#BookReview: Bombay’s Republic By Rotimi Babatunde

Coloured Sergeant Bombay was like every other subject under the British administration, filled with reverence and adulation for the Whiteman and his hypnotic dramas. But Hitler’s war came and the implications of the loss of the war to the crazy German ruler, will not only mean a complete annihilation of the British Empire but also, perpetual slavery for Africans who would work the vast farmland that would be amassed by Hitler. It was the dread of what would become of them if Hitler eventually won, that caused young men to enlist in their numbers and Coloured Sergeant Bombay was one of those young men moved by love for motherland and the fear of been roasted alive and fed to Hitler’s dogs.

He soon discovers in Burma that a lot of wrong beliefs is held about Africans, world over. First is that, Africans were thought to have tails like monkeys. A village head had to lead his people to where the African soldiers had their bath for confirmation of this myth. Second is that, Africans were believed to be cannibals. It took a crazed charge at the Japanese soldiers by a unit of African soldiers to confirm this myth that was a saving grace for them at the time.

Bombay would discover a lot more possibilities that would change his world view forever. He not only learns that the Japanese soldiers believed that all Black soldiers could resurrect like Lazarus in the Bible, like Jesus, he also learns that the Whiteman could be ill as the Blackman. A new Captain had been deployed to their base, one who thought highly of himself and most certainly hadn’t seen any war in all his military life. The horrors of war soon gets to him, he loses his mind and he is soon carted away to a psychiatric hospital. This incident, was an eye-opener to Coloured Sergeant Bombay, who had thought the Whiteman incapable of such animal depth.
He was further emboldened, after he was commended for killing a lovelorn White bombardier who was locked up after he had a fight with an airman, over the airman’s woman. In his attempt to escape from the guardroom, he had killed a soldier and injured three others. But Bombay gunned him down. While he was awaiting his sentence and contemplating suicide like Okonkwo in “Things Fall Apart,” who hung himself after killing a Whiteman, then came a letter of commendation for his gallantry.

It was with this knowledge of possibilities that he went back to his home country at the end of the war, to spite the Whiteman and his administration. He would establish his own Republic (Bombay’s Republic), write his constitution and would remain the life President of that long abandoned Jailhouse, turned Republic.

Humour resonates at every step of this tale. Lines like this, “Diarrheic Europeans pestered by irreverent flies while the men shat like domestic livestock in the open,” immediately sends one into an uncontrollable frenzy that leaves the shoulders bouncing with laughter for several minutes.

There are dozens of such examples gracing the pages of this immaculate story. We cannot be anything more than grateful to Rotimi Babatunde, for this timely gift with a touch of colonialism and freedom.