The second volume of Manu Gandhi’s diaries chronicles a turbulent time. Living with Gandhi in Noakhali in 1946 and travelling with him, she emerges as a confident caretaker, a person with opinions,…
It is a poor account of Vivekananda's life that is written without studying the Bengali writings on him, that downplays the Ramakrishna-Narendranath relationship and that pays only little…
‘How a family lived in their ordinariness for three centuries, and the mode of telling this story throws light on the "big events" in France from the pre-revolutionary era to the French…
On the eve of the 250th birth anniversary of Rammohun Roy, a discussion of his 'Tuhfat-ul-Muwahhiddin', a tract written in Persian on the One Universal Truth.
The Mahabharata is peopled by the ‘higher’ castes but there are important personages from the ‘lower’ castes whose presence gives a radical salience to ‘dharma’ as set out in the epic, to the point…
A tribute to the British literary giant of the second half of the 20th century, John Le Carrè, who died earlier this week, with a focus on his most memorable character, the tormented spymaster,…
A populist idea has developed that an entrenched elite is exploiting deprived people. This then drives populist anger that certain types of leaders take advantage of and exploit through rhetoric and…
The first volume of the translation of the diaries of Manu Gandhi, niece of Mohandas Gandhi, give a detailed account of life at the Aga Khan Palace jail in Pune where the Mahatma was interned during…
William Dalrymple's book on the East India Company is written very well and has a great deal of detail. But the writing of good History needs more. It calls for a consideration of all relevant…
