Alice Albinia’s Empires of the Indus is the exploration of a river’s history in its geological and human context, a narrative of the Indus from its delta in Pakistan to its source at Senge Khabab, Tibet. It begins with the human perspective of the Indus as a source of life as also economic and political muscle and flows through moments of epiphany to the sense of its geological essence, an essence that dwarfs all other considerations. Indus, or Sindhu, is “Saraansh”, endless, but the modern river is a trickle in many places. What causes this degradation of an ancient and life enhancing river? Alice Albinia’s narrative of the Indus and of her journey along its course is an eye opening tribute to a river’s ever changing journey over millennia.

The book is structured in 12 chapters that move backwards in time: it starts in modern Karachi, a city near the Indus Delta that experienced social, political and cultural upheaval after partition of the subcontinent in 1947; the mapping and conquest of Indus and the consequent metamorphosis of Sindh under British avarice; genesis of the Sheedis in Thatta, Pakistan; Sufi saints of the Indus who made the “power of the Indus” synonymous with the power of spiritualism; the growth of Punjab based on the river’s munificence and imperial ambitions, Buddhism’s spread in the Swat Valley, Alexander’s ambitious forays along the Indus, Vedic reverence of the Sindhu, Indus Valley civilisations, Senge Khabab, and finally recognition of the geological immensity of a river that has shaped human civilisations, a river that sprung out of the continental collision, a river that is at risk of disappearing. The time line—1947 to fifty million years ago. Alice Albinia’s first book does justice to this immensity of time and geographical spread through acute observation, intense, involved description and multi layered narrative of a river’s glory and its gradual destruction. 

The book begins on a warm note: “In a land where it seldom rains, a river is as precious as gold. Water is potent: it trickles through human dreams, permeates lives, dictates agriculture, religion and warfare. Ever since Homo sapiens first migrated out of Africa, the Indus has drawn thirsty conquerors to its banks.  Some of the world’s first cities were built here; India’s earliest Sanksrit literature was written about the river; Islam’s holy preachers wandered beside the waters” (Preface, p. xv).

It ends on an ominous note: “But for how long will the waters continue pouring forth? The river is slipping away through our fingers, dammed to disappearance. The Atharva Veda calls the Indus Saaransh: flowing for ever. One day, when there is nothing but dry river beds and dust, when this ancient name has been rendered obsolete, then the songs human sing will be dirges of bitterness and regret. They will tell of how the Indus-which once ‘encircled Paradise’, bringing forth civilisations and species, languages and religions-was, through mankind’s folly, entirely spent” (p. 308).

In between these two frames Albinia posits her thrilling journey of discovery through history and personal adventure, the exploits of emperors and the folly of modern humans that render an ancient source, the “river of rivers” into a dammed trickle. However, it is not discovery alone that the writer brings to the narrative that in places reads like a thriller, but also pathos, empathy at its best, and an acute understanding of both human bravery and human folly.

The book is not travelogue alone; two layers of narrative blend smoothly within its pages, of history and personal experience based on impressive research and enviable tenacity that takes her through Taliban country, into remote corners of the continent, and through terrain that imposes unexpected demands on her mind and body. Her involvement in the subject is palpable, her love for it touching, and her anguish for the “disappearing river” a genuine comment on its bleak future, dammed up behind walls and channelled into fields that enrich a select few.

The modern history of the river is concomitant with the growth of British imperialism in the sub continent, their unmitigated thirst for expansion and control over their

dominion. The first big dams on the river came up at this time; the damming of the Indus found a fillip in British quest for dominance over a trade-rich river, an approach that continues into modern statecraft and water resource management. Empires of the Indus critiques the selfish pursuit of narrow interests by nations and governments, its commentary scathing: “As we sit together in the gathering dusk, I think how dramatically this ancient river has changed in the past few decades. Imagine the disbelief, had you told the British officials, who coveted the Indus from the early seventeenth century, that one day this darkly swirling river would actually run out; had you prophesied then that the exhaustion of this river in the twenty-first century would be in part the legacy of their irrigation projects. For three hundred years after the British first saw it, the Indus was the ‘mighty river’, capricious, frustrating, desirable. Nobody could have guessed that one day, down here in the Delta, there might be no fresh water left” (p 31).  The initial chapters etch out the politics of water and demography, tracing the roots of Punjab’s agrarian prosperity and political muscle to the Indus waters channelled into their lands; these chapters weave in a greater degree of historical facts and research than the latter sections where the author’s personal experience provides much of the commentary.

While perverse developmental aspirations of people forms the crux of Empire’s voluminous research, Albinia also manages to draw attention to intolerance in the modern world among nations and religions as compared to the defining religious syncretism of 18th century Indus valley. For today’s generation whose connect with Indus or Sindhu and its ancient civilisations is confined to academic texts, this book is a revelation; it is also a clarion call to greater conscientiousness towards rivers as life givers. While the book begins with hope, it ends with a chilling reminder of the bleak future of our rivers. “... up in Tibet, the indigenous people have not altered the river at all. Dropka ... watch the arrival and departure of migratory birds from their ancestral pasture lands but they never kill or eat them. They do not eat fish from the river. Nor do they fence the land, or cut it, or sow it. The contrast with the dam makers is instructive. If a dam is the supreme symbol of man’s attempt to control nature, the nomads of the Tibetan plateau are exemplars of harmony” (p. 303).

Empires of the Indus is a pleasure to read not just because it provides a different angle than the usual to Pakistan and its people, not because of the lucid and beautifully descriptive prose, and not also because of the subject itself. It makes for delightful reading because it transports the reader right along the path of the mighty river with bits and clumps of information that the average reader of history may not be aware of, for example, the textured analysis of the spread of Buddhism in Swat Valley, an unlikely place for the religion if there is one. What adds to the layers of excitement and thrill is the obvious and implied contrast between its Buddhist past and Taliban present. Combined with this is Albinia’s rare ability to make connections between seemingly unrelated facts and weave a story round them. The narrative of this book starts with a sweeper she sees on a Karachi street. This apparently insignificant detail leads her on to analyse Partition, Government initiatives and strategies, Indo-Pak tensions and political machinations, and finally to the sucking dry of the Indus at its mouth. An entire chapter rises out of a chance observation.

Empires of the Indus is a wonderful journey and an incisive analysis of a river and its civilisations, of governments that have mismanaged their water resources and of the need to preserve the same as the Dropkas do. What could add to the book’s worth though are more photographs. Perhaps a second edition will take care of this gap.

Alice Albinia read English Literature at Cambridge University. After graduating, she moved to Delhi, where she worked for the next two a half years as a journalist and editor for the Centre for Science & Environment, Biblio: A Review of Books, Outlook Traveller, and several other Indian newspapers and magazines. It was during this time, as she travelled around the country writing articles and features, that she had the idea to write a history of the River Indus. In 2002, she moved back to London to take an MA in South Asian history at the School of Oriental and African Studies, where she researched the religious and political history of the Indus region. Empires of the Indus is her first book, for which she won a Royal Society of Literature / Jerwood Foundation Special Prize for non-fiction work in progress, a Somerset Maugham Award and the Dolman Travel Prize.

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Reviewed by Sucharita Dutta Asane Designed by Subhadip Mukherjee