India - The Siege Within: Challenges to a Nation's Unity

Author: M J Akbar
Publisher: Roli Books
Year: 2003
Language: English
Pages: 325
ISBN/UPC (if available): 8174362681

Description

This book succeeds in explaining, as no other book has done, the resilient achievements of India’s secular democracy as well as its vulnerability and failures. As such, it makes essential reading for everyone wishing to understand today’s India.

Here M J Akbar, one of India’s most distinguished journalists, discusses the origins and nature of the strains on Indian unity which have deep roots in history. Taking 1947 as his springboard, he provides a full historical, political and cultural survey of the main pressure points, and brings his analysis up to date to include the removal of Farooq Abdullah in Kashmir, an account of his meeting with Bhindranwale, the army operation at the Golden Temple, the assassination of Mrs Indira Gandhi, and their implications for the future.

Rising fundamentalism, separatism, the consequences of Partition, unease in Kashmir-on every side it seems that India’s democratic unity is continually at risk.

Contents

Introduction

THE BIRTH OF PAKISTAN AND THE SURVIVAL OF INDIA

The Rationale of 1947
Mullah Power in Pakistan
Masters, Not Friends
The Believer
Is the Weather Freezing?
A Home for Gandhi’s Soul
A Rise of the Jailbird
The Man Who Changed the Map of India
The Roll-Call of Honour
The Great River
Past and Future

PUNJAB

The State of a Problem
An Old Fear
A Faith and Two Religions
Punjab versus Delhi: The First Sikh Homeland
The Identity Crisis
Pagri Samhal, Jatta
The Complex Minority
The Bargain Hunters
The Politics of Faith
Searching for Khalistan
Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale
Punjab: Death of a General

KASHMIR

Democracy in Paradise
Kings and Peasants
The Lion of Kashmir
Raiders of the Lost Cause
Nothing Proved
To Die an Indian
The Second Trial
Guilty till Proved Innocent?
Glory to Mother Bharat
A Phenomenon of Democracy

Index