In the seventy or so years since Independence, much less has been written about the Princely States which acceded to Pakistan than those that remained in India. The name of the once great State of Bahawalpur is no longer remembered among its well-mapped peers over the border in Rajasthan.
This book is based on conversations with Salahuddin Abbasi, grandson of the last ruler of Bahawalpur and born a year before Partition. Starting with the history of his State and his family, his memories add light to stories of Bahawalpur’s princes from old records, letters, and the accounts of British travellers and civil servants. They also encompass a lifetime of first-hand experience of the political life of Pakistan and his relationships with the country’s leaders.
The nation’s troubled history has clouded a clear picture of it and shrouded its component parts. From the microcosm of Bahawalpur, this account helps to join the dots of a more coherent view of the macrocosm of Pakistan and queries the future route of the Islamic State.
A key question today is whether India and the United States can or should develop ever-closer ties as a way of countering China’s desire to be the dominant power in the broader Asian region. In Fateful Triangle, Tanvi Madan argues that history shows that such a partnership is neither inevitable nor impossible.
Drawing on documents from India and the US, Fateful Triangle contends that China’s influence on the US-India relationship is not a recent phenomenon. It demonstrates that US and Indian perceptions of and their policies towards China shaped US-India relations in three crucial decades, from 1949 to 1979, in significant and complex ways.
Fateful Triangle updates our understanding of the diplomatic history of US-India relations, highlighting China’s central role in it, reassesses the origins and practice of Indian foreign policy and non-alignment, and provides historical context to the interactions between the three countries.
Bold, sharp and amazingly relevant, Naveen Chourey’s impassioned poetry-on mob lynching, Kashmir and the plight of out soldiers among others-will force you to think afresh on nationalism, patriotism and the state of our country.
Naveen’s youthful idealism, vision for an egalitarian world and progressive thoughts make Kohra Ghana Hai one of the most courageous works of our times.
Mandira Bedi is a fitness icon.But behind the six-pack is also a snotty, complaining, can’t-get-out-of-bed-today girl who, in her own way, is still searching for true happiness. Not conditional, materialistic, transactional happiness, but just happiness. So has she cracked it yet? Mandira says ‘No’. But she genuinely believes that she’s headed in the right direction. In her own chaotic way, she seems to have discovered some kind of non-scientific, non-spiritual and as-yet-non-existent formula for finding peace in everything. Just being happy-for no reason. This book is about that.
Inspired by timeless poems from around the world, Hassan Massoudy’s calligraphy takes us on a visual journey through love in its many forms.
Through his signature broad strokes and vibrant colours, this master calligrapher brings to life the words and wisdom of some of our greatest poets, from Ibn Zaydoun and Rumi to Kahlil Gibran, John Keats and Paul Éluard.
Beautifully designed and illustrated throughout, Calligraphies of Love is the perfect gift for lovers, poets and dreamers.
How did an ancient Indian spiritual discipline turn into a GBP 20 billion-a-year mainstay of the global wellness industry?
This comprehensive history sets yoga in its global cultural context for the first time. From arcane religious rituals and medieval body-magic, through muscular Christianity and the British Raj, to the Indian nationalist movement and the arrival of yoga in the twentieth-century West, we discover how the practice reached its present-day ubiquity and how it became embedded in powerful social currents shaping the world’s future, such as digital media, celebrity culture, the stress pandemic and the quest for an authentic identity in the face of unprecedented change.
Nowhere are more laws at risk of being broken than in a courtroom
Rookie lawyer Ranjeev C. Dubey realizes this the hard way as he trudges through the corridors of Delhi’s trial courts and sees that the legal system is anything but fair. He stumbles upon a strange world of corruption, adultery, eloping couples and clients willing to pay for legal services ‘in kind’. He survives the ‘killing field’ of litigation for twelve long years, biding his time.
When he gets an offer to join a law firm, Dubey believes he has finally arrived. But has he? The world of Indian corporate law is one of intense power-play and the merciless pursuit of revenue. In this sinister ecosystem of destructive politicking, Ranjeev becomes enemies with the sharks circling the firm. What follows is an explosive showdown.
The now-well-known corporate lawyer exposes the world of the black robe in this dark and racy memoir with his trademark wit, leaving you wanting more.
If you read only one book about the world of lawyers and the Indian legal system, let Legal Confidential be it!
Anima burns her diaries which record the long period of grief and mourning that followed Siddharth’s death in the Bombay riots. Bold lines of black on a blank canvas lead Ashesh to start a new painting. Sharada sings her own composition in the noon raag Shuddh Sarang at an evening concert. Crowfall unobtrusively follows an eventful year in the lives of a group of friends—a journalist, a teacher, a musician and three painters—in Mumbai. Like the cycle of seasons, love and violence and heartbreak and joy pursue each other. And it is friendship that provides uncompromising solace amidst the ravening pressures of life in the big city.
Steeped in sensuous detail, Crowfall takes in art and identity, music and communal madness, and the clash of the old and the new to etch a finely nuanced portrait of contemporary Mumbai.
Two and a half million Indians volunteered in the Second World War. Their stories had been lost and silenced, until now.
Award-winning historian Yasmin Khan marshals interviews, newspaper reports and unseen archival material to tell the forgotten story of India’s role in the Second World War. We meet soldiers, sailors and non-combatants prostitutes, nurses, cooks, peasants—whose lives were upended by a war far, far away. From a small Muslim boy arrested for singing anti-recruitment songs, to cooks preparing chapattis on army boats, to a family listening to illicit German radio broadcasts, and a love letter from the first Indian soldier to receive the Victoria Cross, Khan makes us feel and hear the lost voices of a people involved in a war that wasn’t of their choosing.
Dramatizing a cataclysm that transformed the subcontinent and led to its independence, The Raj at War undeniably inserts South Asia back into WWII history and confirms that the Empire—and all its subjects—formed both the heart and limbs of Britain’s war effort and eventual victory.
Among the USA’s allies in the war against terrorism, Pakistan cannot be easily characterized as either friend or foe. Nuclear-armed Pakistan is an important centre of radical Islamist ideas and groups. After 9/11, the selective cooperation of President General Pervez Musharraf in sharing intelligence with the United States and apprehending Al-Qaeda members led to the assumption that Pakistan might be ready to give up its long-standing ties with radical Islam. But Pakistan’s status as an Islamic ideological state is closely linked with the Pakistani elite’s world view and the praetorian ambitions of its military.
Pakistan: Between Mosque and Military analyses the origins of the relationships between Islamist groups and Pakistan’s military, and explores the nation’s quest for identity and security. Tracing how the military has sought US support by making itself useful for concerns of the moment-while continuing to strengthen the mosque-military alliance within Pakistan-Haqqani offers an alternative view of political developments since the country’s Independence in 1947.
This new edition of this classic work includes data updates and an Epilogue by the author.
