Much opportunistic literature has been churned out on the emergence of Bangla Desh. Disappointingly, published material of relevance to a combatman or a keen student of military history has been restricted to some broad brushwork by people who were not quite near the scene of action…
The author is a strategic consultant to companies doing international business. He was in the US Foreign Service for some years and has worked in US missions in India and Sri Lanka.
This is the 50th year of the war that China imposed on India in 1962. Was the war itself and the resulting consequences—the effects of which are still with us, not least, in the form of a ‘trust deficit’ in our relations with China—because of Mao’s ‘martial efficacy’ beliefs in contrast to Nehru’s ‘moral efficacy’ beliefs?
A debut novel, Ayesha Salman’s Blue Dust deserves praise for more than one reason. However, what struck me is its portrayal of complex psychological characters in an equally intricately knit narrative. Salman has written a story which is passionate, painful, psychological and surreal. I must confess it left me emotionally drained but perhaps intellectually enriched.
On the evening of November 17,1962, between seven o’clock and eleven o’clock, three senior General Officers sat in the Operations Room of HQ IV Corps at Tezpur, arguing among themselves endlessly whether four Infantry Division should be ordered to withdraw from Sela without offering battle…
Orientalism is thriving in 2012, albeit in a more subtle and refined form. The proverbial ‘white man’s burden’ is no more about a civilizing mission, but instead to fulfill a ‘responsibility to protect’, from the terror of the irrational other.