For two centuries, the United States has been involved India. Ranging from the Great Indian revolt in 1857 to solving the Indo Pak war of 1947.
Here are a few significant instances of the American involvement in India, from Srinath Raghavan’s book, The Most Dangerous Place which presents a gripping account of America’s political and strategic, economic and cultural presence in the region. By illuminating the patterns of the past, this sweeping history also throws light on the challenges of the future.
Let’s take a look!
Category: Excerpts
Exploring Waves of Migration in the Islamic Community
India Moving takes a close look at India’s (and the world’s largest) episodes of voluntary and involuntary migration. It delves into how India is unique in currently sustaining considerable immigration, internal migration and emigration – all three at the same time.
It provides a wealth of information and interesting perspective on the migration of different business communities within and outside India.
Here’s an insightful look at the origin and impact of successive waves of migration within the Muslim Merchant community, over the years:
Meet the Characters – Love, Take Two
An epic film based on one of the most famous tragic romances of all time- Heer-Ranjha, serves as the surprising backdrop to this rollicking romantic comedy of heroes, heroines and happily-ever afters in Tinseltown.
Saranya Rai brings to you Love,Take Two. When Vicky Behl and Kritika Vadukut meet on the sets of Ranjha Ranjha they find it hard not to give in to their attraction to each other amidst all the romantic numbers and their undeniable onscreen and off-screen chemistry. But will the pressure and scrutiny of Bollywood allow them a happy ending or will there be a twist in the tale?
Kritika Vadukut
The gorgeous model/badminton player turned successful actress, who through sheer hard-work and perseverance is trying to prove that not every former Miss India is jinxed in Bollywood. Having once had her heart broken by the poster-boy for Bollywood nepotism -Raunak Rajput, can she trust her heart to another star with a player’s reputation again?
Vicky Behl
Charming, goofy and good-looking, Vicky is everybody’s favourite scandalous leading man and all-round Bollywood heartthrob, with a (partly) undeserved tharki reputation and a taste for outlandish clothes. When he is cast as Ranjha opposite Kritika’s Heer, he must navigate rumour-mongering reporters and well-intentioned family and friends to reach his stunning co-stars heart.
Jahan Malek-
Vicky’s long-suffering best friend and confidante. He is also a popular star and the critics’ darling for his stellar performances and his hard-earned abs.
Mrinalini Behl
21, chubby and shy, Mini would be the classic girl next door if your average girl next door had India’s scandalous sweetheart, Vicky Behl, for an overprotective older brother. Add to that her long-term crush on yet another famous star and her brother’s best friend-Jahan Malek who insists on seeing her as a little sister, and you have no shortage of growing pains!
Sudarshana Samarth
Incredibly smart and accomplished, as a veteran of eighteen films with a taste for plenty of opulent, baroque grandeur, Sudarshana has the dubious joy of directing the incorrigible Vicky Behl who sees this impossible taskmaster as the female version of his principal, and Kritika in the period drama Ranjha Ranjha. All this while also dealing with her annoyingly attractive DoP who has a way of getting under her skin with his radically different ideas on cinematography.
Arun Jadhav
Ranjha Ranjha’s Director of Photography who is as thoroughly intrigued by Sudarshana’s intelligence as by her gentle curves and quiet beauty, even if his minimalist and raw approach to cinematography is at odds with her more grandiose visions.
Meher Patel
Kritika’s best friend and stylist, a single mother and accomplished designer in her own right, she takes her job of saving her stunning but sartorially insecure friend from fashion purgatory very seriously.
Bhaskar Joshi
Sneaky entertainment reporter who is not above using dubious tactics and manipulating perfectly mundane statements for a fresh scoop of juicy scandal.
Staggering Forward – Excerpt
Is Modi’s foreign policy a failure? – An Excerpt from Staggering Forward
Narendra Modi has never really articulated his India First policy in extenso but spoken about it in dribs and drabs and broad-brush terms. In a town hall setting in New Delhi in August 2016, he elaborated on this concept as the “central point [of Indian foreign policy]. It is about protecting India’s strategic interest [and] ensur[ing] that India marches forward in achieving economic prosperity by leaps and bounds and reach[ing] the position which it is destined to reach.”
Here is an excerpt from Bharat Karnad’ book, Staggering Forward: Narendra Modi and India’s Global Ambition where the author talks about his views on Modi’s foreign policy. Argumentative and thought-provoking, Staggering Forward is a must-read to understand India’s foreign and national security policies since 2014.
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In the end stage of his first term as prime minister, Modi, the sole fount of all policy ideas in the BJP government, has done nothing very meaningful in meeting the India First metrics. In early May 2017, he defined his foreign policy priorities to an assembly of the country’s ambassadors as follows: increasing India’s economic profile in the newer, untapped markets of the world, enhancing its security in a difficult neighbourhood and building it into a leading power and net security provider. These are unexceptionable goals, not the stuff to vault India into the heaving scrum of international power politics. The impression of Modi’s small-time objectives is backed by the fact that there is no mention anywhere in his many pronouncements of the inherent strengths and resources of the nation and how he means to harness them. More troublingly, there’s no hint, much less a detailed articulation, of a national vision, of the preferred global order and rising India’s place in it, the time-frame in which he expects the country to achieve it and with what effect on the Asian region and the world and, most significantly, utilizing what plan and strategy. Indeed, there has been nothing from
Modi by way of a national vision, game plan or strategy. Nor has there been a public mustering of the iron resolve and political will necessary to signal to the people his intentions, just a series of mostly alliterative slogans and, in practice, staying with the foreign and military policies charted by his predecessors, Vajpayee and Manmohan Singh. It doesn’t come close to fleshing out a genuinely ‘new India’, much less an India First attitude and policies.
Consider in this respect what Modi sees as constituting a ‘new India’: A more efficient apparatus of state (better coordination between government agencies, distribution of LED bulbs, etc.), speeded up governmental processes (less time to get passports, income tax refunds), streamlined delivery of social benefits (farmer insurance, free gas connections, rural electrification, bank accounts for the poor), more effective implementation of infrastructure programmes (rail projects, increased electricity generation), and accelerated creation of jobs (extending shop hours). The impression one has of these markers is that of a list of ingredients and tools a car designer may crave without an inkling of what he is supposed to create. The result could be a Rolls- Royce or a Tata Nano. If all Modi’s vision for the country is a bagful of relatively small achievements, meagre economic accomplishments and unspecified but timid objectives in the external realm dressed up in acronyms (such as SAGAR—Security and Growth for All in the Region), his ‘new India’ is much like the old India he inherited. It’s the ‘same old, same old’ with Modi’s ministrations, producing only marginal changes because he is relying on the existing rickety government system and the old way of doing things to deliver new, different and dazzling outcomes. So, India continues to lag way behind the South East Asian states to go no farther out than that and, where China is concerned, remains overmatched.
Compared and contrasted with the agendas of the other strongmen, Modi’s vision and schemes appear meagre, mostly of local import, and not designed for anything other than minimal international impact. If he has been restrained and convivial in his dealings with foreign countries, his government at home, like Trump’s in the US, Xi’s in China, Putin’s in Russia and Erdogan’s in Turkey, has been only about himself. Having first ruthlessly eliminated the residual resistance to his primacy within the ruling BJP with some deft political manoeuvring, Modi has, with the help of his confidant Amit Shah (installed by him as party chief), reduced the opposition to bumfuzzled irrelevance, sharing the fate of the Kemalists at the hands of Erdogan in Turkey, of the Communist Party and the Liberal Democratic Party by Putin in Russia, and the shrinking of the support base of the Democratic Party and Constitutional Democratic Party by Abe in Japan.
But it is hard not to attribute this outcome to Modi’s political skills and rhetoric, his keen social sense, insights into caste arithmetic in various regions and the gripes and grievances of the common man. Combined with his killer instinct, it has assured Modi and his party a longish stint in power. A domineering presence in national life has resulted in the Indian system and policy establishment—the deep state—adjusting to Modi’s likes and dislikes, becoming attentive to his every tick and ready to do his bidding. It has reinforced the prime minister’s autocratic style of functioning, rooting the top-down decision-making model that’s presently in vogue—very different from the more collegial model of the previous regimes that fitted the personalities of Manmohan Singh and Vajpayee. It mirrors developments in the US, China, Russia and Turkey, and a good part of the developing world, and in the states formerly comprising the Soviet bloc. It represents what John Lloyd, founder of the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at Oxford University has called ‘semi-authoritarian nationalism’. Whatever their differing ideologies, autocratic regimes find other governments of the same ilk easier to do business with.
The Adventures of SP Lodha
Bihar Diaries is an exciting account of the arrest of the ill-famed criminal of Bihar, Vijay Samrat by Amit Lodha. Known for extortion, kidnapping and massacre of numerous people, Vijay Samrat is one of the most feared ganglords of Shekhpura, a sleepy mofussil town in Bihar.
Twinkle Khanna in her foreword to the book praises SP Amit Lodha and says, “When you read the story, you will find that it is vivid and atmospheric because the author has lived each moment, unlike the rest of us who have to often rely on second-hand research and our imaginations while writing from the safety of our armchairs.”
Here are five interesting cases that SP Amit Lodha has worked on:
1. The featured case of how SP Amit Lodha caught the ganglord Vijay Samrat tops this list. With his quick thinking and persistence to mete out justice, he was able to seize the most dangerous criminal of Bihar.
2. When a student from one of the well-known schools of Bihar was abducted, SP Amit Lodha with his flair of working with technology and new gadgets, was able to catch hold of the kidnapper and find the missing child.
3. While on a mission to capture the don of Munger, Kirtan Mishra, SP Amit Lodha bravely went to his hideout and arrested him. This was the first arrest of his career.
4. SP Amit Lodha managed to capture the infamous murderer Hari Sinha with the utmost ease. When he did not get the back-up that he needed, he decided to go without it to capture the criminal.
5. When on a mission to arrest Vijay Samrat, SP Amit Lodha found out about his most trusted accomplice Horlicks Samrat. A long and an interesting process of following the trail of the criminal ensued, resulting in the arrest and bringing him closer to his aim of arresting Vijay Samrat.
Bihar Diaries captures vividly the battle of nerves between a dreaded outlaw and a young urbane IPS officer.
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The Bhagavata retold with illustrations – An excerpt
The Bhagavata is the story of Krishna, known as Shyam to those who find beauty, wisdom and love in his dark complexion. It is the third great Hindu epic after the Mahabharata and the Ramayana. However, this narration was composed in fragments over thousands of years.
Devdutt Pattanaik’s book, Shyam seamlessly weaves the story from Krishna’s birth to his death, or rather from his descent to the butter-smeared world of happy women to his ascent from the blood-soaked world of angry men.
While talking of Shyam, Vyasa told Shuka, ‘Some tried to hurt him, he who cannot be hurt. Some tried to protect him, he who needs no protection. Let these tales make you sing lullabies for Shyam who sleeps in the cradle.’
Here is an excerpt of two of the stories from the book that talk about Shyam destroying Putana and Trinavarta, as an infant.
In keeping with tradition, nursing mothers in the village and in the surrounding countryside gathered in Yashoda’s house to offer their milk to her son. Among them was the wet nurse Putana.
Putana had been ordered by Kamsa to fill her breasts with poison and kill every newborn in Vraja. ‘Hopefully, one of them will be the child who escaped, the one destined to kill me.’ Putana let her love for Kamsa eclipse the morality of her action.
After nursing hundreds of infants to death, she arrived at Nanda’s house. ‘Let me feed your little boy,’ she said, a smile on her face and murder in her heart. Shyam leapt into her arms in glee. ‘See, he already likes me!’ Turning to Rohini she said, ‘You carry on with your chores. The child is safe with me.’
With everyone gone, Putana settled Shyam at her breast and let him suckle. She waited patiently for his cherubic limbs to go limp. She waited and waited, but the child showed no signs of slowing down. If anything, he sucked with greater vigour. Feeling uncomfortable, she tried pulling him away, but the dark child clung to her white breast like a baby monkey, suckling furiously. Putana grew weak. She could neither stand nor sit. The child, she realized, was drinking not her milk but her life. She opened her mouth to let out a bloodcurdling scream but the sound caught in her throat. Her vision blurred. And then she breathed no more.
Then Kamsa invoked Trinavarta to sweep into Gokul like the wind, scoop up the child who killed his beloved Putana and dash him to the ground before his mother’s eyes.
Trinavarta transformed into a whirlwind, flew across the Yamuna to Gokul where he found Shyam in the courtyard of Nanda’s house. Yashoda was churning butter while Nanda was busy cleaning the cowsheds. The wind demon swooped down like a hawk and carried the child away. He rose high in the sky, intent on hurling Shyam down from a great height.
But the higher Trinavarta rose, the heavier Shyam became. Though he still looked like an infant, barely three months old, sleeping soundly, unaware of the wind demon’s foul intentions, he weighed as much as a mountain.
When Shyam awoke and found that he was high above the earth, he did not cry. Nor was he afraid. He firmly clung to Trinavarta’s neck as if to steady himself. Trinavarta felt himself choking. Breathless, he could no longer whirl. Reduced to a harmless draught, he slunk back to earth.
It was only when Trinavarta placed Shyam back in his cradle that the child eased his grip. Trinavarta then collapsed and died. That day, the air over Gokul stood still as if in awe of Shyam’s strength.
Chanakya and the Art of Getting Rich by Radhakrishnan Pillai- An Excerpt
Chanakya’s Arthashastra is an unrivalled political treatise that has been used by scholars, academics and leaders across the world. In Chanakya and the Art of Getting Rich, Radhakrishnan Pillai brings out the inherent lessons from Arthashastra to present a strategic and practical way of wealth creation. This is a holistic study, written for anyone and everyone.
Here is an excerpt from the Stages of Wealth:
There are all types of wealthy people: educated, not so educated, large-hearted, miserly, first-generation wealthy, those who inherited their wealth, those who became wealthy at a young age, those who became wealthy after years of struggle, from rags to riches, from rich to very, very rich . . .
The best part about wealth is that there is no one group of wealthy people. They come from all backgrounds, from rich countries and poor countries, they are males and females, they make their money in various fields and industries: food, fashion, books, cinema, science, sports, medicine, real estate, automobiles, computers, technology, art . . . You will find more than one rich and successful person in every field.
There are some patterns common to every rich person’s life. If we understand those patterns, we can identify the principles that are common to the approach of all these wealthy people.
That one underlying rule is: they all loved their work and committed themselves to their work for years before they became rich. They had a long-term approach. Even after they became rich, they continued to work. All wealthy people have enough money to not worry about paying their monthly bills. They might even be able to afford to buy a fleet of limousines with just their leftover pocket money. They can sit by the seashore, sip on a drink and do nothing till the end of their lives. Yet, you will find these people working hard. They enjoy their work and are busy with their teams creating more, better things than what they created in the past. Many can afford large mansions but continue staying in the small apartments they owned even when they were not rich. They have a different mindset, which ordinary people miss to note.
Warren Buffet continued to stay in his hometown of Omaha while he could have moved to a plush penthouse in New York. Steve Jobs continued to wear the black turtleneck T-shirt and jeans till his death when he could have had the best fashion designers at his disposal. Sam Walton continued to drive a simple car though he was among the richest men in the United States of America. Narayana Murthy of Infosys and his wife Sudha Murthy continue to create jobs and distribute wealth the same way they did years ago. The simplicity of their lifestyle has not changed with the fortunes they have earned. The other founders of Infosys sport the same attitude and continue to work in fields they love.
If the owners of Tata group decide to convert their trust’s wealth into personal wealth, they would become the richest people on earth. Yet their commitment to social work and philanthropy continues with the same attitude with which they started over a century ago. They continue to build hospitals, factories, centres of research, along with countless new companies.
The Ford foundation still contributes to unknown areas of education and research. Warren Buffet and Bill Gates give away fortunes in charity and make donations in projects they love. Some rich people donate as individuals, while some donate through their companies and foundations. Yet they give as lavishly as they earn. A study of the lives and the mindset of rich people gives us insights into many such habits, usually not known to others. Once we understand their world, we too can create our world of richness—different, yet similar.
As we read and think about Chanakya, one needs to understand that the world has changed a lot from his days. The world we live in, the twenty-first century, is very different from the world of the fourth century BC. So even the definition of being rich has changed.
During those days the wealth was concentrated with the kings and royal families. Then there could be a few merchants and traders. The occupations were limited and opportunities were few. For someone of the working classes to become rich, he had to fight against established systems of society. The rich and powerful saw this as a threat to their ‘blue blood’ status and would not let others rise. There were many limitations and becoming rich would often end up being just a dream that you would die with—an unfulfilled wish.
Yet all of us living in this generation are lucky. Anyone can become rich. In fact, all of us can become rich. Today wealth is not limited to a particular family or a group of people. You need not be qualified with only a specific set of skills to become rich.
Stories from Storywallah
Storywallah is a collection of short stories written by a handpicked group of writers. This book deals with life in provincial India at a crossroad with modernity. These stories expose readers to the common yet unique life in India at a deeper perspective. It makes us value the land we are born in, relationships we share with people and ordinary objects of everyday life, which become the pathway of creating new friendships.
Let’s take a look at some of the short stories in the book!
- The short story, Home, deals with a son’s realization of how much his father and bua loved him. Even though years have passed, he misses his home country in a foreign land. However, due to the love his own sons have given him, he finds the courage to fulfil the deepest desire of his heart – to reunite with his family.
- The Muffler is a story which symbolizes how relationships can be formed through the smallest of things, like lending a muffler to a stranger on a cold snowy day. It deals with gut feelings and instincts and not questioning instances in life. The aspect of living in the present and let the future remain is a mystery is the crux of it.
- The Evening Tea is a short story which deals with perceptions about relationships, especially the one between a mother-in-law and a daughter-in-law in the Indian household. When an individual tries to understand the reasons behind the actions of the other person, their judgement towards them becomes fair. All the anger and hatred is instead replaced by love and empathy.
- Ayesha is a story about a father whose daughter was kidnapped in Dalhousie. For six years, he searched for her everywhere. Even when his wife lost faith in finding her, he never gave up. One day, he found the first link to his daughter. Slowly, the hope of finding his daughter turned brighter. It is truly said that where there’s a will there’s a way.
- A Bird in Flight is a story about an old man who chose to leave his village life in order to become a part of the city life. Years later, his son wants to sell his ancestral home in the village. However the thought of selling a paramount part of his life breaks him. This story deals with the a man’s affinity to the land he was born in , to go back to his roots and the memories of the happiest time of his life- his childhood.
The Communist Manifesto- An Excerpt
Since the Manifesto was first written in 1848 by Marx and Engels, the text has only grown more influential and relevant. It has been banned,censored,burned and declared ‘dead’ but is still required reading in several courses. The Communist Manifesto is an extensively researched edition that provides an authoritative introduction with the full text of the Manifesto.
This year celebrates Karl Marx’s 200th birth anniversary. Grab this edition that explains Marxism in a nutshell in a reader-friendly format.
Here is an excerpt from the book:
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Life under capitalism is a rat race not only inside the workplace, but out of it as well. In a society constantly on the move, social relations are turned upside down. Capitalism encourages greed, competition, and aggression. It degrades human relations so that they are frequently based on little more than “naked self-interest” and “callous ‘cash payment’”. While its supporters prattle on endlessly about “family values,” capitalism itself rips families apart.
The bourgeois clap-trap about the family and education, about the hallowed co-relation of parent and child, becomes all the more disgusting, the more, by the action of modern industry, all family ties among the proletarians are torn asunder, and their children transformed into simple articles of commerce and instruments of labor. (II.45)
Vast numbers of people are thus denied a truly human existence.
Capitalism’s ceaseless drive to expand not only destabilizes all social relations; sooner or later, it also undermines the conditions for economic growth itself.Marx and Engels argue that capitalism increasingly exhibits a tendency to run out of control—it is a system in which highly destructive economic crises are unavoidable and that has thus become fundamentally irrational.
Modern bourgeois society, with its relations of production, of exchange and of property, a society that has conjured up such gigantic means of production and of exchange, is like the sorcerer who is no longer able to control the powers of the nether world whom he has called up by his spells.(I.27)
In a world threatened by pollution, global warming, and the destruction of ecosystems as the result of uncontrolled capitalist growth, this image perhaps has a special resonance. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, the search for profits threatens to destroy everything in its path, including the natural environment.
The Manifesto does not contain a fully worked-out economic theory—Marx was later to provide that in Capital—but it does provide a description of recurring capitalist crises, which, once again, fits the modern world remarkably well.
For many a decade past, the history of industry and commerce is but the history of the revolt of modern productive forces against modern conditions of production, against the property relations that are the conditions for the existence of the bourgeoisie and of its rule. It is enough to mention the commercial crises that by their periodical return put on its trial, each time more threateningly, the existence of the entire bourgeois society. In these crises a great part not only of the existing products, but also of the previously created productive forces, are periodically destroyed. (I.27)
The periodic crises that the Manifesto describes have continued to plague capitalism ever since, despite repeated claims that they have become a thing of the past.
Book of Rachel- An excerpt
Esther David writes about Jewish life in India and personally illustrates her books. Book of Rachel, her latest book, is a captivating tale of a woman’s battle to live life on her own terms. Continuing the saga of the unique Bene Israel Jews in India, it adds to Esther David’s reputation as a writer of grace and power.
The book follows Rachel who lives alone by the sea. Her children have long migrated to Israel as have her Bene Israel Jew neighbours. Taking care of the local synagogue and preparing exquisite traditional Jewish dishes sustain Rachel’s hope of seeing the community come together again at a future time.
Here is a recipe from Rachel’s kitchen that you should try –
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METHI BHAAJI
Ingredients: methi or fenugreek leaves, potatoes, onions, garlic, oil, red chilli powder, coconut, salt
Method: Take two fresh bouquets of methi, cut root ends, pluck leaves, wash well and soak in a large bowl of water, changing water frequently to get rid of residue. When washed clean, drain methi leaves and keep aside.
Slice three onions, chop six cloves garlic and fry till golden brown in two tablespoons oil. Add one large potato peeled and cubed. When potato is almost done, mix well with methi leaves, chilli powder and salt. Cover the pan and cook on slow fire in its own liquid till cooked. Add a heaped tablespoon of freshly grated coconut.
Methi is a bitter herb and coconut helps reduce the bitterness.
Cook on slow fire, till the vegetable absorbs the oil. Serve hot with chapattis.
Optional: Use jaggery instead of grated coconut.
Variation: Vegetables like gavar or cluster beans, french beans, snake gourd, dudhi or marrow, tindla and padval can be cooked in the same way.
A sprig of fenugreek is used as karpas or the bitter herb in the Pessach platter if parsley is not available. Methi has medicinal values and is known to cure constipation. A plain bitter soup made with methi leaves is supposed to have medicinal value when taken early in the morning on an empty stomach. A few methi seeds, soaked and swallowed whole, are also known to cure many ailments.
Whenever Rachel made methi, she missed Jacob. He loved methi and when he was in India he lived on it. Rachel called him methi-mad. And, just for him, she had a patch of methi growing in her backyard. Rachel never understood how Jacob had developed a taste for this bitter herb, which was disliked by the rest of the family. She wondered whether it had anything to do with his thumb-sucking habit as a child.
Soon after Rachel had weaned Jacob from her breast to the milk bottle, he had taken to sucking his thumb. This continued and Rachel was worried when he was four years old and still sucking his thumb. She was ashamed. His habit made her miserable, especially when they went to the synagogue. For no reason at all she felt all eyes were on Jacob. Even if they did not say anything, she felt the women were laughing at her. Rachel would nudge Jacob, whisper veiled threats, scold him and even bandage his hand. Jacob would sulk as they walked to the synagogue, watching his mother with big watery eyes, ready to burst into tears.
Jacob would sit next to his mother in the synagogue, hiding his bandaged hand in the folds of her sari. He felt insulted but suffered till he could bear it no longer. The prayers were long and his mother kept her eyes averted. Besides, she had not hugged him even once. The sobs collected in his chest and he needed his thumb.
