Blood Moon in the East
A novel and two non-fiction books present the art of writing about war
IF I HAVE TO BE A SOLDIER by Nikhil J. Alva HARPERCOLLINS `499; 336 Pages
Childhood friends find themselves on opposing sides of a conflict. Over this well-established trope, Nikhil J. Alva imposes the Mizo National Front uprising of 1966-1967 that was brutally put down by the Indian state. In the maelstrom of the insurgency, Capt. Samuel Rego’s path crosses that of his friend Sena, now a dreaded Mizo National Army commander. Through a neat plot twist, both find themselves inextricably tied to each other. A deadly cat-and-mouse game ensues. Alva’s narrative has illuminating details of the Mizo hills—Mara and Paite tribal customs, the slow ingress of Christianity, the Belgian stained-glass windows of the Baptist church…. Alva’s workaday prose, however, don’t do them justice. Also featuring a snarling army camp commandant (Aiyar!) straight out of Hollywood’s cast of psychotic sergeant majors.
IMPHAL KOHIMA 1944 by Hemant Singh Katoch HARPERCOLLINS `399; 228 Pages
Katoch calls this a battlefield guide to the twin battles of Imphal-Kohima: “the foremost Second World War battlefield tourism destination of India”. And, drinking deeply of military history, he takes his cue from Gen. William Slim through the ‘hub and spoke’ method—Kohima at the centre, with dierent lines of the Japanese 15th Army’s eorts to take it—that he uses to describe the bewildering skein of individual actions and battles. Katoch takes us on a guided tour through every site of action as it exists today, at the same time keeping up an accurate fire of history. This is also an excellent primer to the fighting itself, complete with battle orders, bibliography, photographs, sections on individual valour, battlefield strategy and notable engagements.
HIS MAJESTY’S HEADHUNTERS The Siege of Kohima that Shaped World History by Mmhonlümo Kikon PENGUIN `599; 256 Pages
The central section of Kikon’s book tells in vivid detail the crucial contribution of the Nagas— as soldiers, porters and scouts of the V Force—to the defeat of the Japanese invasion of India during the grinding siege of Kohima in April-June 1944. But Kikon doesn’t stop at the blood and grime of ‘the Stalingrad of the East’. In crisp language touched with understated irony, he lays out the cultural diversity of the Naga hills, where each village could claim a separate identity. The protracted tangle between the Ahoms, the Manipuri kingdom, the invading—and repelled—Burmese and the calculating British persevering through the 19th century towards total control are described succinctly. A minor classic.