Author Archives: Thebookreviewindia

Most contemporary great and major powers, unless protected by alliances, possess nuclear weapons, although as North Korea and Pakistan prove, having a nuclear weapon does not make you a great power—they just make you a tough problem.

Despite the fact that an overwhelming majority of Muslims live outside the Middle East, the words Arab and Muslim are used synonymously and the Arab world continues to remain the ‘center’ of the Muslim world.

Fakirs with their puppet shows exhibit military conflicts which end with the flight of the English. Songs resound the praises of our enemies and reports are industriously spread to rouse thenative troops and inferior classes of inhabitants in action . . . The very salt we manufacture is said to be mixed with the blood of cows or swine, Hindus and the Musulmans’.

Close to 300 insurgency-related deaths were reported from Balochistan in 2009, which is a marginal improvement over the previous year’s toll of 350. Such ‘statistics’ notwithstanding, the Baloch insurrection remains a critical problem for the nation building exercise in Pakistan.

Alyssa Ayres’s 217-page book is a mas-terful exposition of the role that language has played in ‘engineering’ the ‘idea of (modern) Pakistan.’

The partition of India is once again big news. Last year the BJP stalwart, Jaswant Singh in Jinnah: India-Pakistan-Independence, New
Delhi: Rupa and co.),

This last book by Papiya Ghosh, released posthumously almost three years after her tragic death in 2006 is a work of great acumen
involving exhaustive research with arguments and findings based on a plethora of sources.

About a year ago as an Honorary Fellow of the Nehru Memorial Museum & Library I had chosen to work on Nehru—first from 1930–1947 when Nehru was preparing himself for taking India to an exciting future; second, 1947–1964 when Nehru did become the steward of India’s development, policy, direction and journey.