As a result of persistent and systematic discrimination by the Sinhala majority, the Tamil resistance movement had by the early 1980s turned militant, led by the well-armed Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. In 1983 the Sinhalese reacted by systematic attacks on the Tamils, which of course further exacerbated violence by the Tamils.
The volume concludes with three important, though controversial organizations—the Police, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the National Investigation Agency (NIA). The NIA is the newest of the three, which was created following the Mumbai terror attack in 2008. Akshay Mangla and Vineet Kapoor’s chapter analyses the administrative capacity of the police in terms of police/population ratio and other resources at their disposal
Writing on high level decision-making while history is being made is never easy. Woodward has mastered the art of getting principals, including Trump in the past, to speak of what they knew and why they did what they did in near real time. The book is thus fascinating in what it reveals of the working of Biden Presidency on foreign and security policy. War is a blow-by-blow account of Biden administration’s response to the Ukraine and Palestine crises.
hey start with a clean example of Neche and Gretna on the United States-Canada border, where the citizens of Neche are closer to Gretna across the border than to any other American town. While the Americans in Neche do their shopping and socializing in Gretna, they cannot avail the welfare services offered by the Canadian Government in Gretna. Similarly, another American town, Point Roberts
Chaulia terms the India-Japan partnership as a ‘quasi-friendship’, which though encouraged by the US earlier, has its own logic and internal dynamics today. He says one reason for Japan to turn towards India is its fear that the US would not defend it in the case of a frontal attack by China and that together, India and Japan are alternatives to the other countries vis-à-vis China in the Indo-Pacific. He argues that Japan has helped India sustain its regional predominance in South Asia (p. 91).
These were soon joined by direct recruits, chosen by the Union Public Service Commission. Three officials especially marked out by the author for their contributions are K Natwar Singh, Brajesh Mishra and JN Dixit. MK Rasgotra and Muchkund Dubey were among the several other stalwarts who significantly contributed to India’s conduct of its foreign relations.
During the initial years of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), an important task for the Foreign Ministry was to implement a united front strategy in the countries that had kept their recognition of Chiang Kai-Shek’s Kuomintang regime. Emerged from CPC’s experiences during the war against Japanese imperialists, the united front strategy sought to establish relations beyond the formal governmental level with political parties, civil society organizations and individuals.
Each of the chapters tries to focus on the BRI and its effects across the Indian and Pacific Ocean. Chapter one dwells on the various theories on ‘Silk Road’. The Chinese have tried to revive the idea of the ‘Silk Road’ by initially calling the overland route ‘Silk Road Economic Belt’ and by water as ‘Maritime Silk Road’. The purpose was to make China ‘great again’ and to dethrone the US as ‘the world’s leading superpower’ (p. 2). Lintner views China’s initiatives and particularly the BRI from the prism of a new ‘Cold War’.
Warikoo refers to Kashmir as the undivided State of Jammu and Kashmir including Ladakh, Hunza, Gilgit, Baltistan and adjoining frontier territories. Following the Independence of India, when the Gilgit agency was restored to the Maharaja of Kashmir, the British launched a secret mission called Operation Datta Khel, employing their officers posted in Pakistan, Peshawar, and Gilgit to physically occupy Gilgit and hand over to Pakistan.
The book cogently touches upon the dichotomies that beset the nation during its nascent stage and some of which continue to haunt its path. Kamran argues that an inherent religious bias prevented democracy from flourishing in Pakistan. This was despite the nation’s conceptualization on lines of the western modern construct. The religious ‘rationale’ conflicted with ideas of democracy as interpreted and propagated by the West and instead an ‘establishmentarian democracy’ started taking shape.
The concept of the Indo-Pacific itself is a debated one and is seen differently by various theorists, as pointed out by Shubhrajeet Konwer (p.105). It is seen either as a balancing strategy by the realists, or as a new institutional setting of cooperation among the countries of the Pacific and the Indian Ocean by the liberalists, or as an ideational construct of shared values to face a common enemy by the constructivists.
Bangladesh has had democratic governments with intermittent breaks when the military junta took over power through coup d’etat. The recent uprising was not an intervention by the army—to many it appeared to be spontaneous outburst of the masses although now, with the unearthing of many sources, the narrative does not correspond with that which attracted our attention at the outset.
There is disappointment, particularly at the exclusion of Dalits in the Republic’s politics of representation as Nepal de facto returns to the pre-revolutionary political system of domination of hill khas Nepali upper castes. Dalits may be 14 percent of the population but in the November 2022 elections
The world witnesses Israel’s barbaric destruction in Gaza, and people took to the streets to demand a ceasefire to end the horrific destruction on Gaza instigated in October 2023. The Israeli (occupation) defence and armed forces, along with private industries, seized this opportunity to market their goods. Israel uses video footage of their weapons in action to aim at boosting their sale of arms and surveillance technology.
In many parts of the Ottoman Empire, the massive immigration of Caucasian refugees created a demographically chaotic situation, as what Lord Curzon, Britain’s Foreign Secretary termed in the early 20th century, ‘unmixing of peoples’ which later on spawned a plethora of parochial nationalist and sub-nationalist movements in the post-Ottoman era.
Nationalism, a recurring motif in the novel, is presented as both a unifying ideology and a vehicle for violence and marginalization. Through the lived experiences of his characters, Islam interrogates how nationalist discourses justify systemic exclusion, displacement, and cultural erasure. It also reflects how even such a unifying force could not cut across social boundaries like caste.
Bhatia begins the book with a personal story of this transformation. He recounts how any discussion among family, friends and acquaintances over the past decade ended with Islamophobia-laced muscular Hindu interpretation of India’s past and aspiration for India’s future. To grapple with this change is to pose some version of the question, ‘Where is this poison coming from?’—as articulated, with poignancy and a tinge of bewilderment, by Nisar.
For a long time, almost till the beginning of the nineteenth century, military engineers (who began receiving formal training on a regular basis only when the Company’s Military Seminary was set up at Addiscombe in 1809) carried out the tasks of architects, civil engineers and town planners. Civil engineers as distinct from military engineers were not appointed by the Company prior to the end of the eighteenth century.
Reid implies that Churchill lost interest in India affairs thereafter. But like many historians, he fails to ask: was that not an act of gross negligence, given that War-weary Britain’s exit from India was inevitable by then? Those ‘wasted years’, with all top INC leaders held incommunicado in jail, August 1942 to May 1945, was precisely the time to prepare for the world’s greatest political carve-out. One result: Mountbatten’s frenzied, hasty actions of March-August 1947, when even the borders of the new independent states, India and Pakistan, were not publicly revealed till 17 August, two days after the Independence of India.
In the final chapter, Roy talks about Kashmir. Here, he notes the plight of Kashmiris, who live on the edge of a cultural and political chasm that shapes their social interaction with the rest of Indian society. Also, in commenting on the complex lives of (militant) women in Kashmir, Roy tells us about their painful encounters with violent, patriarchal bands of self-righteous men.
The assassination of Gandhi marked a new stage in the history of the RSS. The organization, due to the immense public anger against it, and the imprisonment of Golwalkar, was forced to change its strategy. It was compelled to cease its violent actions and adopt measures which were acceptable in a sane society.
Some, though not all, of these aspects emerge from Purandare’s lucid prose. Strangely enough, the book has no bibliography but in the notes the reader will notice the major secondary sources, including biographies, on which the book is based; NC Kelkar (Marathi, 1923), Bhagwat and Pradhan (English, 2016), NR Phatak (Marathi, 1972), and Keer (English, 1959) are copiously drawn upon.
Rai argues that during Gandhi’s lifetime, communal and caste conflicts emerged as the most serious challenges before India and Gandhi started many programmes and campaigns to tackle these problems.
The first chapter of the book titled ‘Backdrop’ maps out in detail the peculiar South Asian backdrop in which the stories unfold in the matrix often referred to as Mafia Raj. It also explores how ‘the art of making do’ (jugad) translates into ‘the art of bossing’ and how informal economy brushes with organized crime often supported by the political establishment.
India’s secret recipe for red blown glass, much sought after by medieval courts in Europe, is no longer known, and our current method of producing coloured glass was learnt from European manufacturers! In Firozabad, famed for its beautiful glassware in Akbar’s day, and still a major glass centre today, folklore has it that the famed Murano glass makers in Italy originally learnt their skills from Indian craftspeople, especially the art of mosaic and millefiori glass. Whether this is truth or legend, I don’t know.
Another fascinating aspect Gautam explores is the rise of soft spirituality among Millennials, reflecting their quest for personal meaning in an increasingly individualistic society. This spirituality, focused on personal choice and the freedom to select one’s own spiritual guide or guru, is becoming more prevalent.
Sarkar lauds Jyotirao Phule as the century’s most remarkable social reformer for his intersectional analysis of caste, class, and gender while noting the occasional compromises of reformers like Ranade. The author dedicates limited space to Dalit social reforms, primarily focusing on the Self-Respect Movement and Dr Ambedkar, indicating a potential area for further exploration in Dalit reformist historiography.
Even though Alyssa Milano’s tweet in 2017 calling for the victims of sexual violence was a rage, Iqra Cheema begins by talking about the invisibility and exclusion of Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) at the onset of #MeToo movement. An increased international awareness about intersectional feminism and recognition of the need for feminist justice is what #MeToo leads to.
Among Irawati’s writings about her experiences in the field, the most moving and significant is her description of a dig in Langhnaj, Gujarat, which she undertook with her Deccan College colleague, Hasmukh Dhirajlal Sankalia, Professor of Proto-Indian and Ancient Indian History.