. It has increasingly fallen back on old hat tactics such as populist soppery to buy votes or insulting divisiveness to garner minority support. The net result has been both a loss of credibility and face reflecting a new sophistication amongst voters that it has failed to gauge.

The inheritors of the power that has slipped away from the Centre are the regional parties, along with those national parties more able to make common cause with them, and the Governments across the political spectrum that are ensconced in the States.  It is they who will give new meaning to the Constitution and its provisions, and determine the future of India both at the Centre and in the States.

And it is also they who will determine and provide the future occupants of Race Course Road and Rashtrapati Bhavan as well as many of those on Raisina Hill.

(1,099 words)

7^th March 2012

Gautam Mukherjee

Published as Leader on Edit Page of The Pioneer on 8th March 2012 as "Power shifts to the States" and also online at www.dailypioneer.com