In recent years, there has been a surge of writing on the technique and practice of non-violent forms of resistance. Much of this has focused on movements that occurred after the end of the Second World War, many of which have been extremely successful. Although the fact that such a method of resistance was developed in its modern form by India is acknowledged, there has not until now been an authoritative history available to show exactly how this occurred.
This book provides such a study. Although non-violence is associated above all with the towering figure of M.K. Gandhi, David Hardiman shows that civil forms of resistance were already being practiced by nationalists in British-ruled India under the rubric of ‘passive resistance’. In this, there was no principled commitment to non-violence as such.
It was Gandhi, first in South Africa and then in India, who both evolved a technique that he called ‘satyagraha’ that he characterised in terms of its ‘non-violence’. In this, ‘non-violence’ was forged as both a new word in the English language, and as a new political concept.
The Non-violent Struggle for Freedom brings out in graphic detail exactly what this entailed, and the formidable difficulties that the pioneers of such resistance encountered in the years 1905-19.
Catagory: Non Fiction
non fiction main category
What We Talk about When We Talk about Rape
Sohaila Abdulali was the first Indian survivor to speak out about rape. Gang-raped as a teenager in Bombay and indignant at the deafening silence on the issue in India, she wrote an article for a woman’s magazine questioning how we perceive rape and rape victims. Thirty years later, she saw the story go viral in the wake of the fatal 2012 Delhi rape and the global outcry that followed.
Writing from the viewpoint of a survivor, writer, counsellor and activist, and drawing on three decades of grappling with the issue personally and professionally and her work with hundreds of survivors, Sohaila Abdulali looks at what we-women, men, politicians, teachers, writers, sex workers, feminists, sages, mansplainers, victims and families-think about rape and what we say.
She also explores what we don’t say. She asks pertinent questions: Is rape always a life-defining event? Does rape always symbolize something? Is rape worse than death? Is rape related to desire? Who gets raped? Is rape inevitable? Is one rape worse than the other? Who rapes? What is consent? How do you recover a sense of safety and joy? How do you raise sons? Who gets to judge?
Zero to Zenith
Kurian John’s helplessness in the face of his father’s sudden death due to cardiac arrest spurred him on to help those without access to proper medical care, leading to the establishment of the Melam Foundation in 1986. As the number of poor patients who approached him increased, he dealt with the issue of fundraising by creating his own source of income, which resulted in the institution of the Melam Group of Companies in 1992.
Though Kurian John’s spices and curry-powder business began with zero capital-a classic yet unique and innovative example of bootstrapping-it enjoyed spectacular growth and rose to become the largest exporting spice brand in India.
In Zero to Zenith, Kurian John retraces his entrepreneurial journey, detailing how the Melam Foundation has helped innumerable poor patients through a strong network of over 1000 hospitals, and elucidates on the lessons that life taught him and the various business skills he picked up along the way. This heartwarming account of a man with a clear vision-as a businessman and a philanthropist-and a business venture with a difference is sure to instruct and inspire.
Mind Warriors:
Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) is powerful system that enables you to perform more effectively. This book provides business executives, enthusiasts and practitioners with a powerful yet simple set of practices to increase their Emotional Intelligence. Through this powerful approach you will be able to manage your own lives and interact with others better, forging magically meaningful relationships with integrity and excellence to improve your professional and personal lives, quickly!
Written in an easy-to-understand way, Mind Warriors presents NLP exercises and practices as they are taught and practised in the West, lucidly and authentically, with stories, anecdotes and philosophical connectors from both NLP and Eastern philosophy.
Master these techniques today and get ready to make some fabulous and dramatic changes in your life!
Unheard Voices
The Bhopal gas tragedy, the communal carnage of 1984 and 1989 in Delhi and Bhagalpur, the Orissa super cyclone, among others, are part of collective memory, But, often forgotten are those who actually were affected by thee happenings, and others like them, street children, sex workers, dalits, HIV and leprosy patients, the homeless and the famine-stricken. These are people who in many ways are pushed to the outermost, most hopeless margins of society in the name of development and progress.
In Unheard Voices, civil servant and social activist Harsh Mander draws on his own and his colleagues’ experiences to explore the lives of twenty such people who have survived and coped despite all odds. In Bangalore, for instance, a onetime street child now counsels other such children seeking education and self-employment; in Bhopal, and eleven year-old has brought up two of his siblings after they were orphaned in the gas leak, at great emotional cost. A young sex worker fights for the rights of her HIV positive sister-workers when their ‘home’ in Hyderabad’s red-light area is demolished. A patient combats the stigma of leprosy by helping to establish a leprosy colony in Ashagram. In Tenali, Andhra Pradesh, a blind musician couple struggles to get land from the government to set up a colony for the blind.
Going beyond mere survival, these stories are a testimony of how people have overcome their condition with humbling courage, resilience, and humanism, Marked by understatement and rare warmth, they bring out their determination to seek a better life in the face of enormous suffering. Reaffirming people’s creativity and indomitable spirit, this book challenges all those who despair about India.
Fit To Fight
Crimes against women have increased by 7.1 percent in the last three years.
Child rape cases have increased 336 percent in and in the last 10 years.
Crimes against women are increasing day by day and it can happen to you tomorrow. There is a spine-chilling rape or molestation case in the news almost everyday and many more that we don’t get to hear about but not much seems to have changed about this scenario. So what can you do to prepare and protect yourself? As a woman in today’s unsafe world, you can empower yourself, be alert, get fit, learn self defense techniques, equip yourself with vital information, anything little thing that can get you out of a dangerous situation and save your life.
Vesna Jacob’s Fit to Fight is a timely book that is packed with real life survivor stories, life-saving information, and vital tips that every woman must know. So what are you waiting for, get fit to fight.
The Mahabharata
This definitive and magnificent 10-volume unabridged translation is one of the rare English translations of full of the epic. Bibek Debroy makes the Mahabharata marvelously accessible to contemporary readers. Dispute over land and kingdom may lie at the heart of this story of war between cousins-the Pandavas and the Kouravas-but the Mahabharata is about conflicts of dharma. These conflicts are immense and various, singular and commonplace. Throughout the epic, characters face them with no clear indications of what is right and what is wrong; there are no absolute answers. Thus every possible human emotion features in the Mahabharata, the reason the epic continues to hold sway over our imagination.
In this superb and widely acclaimed translation of the complete Mahabharata, Bibek Debroy takes on a great journey with incredible ease. This is the fifth volume in the series.
The Mahabharata
This is the sixth book in the definitive and magnificent 10-volume unabridged translation of one of the rare English translations of the full epic. Bibek Debroy makes the Mahabharata marvellously accessible to contemporary readers. Dispute over land and kingdom may lie at the heart of this story of war between cousins-the Pandavas and the Kouravas-but the Mahabharata is about conflicts of dharma. These conflicts are immense and various, singular and commonplace. Throughout the epic, characters face them with no clear indications of what is right and what is wrong; there are no absolute answers. Thus every possible human emotion features in the Mahabharata, the reason the epic continues to hold sway over our imagination. In this superb and widely acclaimed translation of the complete Mahabharata, Bibek Debroy takes on a great journey with incredible ease.
The Mahabharata
The Mahabharata is one of the greatest stories ever told. Though the basic plot is widely known, there is much more to the epic than the dispute between the Kouravas and the Pandavas that led to the battle in Kurukshetra. It has innumerable sub-plots that accommodate fascinating meanderings and digressions, and it has rarely been translated in full, given itsformidable length of 80,000 shlokas or couplets. This magnificent 10-volume unabridged translation of the epic is based on the Critical Edition compiled at the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute.
With the ninth volume, the magnificent epic approaches its end. The war is over and Yudhishthira is crowned. Bhishma’s teachings that began in the eighth volume continue past the Shanti Parva into the Anushasana Parva.
Every conceivable human emotion figures in the Mahabharata, the reason why the epic continues to hold sway over our imagination. In this lucid, nuanced and confident translation, Bibek Debroy makes the Mahabharata marvellously accessible to contemporary readers.
Notes of a Dream
Who really is A.R. Rahman? We know the music. But do we know the man? For the first time, a nation’s pride-–winner of National Film awards, Oscars, Grammys and hearts-–opens up about his philosophies: hope, perseverance, positivity and love. From his early days as a composer of advertisement jingles to his first big break in feature films, from his keenness to integrate new technology with good old-fashioned music scores to the founding of his music school, from his resounding entry on to the international stage to his directorial debut, from his philanthropy to his inner life, Notes of a Dream captures Rahman’s extraordinary success story with all the rhythm and melody, the highs and lows, of a terrific soundtrack by the man himself.
Featuring intimate interviews with the soft-spoken virtuoso, as well as insights and anecdotes from key people in his life, this balanced, uplifting and affectionate book is the definitive biography of A.R. Rahman—the man behind the music and the music that made the man.