Author Archives: Thebookreviewindia

Anis Kidwai belonged to the illustrious Kidwai family of Barabanki family that has made more than a signal contribution to the making of India, not only in politics and governance but in diverse fields of creative endeavour.

It is always interesting to read a real story, the real story—and this is one that is about the Mutiny/ the First War of Independence/ the Great Uprising of 1857. But what earns the right to be called the real story, the truth? The answer now is that the truth is what is perceived by ordinary people, what they experience and record for us.

Mushirul Hasan is one of the most prolific historians specializing in the study of ‘modern Indian history’. His corpus of work is vast and consists of several monographs.

The study of an ideologized and activist organiation like the Majlis-i-Ahrar-i-Islam(MAI) is actually a journey through several inter-related domains including political Islam, South Asian Muslim identity politics,

Nancy Gardner Cassels’s book as the title suggests is a scholarly account of a range of East India Company legislation across various fields, from Sati to Emigrant labour, and from Meriah Sacrifice to the Pilgrim tax.

This volume of Nehru’s selected works, edited by Aditya and Mridula Mukherjee covers the period of three months from April to June 1958. Like earlier volumes, it gives us a flavour of the times.

In March of 1948—the austere white dust jacket would have us know – a group of Gandhi’s closest associates met at Sabarmati Ashram to reflect on his assassination. The group included Jawaharlal Nehru, Maulana Azad, J.B. Kripalani, and Jayaprakash Narayan, among others.