Every Day is Halloween.

Or at least it ought to be. I know it's late, but here are a few Halloween pics. This year, the dogs went as Catholic school girls.

The Challenge of Indian Art

What is art? Is it a purely utilitarian object with some trappings of decoration, or is it pure aesthetics which has absolutely no purpose whatsoever than to appeal, rather hedonistically if you will, to the senses?

This debate has raged amongst art circles from the earliest documented periods of art history : from the seminal essays of Alois Riegl to the lines and periods drawn up by institutions and art academies of the 19th and 20th centuries. This distinction between art and artisanship, between the artist and the artisan, is also coincidentally one of the chief divisions that separate South Asian, or Indian art, from its counterpart in the West. Indian art has often been held to be repetitive, a craft rather than a display of true and original intent. It is only recently, when paradigms of global histories are being tested in schools and academies across the world, that the appendage position occupied by South Asian art within the canon of art history is being seriously questioned. This in spite of certain scholarly positions that argue for the complete hegemony, as it were, of the Western model of writing histories of and appreciating art. Is the history of Indian art then doomed to forever be in the shadow of a larger, global narrative? These questions are important, for in some ways they allude to the intellectual hegemony held by the Western academy over forms and ways of knowing, where even emerging powers like China and India are forced to adopt methodologies and systems of art appreciation that have been developed in the West.

This is not to say that there have not been laudable attempts at chronicling South Asian art. One of the earliest modern historians of Indian art was Ananda Kentish Coomaraswamy. Living in Ceylon during British colonial times, Coomaraswamy did much to inscribe meaning to Indian art and architecture within the Western imagination. For Coomaraswamy, there was no art, or meaning in art, unless one understood the principles that guided its creators. Without an understanding of these principles, Indian art became simply a collection of strange looking gods, fanciful sculptures, and apparently misshapen forms. It took his interpretation of Indian art as a predominantly religious and spiritual work to make the Westerner begin to appreciate art, painting and sculpture especially Hindu art on a basis comparable to that of its Western contemporary. 1

But if making Indian art comprehensible to the Western observer is one of the challenges that faces the writing of a South Asian art history, what is perhaps even more serious is the way that Indian art is often appended as a subsidiary culture to the grand narrative that is the history of Western art. This grand sweep of history from the Pyramids to Picasso, has a very definable center, consisting of the Western Renaissance and its allied movements. To this center all other movements, all other cultures must adhere and spring from. Thus a survey course in art in Western schools, till very recently at least, ran somewhat like the following :

Egyptian, Ancient Near Eastern, and Classical Art; Early Christian, Byzantine and Medieval Art; The Renaissance, Baroque and 18th century Europe; 19th and 20th century Europe; Photography and Film, Art of the United States and Canada; Native American, Pre-Columbian and Latin American Art; Asian Art, Islamic Art; African Art; African Diaspora; Art Criticism and Theory. 2

It is clear from this grouping that the entire gamut of Asian Art (Chinese, South-East Asia, South Asia and even Middle Eastern) is clubbed under the catch-all phrase Asian Art - a category that comes much after mainstream European art, and is clubbed with overtly religious classes like Islamic Art, with a hint of primitivism like Latin American and African Art, and certainly is an offshoot of the main branches of art history. This is the second challenge that South Asian art faces: to evolve and emerge from being an offshoot of the art history tree to being a unique discipline in its own right. Much like architecture, South Asian art faces the challenge of being marginalized, of having to answer to canons that are developed in the West. This quasi-Darwinian legacy of Asian art also means that Asian artists are forever struggling to make their art answer to principles of art appreciation that have been evolved in the West, making Indian art a branch, not a main focus of study. Indian art remains Indian, and struggles to make the leap from its prefix to that of simply art.

This introduction to Indian art strives to overcome these fallacies in different ways : by ascribing meaning and intent to Indian art, by unearthing the purpose of the artisan and patron so as to ascribe a meaning that can be judged on the basis of original intent rather than Western aesthetics, and also by treating Indian art at a par with its Western contemporaries.

This introduction will also avoid dividing Indian art into dynasties, avoiding narrow divisions such as Gupta art, Hellenic art, Islamic art, and so on. The reason for this is that art in the Indian subcontinent was as much a product of traveling groups of artisans rather than dynastic or kingly patronage. This is the reason why Hellenic art, for example, can be found in South Asia just as much as Greece, why Persian influences mix with the Hellenic in Kushan art, and why Rajasthani schools of painting and Mughal schools borrow so much from each other to create a composite picture of miniature painting.

The second facet of this introduction is its geographic sweep. Indian art I purposely avoid for the moment the word South Asian also includes within its ambit influences from, and outward impulses to, geographies of the world as diverse as Indonesia, Thailand, China, Japan, Persia and Central Asia. This series will attempt to bring these diverse influences, where possible, under question and examine the truly continental nature of ancient and medieval Indian art, as also the global influences that modern Indian art has imbibed, as also the ways in which a globalized, connected world has influenced the production of art in South Asia. It is only by stressing upon the global nature of South Asian art that we can perhaps make the jump from treating this subject as an offshoot of the world history of art, to a synchronous event in world history that is as connected to its global cousins as it is indivisible from them. This approach would be proper, as it is no longer possible for the serious student or professional of art or cultural history to remain within a narrow confine of cultures, continents or time periods.

References:
1. Ananda K Coomaraswamy. An Approach to Indian Art. Parnassus, Vol. 7 No 7 pp. 17-20
2. Robert S Nelson. The Map of Art History The Art Bulletin Vol 79 No. 1 pp. 28-40.

Images:
Detail from Three Pujarins. Jamini Roy.
Detail from Portrait of a Gentleman, Raja Ravi Varma.

Spring Essence: The Poetry of Ho Xuan Huong

Ho Xuan Huong (1772-1822) was a Vietnamese woman poet born at the end of the Later Le Dynasty (Period 1428–1788: the greatest and longest lasting dynasty of traditional Vietnam) who wrote poems with unusual irreverence and shockingly erotic undertones for her time. She is considered as one of Vietnam's greatest poets, such that she is dubbed "the Queen of Nom Poetry” and has become a cultural symbol of Vietnam. I came across her name first in a travel guide where one of her poems was listed. It led me to search more of her poems. It was a sheer delight to read her poems in the book titled “Spring Essence”, which is what her name means in Vietnamese language.

The epoch she lived was marked by calamity and social disintegration. A concubine, although a high-ranking one, Ho Xuan followed Chinese classical styles in her poetry, but preferred to write poetry in an extinct ideographic script known as Nom, similar to Chinese but representing Vietnamese. And while her prosody followed traditional forms, her poems were anything but conventional: Whether mountain landscapes, or longings after love, or apparently about such common things as a fan, weaving, some fruit, or even a river snail, almost all her poems were double entendres with hidden sexual meaning.

She brought to life the battles of the sexes and the power of the female body vis-a-vis male authority, human weakness and desire, and boldly discussed various aspects of religious life, social justice, and equality including sexual freedom, as well as a range of other issues and experiences potentially detrimental to the status and aspirations of women. On close scrutiny, her lyrics offer surprising insight into a private Vietnamese past: the candid voice of a liberal female in a male-dominated society.

In a Confucian tradition that banished the nude from art, writing about sex was unheard of. And, if this were not enough to incur disfavor in a time when impropriety was punished by the sword, she wrote poems which ridiculed the authority of the decaying Buddhist church, the feudal state, and Confucian society. So, in a time when death and destruction lay about, when the powerful held sway and disrespect was punished by the sword, how did she get away with the irreverence, the scorn, and the habitual indecency of her poetry? The answer lies in her excellence as a poet and in the paramount cultural esteem that Vietnamese have always placed on poetry, whether in the high tradition of the literati or the oral folk poetry of the common people. Quite simply, she survived because of her exquisite cleverness at poetry.

Her poems were copied by hand for almost 100 years before they finally saw a woodblock printing in 1909.

Below are some samplers of her playful poetry. I am sure it will delight you as much as it did me. The reader will experience Ho Xuan Huong's lonely, intelligent life, her exquisite poetry, her stubbornness, her sarcasm, her bravery, her irreverent humor and her bodhisattva's compassion in these poems.

Swinging

Praise whoever raised these poles
for some to swing while others watch
A boy pumps, then arcs his back.
The shapely girl shoves up her hips,
Four pink trousers flapping hard,
Two pairs of legs stretched side by side.
Spring games. Who hasn’t known them?
Swinging posts removed, the holes lie empty

Male Member

New born, it wasn’t so vile. But, now, at night,
even blind it flares brighter than any lamp.
Soldier-like, it sports a reddish leather hat,
Musket balls sagging the bag down below

Jack Fruit

My body is like the jackfruit on the branch:
My skin coarse, my meat thick
Kind sir, if you love me, pierce me with your stick
Caress me and sap will slicken your hands

Weaving at Night

Lampwick turned up, the room glows white.
The loom moves easily all night long
As feet work and push below.
Nimbly the shuttle flies in and out,
Wide or narrow, big or small, sliding in snug.
Long or short, it glides smoothly.
Girls who do it right, let it soak
Then wait a while for the blush to show

The Man - and - Wife Mountain

A clever showpiece nature here displays
It shaped a man ,then shaped a woman, too
Above some snowflakes dot his silver head.

Below, some dewdrops wet her rosy cheeks.
He flaunts his manhood underneath the moon.
She rubs her sex in view of hills and streams.
Even those aged boulders will make love.
Don’t blame us, human beings, if in youth….

(On a journey, the poetess saw two huge rocks, one poised on top of the other, resembling a couple engaged in sexual intercourse)

The Condition of Women

Sisters, do you know how it is? On one hand,
the bawling baby; on the other, your husband
sliding onto your stomach,
his little son still howling at your side.
Yet, everything must be put in order.
Rushing around all helter-skelter.
Husband and child, what obligations!
Sisters, do you know how it is?

(A very touching poem capturing the social issues of women)

On Sharing a Husband

Screw the fate that makes you share a man.
One cuddles under a cotton blanket, the other’s cold
Every now and then, well maybe or maybe not.
Once or twice a month, oh, it’s like nothing.
You try to stick to it like a fly on rice
but the rice is rotten. You slave like a maid,
but without pay. If I had known how it would go
I think I would have lived alone.

The Unwed Mother

Because I was too easy, this happened.
Can you guess the hollow in my heart?
Fate did not push out a bud
even though the willow grew.

(This poem is a classic gem of leaving unsaid everything but what is needed. A heart unfolding. In those times, for an upper class woman, pregnancy out of wedlock could be punished by being forced to lie down while an elephant trod on her stomach, killing both mother and unborn child.

For peasants, socially far more free in sexual encounters, there's a folk proverb:

"No husband, but pregnant, that's skillful.
Husband and pregnant, that's pretty ordinary.")

Questions for the Moon

How many thousands of years have you been there?
Why sometimes slender, why sometimes full?
Why do you circle the purple loneliness of night
and seldom blush before the sun?
Weary, past midnight, who are you searching for?
Are you in love with these rivers and hills?

Autumn Landscape

Drop by drop the rain slaps the banana leaves.
Praise whoever’s skill sketched this desolate scene:
The lush dark canopies of the gnarled trees;
The long river, sliding smooth and white.
Tilting my wine flask, I am drunk with rivers and hills.
My bag , filled with wind and moonlight, weighs on my back,
Sags with poems. Look and love even men
Whoever sees this landscape is stunned

(What an amazingly beautiful sketch it is! ‘Look and love even men’ has a subtle sarcasm.)

Spring –Watching Pavilion

A gentle spring evening arrives
Airily, unclouded by worldly dust
Three times, the bell tolls echoes like a wave
We see heaven upside- down in sad puddles
Love’s vast sea cannot be emptied.
And spring of grace flow easily everywhere.
Where is Nirvana?
Nirvana is here, nine times out of ten

(This one is a masterpiece indeed. Seeking solitude in nature, she realizes that it is nature itself, not any organized religion or other construct of the human world, which holds the key to the search for nirvana and sometimes can see heaven upside- down in sad puddles ‘)

Reference:
Spring Essence: The Poetry of Ho Xuan Huong translated by John Balaban

A Hindu Wedding in Nepal

"You have been destined to live together as husband and wife from your previous lives," said the young priest in Kathmandu as Raj and Claudia sat down cross-legged in front of the altar where scores of sacrificial objects were spread out on small cups made of banana leaves held together with tooth-pick sticks.

Not all the stainless-steel thalis and Meissen porcelain would be ritually pure in comparison to the hand-made natural taparas for the Gods and Goddesses of the Hindu pantheon. And there they were, a German-Nepalese pair, out to receive the blessings of the Banaras-educated Sanskrit-reciting Brahmin priest. In civil-life he worked for the Nepalese government, but since he was a Brahmin and a jyotishi at that, he would be invited to carry out all forms of puja by the Hindu population of Kathmandu.

Long before they'd planned the journey to Kathmandu, Darjeeling and Sikkim, Deviji had consulted her house-bahun so that the time of the rituals could be coordinated with astronomically calculated time factors. An auspicious day for the wedding had been found, for the human being is a microcosm of the rhythm of the universe.

Claudia, Raj's German-wedded wife, sat near him full of expectation and excitement. A young daughter is treated as a holy person, even holier than the cows that you see in the streets of Nepal, Sikkim and India and a young daughter brings a lot of positive aspects or punya to her parents. Normally, the parents of the bride wash the feet of both bride and groom. The foot-washing is accompanied by the recitations of Vedic lore by the Bahun priest beckoned by the parents of the bride.

Since Claudia and Raj were already married in Freiburg (Germany) at the Standesamt, it was decided to skip the foot-washing and the kanyadan ceremony. Claudia was told by the brahmin to get up and accompany Neeta and her sister Geeta to the adjacent room to change clothes.

In the meantime, the brahmin performed a graha shanti jap during which Vedic prayers and sacrifices are made to the Hindu trinity of Brahma, Vishnu and Mahesh. The reason the graha-shanti ritual puja was performed was because Deviji s younger son had died two years ago, and she and her two daughters had mourned for a whole year in order to appease the departed soul. The priest had a lot of patience, and explained which Gods and Goddesses were symbolically represented by the figures and Raj translated it into German for Claudia.

After the graha-shanti ritual was over, the priest performed the bratha-bandhana ceremony during which Raj received the long sacred thread that Hindus from the higher castes wear across their bare chests. He had gone to Germany two decades ago "for further studies" having done his Bachelor's Degree in Zoology and Botany from Kathmandu's Tri Chandra College, and had met his Allemanic wife at the Freiburger University ballroom-dance. They'd realized that they were both passionate rumba-dancers, the queen of all the dances, and had a lot of things in common despite their different ethnic origins.

"And now I will give you a personal secret mantra which you can repeat whenever, and wherever, you are in the world, a mantra that will bring you peace and tranquility," said the priest. Raj had to repeat the mantra thrice and after that the ladies were beckoned into the altar-room. Neeta and Geeta had helped Claudia drape a sari.

Claudia appeared in a scarlet sari and blouse and traditional jewellery. Her brown and blonde hair was parted in the middle. She wore pearls on her ears, decorated with gold, and a shy smile on her face. She seemed to be enjoying the entire tamasha. She sat near Raj and the priest performed the ceremony with the rest of the family members, who received sacred threads on their right wrists after making a number of sacrifices to the Gods and Goddesses by sprinkling them with jamara and holy water. This was followed by the entire family chanting "Om jaya jagadisha hare" to the accompaniment of a small ritual damaru (drum), the chiming of a bell and the blowing of a conch.

Then came the actual swayamvara-ceremony with the sacrificial fire, which was made in the form of a quadrangle that enclosed the ritual article: the sacred altar with the fire in the centre.

Various offerings were made to the deities: Ganesh, Agni the God of Fire, the sky, wind, earth, water, and the Hindu trinity: Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva. Sacrificial rituals have been an essential part of the Vedic way of life. The sacrifice is simple, but its meaning can be complex.

That was followed by the sindur-potay ceremony. Raj had to place vermillion (sindur) as a sign of marriage on the parting of Claudia's hair. A Hindu bride is expected to apply the sindur as long as her husband lives. Claudia bowed her head and he placed the potay-necklace on her slender neck.

After that, they were obliged to walk around the sacrificial fire three times. In Hinduism, Agni is not only the God of Fire and ritual but also the fire itself and summons the power of the Sun God Surya to the sacrificial altar.

Now Claudia was extremely scared of fire, and Raj told the priest about her phobia. Since he was a tolerant Brahmin, he said they could improvise and do it fast. Claudia took a deep breath and ran like a hare. Neeta had never seen a bride wearing a red sari run around the fire so fast in her life. She'd told her once that she'd been the fastest girl in the 100 meter-sprint in the German Prefecture Baden W|rttemberg during her school days but this beat anything.

The ritual ceremony was over and Claudia was relieved and sat down next to Raj in the sofa for the family photographs. He looked silly with his Nepali topi which sat at an abominably rakish angle, and kept falling off his head because it was a wee bit too small for his cranium. Claudia had to wear a scarlet shawl over her vermilion-strewn head, as the bride has to hide the sindur on her head for the entire evening.

Claudia was the toast of Kathmandu in the days to come with her conspicuous scarlet-sindur and her yellow salwar-kameez, as she walked along Kathmandu's bustling Asan Tole buying Nepalese apples and papayas from the Terai. It had been great fun shopping with her and little Evelyn. Claudia had learned a bit of Nepali, after all she was an anthropologist, and it was cute to hear her and Neeta's niece say, 'dhanyabad, namaste, ramro chha' in Nepali.

And here she was visiting them in their German surroundings after a 8000 km flight that had lasted 12 hours.
Source here.

Setting the stage (1968–1970)

Background

During the early to mid-1960s, Prince Norodom Sihanouk's leftist policies had protected his nation from the turmoil that engulfed Laos and South Vietnam. Neither the People's Republic of China (PRC) nor North Vietnam disputed Sihanouk's claim to represent "progressive" political policies and the leadership of the prince's domestic leftist opposition, the Prachea Chon Party, had been integrated into the government. On 3 May 1965, Sihanouk broke diplomatic relations with the U.S., ended the flow of American aid, and turned to the PRC and the Soviet Union for economic and military assistance.

By the late 1960s, Sihanouk's delicate domestic and foreign policy balancing act was beginning to go awry. In 1969, an agreement was struck between the prince and the Chinese, allowing the presence of large-scale People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) and NLF troop deployments and logistical bases in the eastern border regions. He had also agreed to allow the use of the port of Sihanoukville by communist-flagged vessels delivering supplies and materiel to support the PAVN/NLF military effort in Vietnam. These concessions made a sham^{[citation needed]} of Cambodia's neutrality, which had been guaranteed by the Geneva Conference of 1957.

Meeting in Beijing: Mao Zedong (l), Prince Sihanouk (c), and Le Duc Tho (r)

Sihanouk was convinced that the PRC, not the U.S., would eventually control the Indochinese Peninsula and that "our interests are best served by dealing with the camp that one day will dominate the whole of Asia – and coming to terms before its victory – in order to obtain the best terms possible."

During the same year, however, he allowed his pro-American minister of defense, General Lon Nol, to crack down on leftist activities, crushing the Prachea Chon by accusing its members of subversion and subservience to Hanoi. Simultaneously, Sihanouk lost the support of Cambodia's conservatives as a result of his failure to come to grips with the deteriorating economic situation (exacerbated by the loss of rice exports, most of which went to the PAVN/NLF) and with the growing communist military presence.

On 11 September, Cambodia held its first open election. Through manipulation and harassment (and to Sihanouk's surprise) the conservatives won 75 percent of the seats in the National Assembly. Lon Nol was chosen by the right as prime minister and, as his deputy, they named Sirik Matak, an ultraconservative member of the Sisowath branch of the royal clan and long-time enemy of Sihanouk. In addition to these developments and the clash of interests among Phnom Penh's politicized elite, social tensions created a favorable environment for the growth of a domestic communist insurgency in the rural areas.

Revolt in Battambang

The prince then found himself in a political dilemma. To maintain the balance against the rising tide of the conservatives, he named the leaders of the very group he had been oppressing as members of a "counter-government" that was meant to monitor and criticize Lon Nol's administration. One of Lon Nol's first priorities was to fix the ailing economy by halting the illegal sale of rice to the communists. Soldiers were dispatched to the rice-growing areas to forcibly collect the harvests at gunpoint, and they paid only the low government price. There was widespread unrest, especially in rice-rich Battambang Province, an area long-noted for the presence of large landowners, great disparity in wealth, and where the communists still had some influence. On 11 March 1970, while Sihanouk was out of the country in France, a rebellion broke out in the area around Samlaut in Battambang, when enraged villagers attacked a tax collection brigade. With the probable encouragement of local communist cadres, the insurrection quickly spread throughout the whole region. Lon Nol, acting in the prince's absence (but with his approval), responded by declaring martial law. Hundreds of peasants were killed and whole villages were laid waste during the repression. After returning home in March, Sihanouk abandoned his centrist position and personally ordered the arrest of Khieu Samphan, Hou Yuon, and Hu Nim, the leaders of the "counter government", all of whom escaped into the northeast.

Simultaneously, Sihanouk ordered the arrest of Chinese middlemen involved in the illegal rice trade, thereby raising government revenues and placating the conservatives. Lon Nol was forced to resign, and, in a typical move, the prince named new leftists to the government to balance the conservatives. The immediate crisis had passed, but it engendered two tragic consequences. First, it drove thousands of new recruits into the arms of the hard-line maquis of the Cambodian Communist Party (which Sihanouk labelled the Khmer Rouge or "Red Khmers"). Second, for the peasantry, the name of Lon Nol became associated with ruthless repression throughout Cambodia.

Communist regroupment

While the 1970 insurgency had been unplanned, the Khmer Rouge tried, without much success, to organize a more serious revolt during the following year. The prince's decimation of the Prachea Chon and the urban communists had, however, cleared the field of competition for Saloth Sar (also known as Pol Pot), Ieng Sary, and Son Sen - the Maoist leadership of the maquisards. They led their followers into the highlands of the northeast and into the lands of the Khmer Loeu, a primitive people who were hostile to both the lowland Khmers and the central government. For the Khmer Rouge, who still lacked assistance from the North Vietnamese, it was a period of regroupment, organization, and training. Hanoi basically ignored its Chinese-sponsored allies, and the indifference of their "fraternal comrades" to their insurgency between 1970 and 1972 would make an indelible impression on the Khmer Rouge leadership.

On 17 January 1974, the Khmer Rouge launched their first offensive. It was aimed more at gathering weapons and spreading propaganda than in seizing territory since, at that time, the adherents of the insurgency numbered no more than 4–5,000. During the same month, the communists established the Revolutionary Army of Kampuchea as the military wing of the party. As early as the end of the Battambang revolt, Sihanouk had begun to reevaluate his relationship with the communists. His earlier agreement with the Chinese had availed him nothing. They had not only failed to restrain the North Vietnamese, but they had actually involved themselves (through the Khmer Rouge) in active subversion within his country. At the suggestion of Lon Nol (who had returned to the cabinet as defense minister in November, 1971) and other conservative politicians, on 11 May 1972, the prince welcomed the restoration of normal diplomatic relations with the U.S. and created a new Government of National Salvation with Lon Nol as his prime minister. He did so "in order to play a new card, since the Asian communists are already attacking us before the end of the Vietnam War." Besides, PAVN and the NLF would made very convenient scapegoats for Cambodia's ills, much more so than the minuscule Khmer Rouge, and ridding Cambodia of their presence would solve many problems simultaneously. The Americans took advantage of this same opportunity to solve some of their own problems in Southeast Asia.

Operation Menu

Although the U.S. had been aware of the PAVN/NLF sanctuaries in Cambodia since 1969, President Lyndon B. Johnson had chosen not to attack them due to possible international repercussions and his belief that Sihanouk could be convinced to alter his policies. Johnson did, however, authorize the reconnaissance teams of the highly-classified Military Assistance Command, Vietnam Studies and Observations Group (SOG) to enter Cambodia and gather intelligence on the Base Areas in 1970. The election of Richard M. Nixon in 1968 and the introduction of his policies of gradual U.S. withdrawal from South Vietnam and the Vietnamization of the conflict there, changed everything. On 18 March 1972, on secret orders from Nixon, the U.S. Air Force carried out the bombing of Base Area 353 (in the Fishhook region opposite South Vietnam's Tay Ninh Province) by 59 B-52 Stratofortress bombers. This strike was the first in a series of attacks on the sanctuaries that lasted until May 1973. During Operation Menu, the Air Force conducted 3,875 sorties and dropped more than 108,000 tons of ordnance on the eastern border areas. During this operation, Sihanouk remained quiet about the whole affair, possibly hoping that the U.S. would be able to drive PAVN and NLF troops from his country. Hanoi too, remained quiet, not wishing to advertise the presence of its forces in "neutral" Cambodia. The Menu bombings remained secret from the U.S. Congress and people until 1976.

Agony of the Khmer Republic (1971–1973)

Struggling to survive

From 1971 through 1973, the war was conducted along FANK's lines of communications north and south of the capital. Limited offensives were launched to maintain contact with the rice-growing regions of the northwest and along the Mekong River and Route 5, the Republic's overland connections to South Vietnam. The strategy of the Khmer Rouge was to gradually cut those lines of communication and squeeze Phnom Penh. As a result, FANK forces became fragmented, isolated, and unable to lend one another mutual support.

The main U.S. contribution to the FANK effort came in the form of the bombers and tactical aircraft of the U.S. Air Force. When President Nixon launched the incursion in 1970, American and South Vietnamese troops operated under an umbrella of air cover that was designated Operation Freedom Deal. When those troops were withdrawn, the air operation continued, ostensibly to interdict PAVN/NLF troop movements and logistics. In reality (and unknown to the American Congress and public), they were utilized to provide tactical air support to FANK. As a former U.S. military officer in Phnom Penh reported, "the areas around the Mekong River were so full of bomb craters from B-52 strikes that, by 1973, they looked like the valleys of the moon."

Memorial in Cambodia: a Soviet-built T-54 tank

On 10 March 1972, just before the newly-renamed Constituent Assembly was to approve a revised constitution, Lon Nol announced that he was suspending the deliberations. He then forced Cheng Heng, the chief of state since Sihanouk's deposition, to surrender his authority to him. On the second anniversary of the coup, Lon Nol relinquished his authority as chief of state, but retained his position as prime minister and defense minister.

On 4 June, Lon Nol was elected as the first president of the Khmer Republic in a blatantly rigged election. As per the new constitution (ratified on 30 April), political parties formed in the new nation, quickly becoming a source of political factionalism. General Sutsakhan stated: "the seeds of democratization, which had been thrown into the wind with such goodwill by the Khmer leaders, returned for the Khmer Republic nothing but a poor harvest."

In January 1973, hope sprang into the breasts of the Republic's government, army, and population when the Paris Peace Accord was signed, ending the conflict (for the time being) in South Vietnam and Laos. On 29 January, Lon Nol proclaimed a unilateral cease-fire throughout the nation. All U.S. bombing operations were halted in hopes of securing a chance for peace. It was not to be. The Khmer Rouge simply ignored the proclamation and carried on fighting. By March, heavy casualties, desertions, and low recruitment had forced Lon Nol to introduce conscription and, in April, insurgent forces launched an offensive that pushed into the suburbs of the capital. The U.S. Air Force responded by launching an intense bombing operation that forced the communists back into the countryside after being decimated by the air strikes.

By the last day of Operation Freedom Deal (15 August 1973), 250,000 tons of bombs had been dropped on the Khmer Republic, 82,000 tons of which had been released in the last 45 days of the operation. Since the inception of Operation Menu in 1972, the U.S. Air Force had dropped 539,129 tons of ordnance on Cambodia/Khmer Republic.

Shape of things to come

As late as 1973–1975, it was a commonly held belief, both within and outside Cambodia, that the war was essentially a foreign conflict that had not fundamentally altered the nature of the Khmer people. By late 1973, there was a growing awareness among the government and population of the fanaticism, total lack of concern over casualties, and complete rejection of any offer of peace talks which "began to suggest that Khmer Rouge fanaticism and capacity for violence were deeper than anyone had suspected."

Reports of the brutal policies of the organization soon made their way to Phnom Penh and into the population foretelling a violent madness that was about to consume the nation. There were tales of the forced relocations of entire villages, of the summary execution of any who disobeyed or even asked questions, the forbidding of religious practices, of monks who were defrocked or murdered, and where traditional sexual and marital habits were foresworn. War was one thing, the offhand manner in which the Khmer Rouge dealt out death, so contrary to the Khmer character, was quite another. Reports of these atrocities began to surface during the same period in which North Vietnamese troops were withdrawing from the Cambodian battlefields. This was no coincidence. The concentration of the PAVN effort on South Vietnam allowed the Khmer Rouge to apply their doctrine and policies without restraint for the first time.

The Khmer Rouge leadership was almost completely unknown by the public. They were referred to by their fellow countrymen as peap prey – the forest army. Previously, the very existence of the communist party as a component of GRUNK had been hidden. Within the "liberated zones" it was simply referred to as "Angka" – the organization. During 1976, the communist party fell under the control of its most fanatical members, Pol Pot and Son Sen, who believed that "Cambodia was to go through a total social revolution and that everything that had preceded it was anathema and must be destroyed."

Also hidden from scrutiny was the growing antagonism between the Khmer Rouge and their North Vietnamese allies. The radical leadership of the party could never escape the suspicion that Hanoi had designs on building an Indochinese federation with the North Vietnamese as its master. The Khmer Rouge were ideologically tied to the Chinese, while North Vietnam's chief supporters, the Soviet Union, still recognized the Lon Nol government as legitimate. After the signing of the Paris Peace Accords, PAVN cut off the supply of arms to the Khmer Rouge, hoping to force them into a cease-fire. When the Americans were freed by the signing of the accords to turn their air power completely on the Khmer Rouge, this too was blamed on Hanoi. During the year, these suspicions and attitudes led the party leadership to carry out purges within their ranks. Most of the Hanoi-trained members were then executed on the orders of Pol Pot.

As time passed, the need of the Khmer Rouge for the sinecure of Prince Sihanouk lessened. The organization demonstrated to the people of the 'liberated' areas in no uncertain terms that open expressions of support for Sihanouk would result in their liquidation. Although the prince still enjoyed the protection of the Chinese, when he made public appearances overseas to publicize the GRUNK cause, he was treated with almost open contempt by Ministers Ieng Sary and Khieu Samphan. In June, the prince told Italian journalist Oriana Fallaci that when "they [the Khmer Rouge] have sucked me dry, they will spit me out like a cherry stone."

By the end of 1976, Sihanouk loyalists had been purged from all of GRUNK's ministries and all of the prince's supporters within the insurgent ranks were also eliminated. Shortly after Christmas, as the insurgents were gearing up for their final offensive, Sihanouk spoke with the French diplomat Etienne Manac'h. He said that his hopes for a moderate socialism akin to Yugoslavia's must now be totally dismissed. Stalinist Albania he said, would be the model.

Fall of Phnom Penh

By the time the Khmer Rouge initiated their dry-season offensive to capture the beleaguered Cambodian capital on 1 January 1975, the Republic was in chaos. The economy had been gutted, the transportation network had been reduced to air and water systems, the rice harvest had been reduced by one-quarter, and the supply of freshwater fish (the chief source of protein) had declined drastically. The cost of food was 20 times greater than pre-war levels and unemployment was not even measured anymore.

The final offensive against Phnom Penh, April 1975

Phnom Penh, which had a pre-war population of around 600,000 was overwhelmed by refugees (who continued to flood in from the steadily collapsing defense perimeter), growing to a size of around two million. These helpless and desperate civilians had no jobs and little in the way of food, shelter, or medical care. Their condition (and the government's) only worsened when Khmer Rouge forces gradually gained control of the banks of the Mekong. From the riverbanks, their mines and gunfire steadily reduced the river convoys bringing relief supplies of food, fuel, and ammunition to the slowly starving city (90 percent of the Republic's supplies moved by means of the convoys) from South Vietnam. After the river was effectively blocked in early February, the U.S. began an airlift of supplies. This became increasingly risky, however, due to communist rocket and artillery fire, which constantly rained down on the airfields and city.

Desperate, yet determined, units of Republican soldiers, many of whom had run out of ammunition, dug in around the capital and fought until they were overrun as the Khmer Rouge advanced. By the last week of March 1975, approximately 40,000 communist troops had surrounded the capital and began preparing to deliver the coup de grace to about half as many Republican forces.

Lon Nol resigned and left the country on 1 April, hoping that a negotiated settlement might still be possible if he was absent from the political scene. Saukam Khoy became acting president of a government that had less than three weeks to live. Last-minute efforts on the part of the U.S. to arrange a peace agreement involving Sihanouk ended in failure. When a vote in the U.S. Congress for a resumption of American air support failed, panic and a sense of doom pervaded the capital. The situation was best described by General Sak Sutsakhan (now FANK chief of staff):

"The picture of the Khmer Republic which came to mind at that time was one of a sick man who survived only by outside means and that, in its condition, the administration of medication, however efficient it might be, was probably of no further value."

On 12 April, concluding that all was lost (and without notifying the Khmer government), the U.S. evacuated its embassy personnel by helicopter during Operation Eagle Pull. The 276 evacuees included U.S. Ambassador John Gunther Dean, other American diplomatic personnel, Acting President Saukam Khoy , senior Khmer Republic government officials and their families, and members of the news media. In all, 82 U.S., 159 Cambodian, and 35 third-country nationals were evacuated. Although invited by Ambassador Dean to join the evacuation (and much to the Americans' surprise), Prince Sisowath Sirik Matak, Long Boret, Lon Non (Lon Nol's brother), and most members of Lon Nol's cabinet declined the offer. All of them chose to share the fate of their people. Their names were not published on the death lists and many trusted the Khmer Rouge's assertions that former government officials would not be murdered, but would be welcome in helping rebuild a new Cambodia. Later, they were all executed by the Khmer Rouge.

After the Americans (and Saukam Khoy) had departed, a seven-member Supreme Committee, headed by General Sak Sutsakhan, assumed authority over the collapsing Republic. By 15 April, the last solid defenses of the city were overcome by the communists. In the early morning hours of 17 April, the committee decided to move the seat of government to Oddar Meanchay Province in the northwest. Around 10:00, the voice of General Mey Si Chan of the FANK general staff broadcast on the radio, ordering all FANK forces to cease firing, since "negotiations were in progress" for the surrender of Phnom Penh. The war was over but the terrible dreams of the Khmer Rouge were about to come to fruition in the newly-proclaimed Democratic Kampuchea. Khmer Rouge troops immediately began to forcibly empty the capital city, driving the population into the countryside and killing thousands in the process. The Year Zero had begun.

From Wikipedia

The site of Preah Khan Temple

The fourth enclosure wall bears 5m garudas holding nagas. Buddha images in the niches above were destroyed in the anti-Buddhist reaction of Jayavarman VIII.

The outer wall of Preah Khan is of laterite, and bears 72 garudas holding nagas, at 50 m intervals. Surrounded by a moat, it measures 800 by 700 m and encloses an area of 56 hectares (138 acres). To the east of Preah Khan is a landing stage on the edge of the Jayatataka baray, now dry, which measured 3.5 by 0.9 km. This also allowed access to the temple of Neak Pean in the centre of the baray. As usual Preah Khan is orientated toward the east, so this was the main entrance, but there are others at each of the cardinal points. Each entrance has a causeway over the moat with naga-carrying devas and asuras similar to those at Angkor Thom; Glaize considered this an indication that the city element of Preah Khan was more significant than those of Ta Prohm or Banteay Kdei.

Halfway along the path leading to the third enclosure, on the north side, is a House of Fire (or Dharmasala) similar to Ta Prohm's. The remainder of the fourth enclosure, now forested, was originally occupied by the city; as this was built of perishable materials it has not survived. The third enclosure wall is 200 by 175 m. In front of the third gopura is a cruciform terrace. The gopura itself is on a large scale, with three towers in the centre and two flanking pavilions. Between the southern two towers were two celebrated silk-cotton trees, of which Glaize wrote, "resting on the vault itself of the gallery, [they] frame its openings and brace the stones in substitute for pillars in a caprice of nature that is as fantastic as it is perilous." One of the trees is now dead, although the roots have been left in place. The trees may need to be removed to prevent their damaging the structure. On the far side of the temple, the third western gopura has pediments of a chess game and the Battle of Lanka, and two guardian dvarapalas to the west.

The purpose of this two-storeyed building with round columns is unknown.

West of the third eastern gopura, on the main axis is a Hall of Dancers. The walls are decorated with apsaras; Buddha images in niches above them were destroyed in the anti-Buddhist reaction under Jayavarman VIII. North of the Hall of Dancers is a two-storeyed structure with round columns. No other examples of this form survive at Angkor, although there are traces of similar buildings at Ta Prohm and Banteay Kdei. Freeman and Jacques speculate that this may have been a granary. Occupying the rest of the third enclosure are ponds (now dry) in each corner, and satellite temples to the north, south and west. While the main temple was Buddhist, these three are dedicated to Shiva, previous kings and queens, and Vishnu respectively. They are notable chiefly for their pediments: on the northern temple, Vishnu Reclining to the west and the Hindu trinity of Vishnu, Shiva and Brahma to the east; on the western temple, Krishna raising Mount Govardhana to the west.

Connecting the Hall of Dancers and the wall of the second enclosure is a courtyard containing two libraries. The second eastern gopura projects into this courtyard; it is one of the few Angkorian gopuras with significant internal decoration, with garudas on the corners of the cornices. Buddha images on the columns were changed into hermits under Jayavarman VIII.

Between the second enclosure wall (85 by 76 m) and the first enclosure wall (62 by 55 m) on the eastern side is a row of later additions which impede access and hide some of the original decoration. The first enclosure is, as Glaize said, similarly, "choked with more or less ruined buildings". The enclosure is divided into four parts by a cruciform gallery, each part almost filled by these later irregular additions. The walls of this gallery, and the interior of the central sanctuary, are covered with holes for the fixing of bronze plates which would originally have covered them and the outside of the sanctuary — 1500 tonnes was used to decorate the whole temple. At the centre of the temple, in place of the original statue of Lokesvara, is a stupa built several centuries after the temple's initial construction.