Shivaji’s Maratha Swarajya is in peril—with the Mughals closing in, his empty coffers mean that his loyal army hasn’t been paid in months. If Swarajya must be saved, there is only one way out and that is to somehow get a lot of money, and soon. So, Shivaji’s guptachars plot an audacious attack on the city of riches—Sura—where bania, Mughal, British and other traders all have amassed hoards of money, gems and other valuables.
Why had no one ever thought of writing a storybook about India’s freedom struggle from a child’s perspective, or why had I not come across one before this? These questions sprang to my mind as soon as I started reading The Chowpatty Cooking Club. The book is a story of how three children are fired up by the events taking place around them and jump in to do their bit in the fight for India’s freedom.
Hind Swaraj is one of those key texts published in the twentieth century, which on the one hand, were denounced by many critics, and on the other hand, attracted many scholars and activists, who have been working for an alternative model of modernism. The book was criticized by many scholars, including the first Prime Minister of India due to its so-called ‘outdated’ ideas. However, in this book, Gandhi critically evaluates modern civilization and technologies related to it and questions the modern conception of religion, nationalism, and the prevalent violence-based method to counter the unjust and exploitative system.
The book under review, written in Hindi, is a compilation of research papers that were presented as part of a two-day national seminar held to celebrate the 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi at the M.P. Institute of Social Science Research. Titled, ‘Mahatma Gandhi: 21vi Sadi ka Bharatiya evam Vaishvik Pariprekshya’, the seminar was held in Ujjain. There are twenty essays in this book written by various Gandhi scholars. Each article focuses on a particular facet related to Gandhi and his world view.
China’s unprecedented rise has forced the world to restudy and refocus on the major factors behind this development. The Deng Xiaoping era is considered to be the time when China moved out of the trap of a low-income agrarian society to becoming the factory of the world and the second largest economy. The reform and opening up announced by Deng in late 1978 gave China the direction which it needed to gain momentum.
Both the authors need no introduction to the public attentive to strategic matters. Between them, they have fifty years of engagement with strategic affairs. Both have past publications that place them in good standing as readers appraise whether they should pick up their latest wares. While Joshi’s landmark book was on Kashmir—The Lost Rebellion—in the nineties, Sawhney’s co-authored one—The War Unfinished—was on the India-Pakistan crisis of early this century.