Tuesday, November 27, 2012
Thursday, November 8, 2012
A Short Histrory of the World by H. G. Wells (Rating : ***)
If you have ever wondered about how history hangs together, then this is the book for you. From the dawn of civilization to the modern era, Wells takes you along the journey of civilization (and pre-civilization -- the first few chapters of the book cover geology and evolution). This tome, and if ever a volume merited the word this is it, carries you along the way with Alexander, Persian Kings, Khans, Crusaders, Chinese Emperors, Popes, French Citizens, Tsars, and Kaisers. The sweep of characters, times and places includes a wonderful vista of history, all together and seen in relation to its entirety.
Yes, it's dated. Yes, it's slanted. H. G. Wells is very Victorian in his ethics. His politics were Fabian Socialist so you will find a distinct undercurrent for a socialist world government driving the story along. He is as un-Eurocentric as you could expect for the time: Europe and the Middle East take up the majority of the book, China and India play the next biggest role, followed distantly by Africa, Australia and the Americas.
The flaws are few given the task, the style is immensely readable, and the man who wrote The War of the Worlds, Time Machine, The Invisible Man and the Island of Doctor Moreau knows how to tell a story. Wells had the nerve to take on the World and the world gets a ripping good yarn with Mankind as the hero.
Overall the book was a treat to read with a lot of illustration and photos of historical objects from various museums. It definitely added to my knowledge of world history.
Sunday, October 21, 2012
Bikers for Warriors
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Sadashiv Rao Bhau with Ibrahim Gardi (left) in a painting at Raja Kelkar Museum, Pune |
To Panipat — that was the route to begin with. So, on January 3, a group of youngsters left Pune on a historical journey. Their destination was the famous battlefield of Haryana. Saddled on motorcycles, these 550 individuals, 34 of them women, roared past the Western Ghats, the Narmada, and the Chambal ravines on their way to Panipat. To call it an adventure trip would have been a travesty of the emotion they were trying to articulate —it was their bid to relive the journey undertaken by their ancestors 252 years ago. It was also an attempt to put the record straight about the Third Battle of Panipat in which forces of the Maratha confederacy had taken on Ahmed Shah Abdali.
Before the battle, the Marathas had begun a 10-month long campaign under the command of Sadashiv Rao Bhau to reach Panipat and take on Abdali’s forces. Now, their descendants want the country to hear the story which “hasn’t been told properly.” “We have participants from Andhra Pradesh, Goa, Karnataka, Maharashtra and Gujarat. We all wanted to have first-hand experience of what the Marathas under Sadashiv Rao Bhau had experienced two-and-ahalf centuries ago. The story of Panipat needs to be told to our countrymen,” says Pandurang Balkawade, a historian who is one of the driving forces behind the Panipat Ranasangram Smruti Samiti that organised the rally which ended in a function attended by President Pratibha Patil and Punjab governor Shivraj Patil at Panipat on January 14.
But retracing the path of the Maratha warriors was not easy. The bikers faced the same problems their ancestors might have in the 18th century. As they entered the Gangetic plains in January, the winter chill froze their bones. “At Agra, about 250 people had to turn back because of the cold,” says Dr Sandeep Mahind, who took care of the logistics through the 5,400-km long journey.
The rally entered Delhi on the 10th day of their journey. Back in 1760, it took the Marathas 120 days to reach Delhi from Sindkhed in the Deccan. The Maratha retinue exceeded the number of combatants. Also, the Marathas then were no longer a highly mobile cavalry army that believed in the shoot-andscoot doctrine. They had heavy artillery that slowed down their march.
“The cold definitely played a part in the Maratha debacle at Panipat. The army wasn’t sufficiently provisioned to beat the chill. In comparison, the Afghans came from a cooler climate and could easily fight here. But it was the dwindling supplies that seriously impaired the Marathas. The Maratha command structure was faulty, too. While generals like Scindia and Holkar preferred the traditional mode of guerrilla warfare, Bhau himself and Ibrahim Khan Gardi believed in European style combat with effective use of artillery and musketry,” says Dr Uday S Kulkarni, the critically acclaimed author of Solstice At Panipat: 14 January 1761.
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| The bikers on their way to Haryana |
On January 14, 1761, the Marathas came out of their defences and began the attack at 9am; by 3pm, it was all over. Most of the top commanders, including Peshwa’s son, Vishwas Rao, and Bhau himself, lay dead.
Considering the importance of this battle in Indian history, very little has been done to preserve its legacy. “It was impossible for us to do anything. Our family was banished to Bithoor after the Third Anglo-Maratha War of 1817-18. Until the 1930s, we were required to obtain permission of the district collectors of Bareilly and Poona before leaving Bithoor and going south. But the other sardars, the so-called rajas (Holkar, Scindia, Gaekwad and Bhonsle), were better off. Nobody, not even the government of India after Independence, did anything to preserve the legacy,” rues Uday Sinh Peshwa, a scion of the Peshwa family.
But others realised the importance of this battle. The British studied it keenly and though they understood they could beat the Indian forces, they retained their admiration for the great Maratha generals, including Ibrahim Khan Gardi. “The governor of Bombay would visit my family every year to pay respects to my great ancestor. The practice continued until Independence,” says
Rehan Abbas Ali Sardar, a direct descendant of Ibrahim Gardi. “My great grandmother had willed it that none of us should ever go to Panipat. She feared some evil might befall us, the way it did on Ibrahim Khan, who was captured by the Afghans and tortured to death. There should be some memorial of all those who perished at Panipat.”
How much of the battle do our own universities remember? “As a faculty of defence studies in a couple of civilian institutions, I observed that the element of military history was missing,” says Maj Gen (retd) Shashikant Pitre. In most universities in the West, where military history is a separate branch of study, they talk about even lesser known Indian battles. The same is, however, not true of our universities. The general also hoped the government would do something to preserve the legacy. “The memory of Panipat still affects people in Maharashtra. The name itself has become a byword for disaster or great loss,” Pitre says.
The bikers from Pune may just have rekindled an interest in the legacy of their great ancestors, revisiting an episode that changed the history of India.
FACE-OFF AT PANIPAT
ARMY STRENGTH
Marathas
40,000 light cavalry, 15,000 infantry, including 8,000 Gardi musketeers; 15,000 Pindaris; 200 cannons
Afghans
42,000 heavy cavalry; 38,000 infantry; 10,000 reserves; 4,000 personal guards; 80 cannons
TOP COMMANDERS
Marathas
Vishwas Rao, Sadashiv Rao Bhau and Ibrahim Khan Gardi
Afghans
Ahmed Shah Abdali, Shah Wali Khan and Najib Khan Rohilla
Saturday, September 29, 2012
India's heaviest satellite GSAT-10 successfully launched
GSAT-10, with a design life of 15 years is expected to be operational by November and will augment telecommunication, Direct-To-Home and radio navigation services.
At 3,400 kg at lift-off, GSAT-10 is the heaviest built by Bangalore-headquartered Indian Space Research Organization. It was ISRO's 101st space mission.
Arianespace's heavy lifting Ariane-5 ECA rocket launched GSAT-10 about 30 minutes after the blast off from the European launch pad in South America at 2.48 am, prior to which it injected European co-passenger ASTRA 2F into orbit.
GSAT-10 is fitted with 30 transponders (12 Ku-band, 12 C-band and six Extended C-Band), which will provide vital augmentation to INSAT/GSAT transponder capacity.
It also has a navigation payload - GAGAN (GPS aided Geo Augmented Navigation) - that would provide improved accuracy of GPS signals (of better than seven metre) to be used by Airports Authority of India for civil aviation requirements.
This is the second satellite in INSAT/GSAT constellation with GAGAN payload after GSAT-8, launched in May 2011.
GSAT-10 was originally scheduled for a September 22 launch, but was deferred after scientists detected a small glitch - one gram of dust - in the upper part of the rocket.
GSAT-10 project director TK Anuradha, additional secretary of Department of Space, S Srinivasan and director of ISRO Satellite Centre SK Shivakumar were among key ISRO officials who were in French Guiana for the launch, telecast live by Doordarshan.
Shivakumar said GSAT-10 would give an impetus to the 'communication revolution' in India.
ISRO chairman K Radhakrishnan was at space agency's Master Control Facility at Hassan in Karnataka at the launch, ISRO sources said. "The MCF has already taken command and control of the heavy satellite", he said minutes after the launch.
"By November 2012, we expect to operationalise GSAT-10 and make it available to the user community," added Radhakrishnan, also Secretary, Department of Space and Space Commission Chairman.
ISRO said GSAT-10 project is a Rs. 750 crore mission that includes the cost of satellite, launch services by the European space consortium Arianespace and insurance.
Arianespace chairman & CEO Jean-Yves Le Gall said at the launch base that ISRO is a highly loyal customer, as the collaboration with it began more than 30 years ago with its Apple satellite's orbiting by the third flight of an Ariane vehicle - an Ariane 1 version launched in June 1981.
Brajesh Mishra passes away
Mishra was a pivotal figure in shaping foreign policy during NDA government and a troubleshooter of prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.
As the news of his death just a day before his 85th birthday came, there was a buzz in the social online media, with several condolence messages pouring in.
"Brajesh Mishra RIP - a titan amongst Indian diplomats," tweeted Ministry of External Affairs spokesman Syed Akbaruddin.
"He (Mishra) died in a hospital," a government official told a news agency.
A career diplomat, he had served as India's Permanent Representative to the United Nations and as ambassador to Indonesia. He retired as secretary in the External Affairs Ministry.
He had played a key role in India's diplomatic efforts to contain the adverse reaction from developed countries to India's testing of a nuclear device in May, 1998.
Born on September 29, 1928, Mishra's father Dwarka Prasad Mishra, former Congress chief minister of Madhya Pradesh and considered close to Indira Gandhi.
Mishra joined BJP in 1991 only to quit it seven years later to become Vajpayee's powerful principal secretary.
Mishra, as the principal secretary to the prime minister, wielded so much clout that he often almost eclipsed the status of cabinet ministers in Vajpayee government.
He played a key role on several issues relating to domestic and international policies, including forging closer ties with China and bringing thaw in Indo-Pak relations.
He was special representative for talks with China seeking to expedite a resolution of the vexed border problem.
In November 1998, he became the country's first National Security Advisor, a post he had held till May 23, 2004.
From Pokhran-2 to Kashmir and from Vajpayee's historic bus journey to Pakistan to engaging the US in a strategic dialogue, Mishra was a crucial figure in foreign policy and security initiatives.
Mishra was India's Permanent Representative to the UN from June 1979 to April 1981. He continued with the UN on deputation, till June 1987.
After NDA was voted out of power in May 2004, Mishra did not rejoin BJP.
Mishra crafted an important role for himself and was often seen present at all meetings on foreign policy matters held at Vajpayee's residence.
In July 2005, when the Manmohan Singh government first signed the Indo-US nuclear agreement, Mishra was one of the strongest opponents of the deal.
He is understood to have played a role in convincing the BJP to take an anti-nuke deal position but subsequently became a votary of the deal.
Sunday, June 3, 2012
Sunday, April 22, 2012
Agni-V launched under NATO pressure: China
Continuing its tirade against the successful launch of Agni-V, Chinese state media accused New Delhi of buckling under NATO pressure to cut down the missile's range from 9000 km to 5000 km.The state-run Global Times which derided the missile even before it was launched saying
that Chinese nuclear power is "stronger and more reliable and India had no chance" to catch up said on Sunday in yet another scathing write-up that "India has little to celebrate" as China has raced ahead and outclassed India in development.
"The Manmohan Singh government, because of pressure from NATO member countries, has kept a slow pace with their Integrated Guided Missile Programme (IGMP).
"The Agni-V is deemed to be in its final stage, whereas in fact the IGMP ought to have progressed to develop a range of 9,000 km," it said in the write-up posted on its web edition on Sunday night.
Commenting on Sino-India relations, the paper pointed to an international effort to portray India and China as enemies and said the two countries need to make bridges of friendship that would fail such an effort.
"Althought there is an international effort to paint India and China as enemies and to make the two countries go to war with each other, such an effort will fail.
"The Chinese and Indian people share a long history and culture, and what is needed is more discussion between the two about their economics, education, tourism and culture. We must create so many bridges of friendship that the plans of other countries to make China and India into enemies will fail," it said.
The paper said India and China can together make the Asian continent strong but if divided "all of Asia will remain weak".
The paper said the celebrations over the missile "conceal the inadequacies and slow pace" of the programme, and "hide the fact that successive Indian governments have capitulated to pressure from NATO to restrict the range and power of their launch vehicles", it said.
It said India was embarrassingly behind China in its space programme and also faced a huge vulnerability as over 80 per cent of its critical weapons systems are imported from France, the US, Russia and Israel.
"If these countries cut off supplies or ammunition during a conflict, India would be helpless," it said.
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
The New Cambridge History of India - Vijaynagar by Burton Stein(Rating : **)
From childhood I was quite curious to know more about the history of the Vijayanagara empire. Our high-school text-books on history barely touched upon the rise and the fall of this great empire that ruled over almost all of southern India for about three centuries beginning in the 14th century. We picked up Burton Stein's “The New Cambridge History of India: Vijayanagara” mainly because at about 150 pages it looked like a more manageable read than the other such books. It was also far more recent than the other books and therefore had a much better chance of incorporating the findings from recent research into this aspect of Indian history.The book turned out to be a serious study of the history of the Vijayanagara empire as well as a commentary on the published literature on this topic. It seems therefore to be better suited for students of history than the general public and it does get dull at times. That does not mean that it does not have fascinating information for the patient lay reader. This is especially true for those in India since the history generally taught to us in our schools is quite lopsided.
The main focus of the author is on the economic, political and social factors affecting the rise and the fall of this empire. Reliable collection of taxes over such a vast and disparate region coupled with the pressure on the treasury by the need to maintain a full-time professional army made for tricky economics. Since this empire was ruled over by three separate dynasties coming into power via means such as usurpation, there is plenty of politics to go over. An empire like this that ruled over a diverse population speaking Kannada, Telugu, Tamil and Tulu spread over the entire Indian peninsula meant that local chieftains were both necessary as well as threatening for running the empire. Finally, the empire was constantly threatened by bordering kingdoms. It was therefore quite amazing that the empire survived and thrived for as long as it did. Quite remarkably, the book shows that the very factors that enabled the empire to form and sustain itself ultimately led to its downfall. The book is quite pro-british in nature which tries to emphasise that Indian politics at that time was utter chaos until British came and brought Integrity, Order and Descipline to India.
To fully appreciate the book, you should have some familiarity with the other main dynasties that ruled over parts of southern India like the Chalukyas, the Cholas and the Pandyas. There are extensive bibliographic references in this book for the serious student of history. Having visited Hampi is not a pre-requisite for reading this book, though it definitely helps in appreciating the few plates that are there. There is not much information about the flourishing of art in this empire as is evident from the ruins of Hampi - you will have to look elsewhere if you are interested in that aspect of the empire.
The Vijayanagara rajas ruled a substantial part of the southern peninsula of India for over three hundred years, beginning in the mid-fourteenth century. During this epoch the region was transformed from its medieval past toward a modern colonial future. Concentrating on the later sixteenth- and seventeenth-century history of Vijayanagara, this book details the pattern of rule established in this important and long-lived Hindu kingdom that was followed by other, often smaller kingdoms of peninsular India until the onset of colonialism. Through an analysis of the politics, society, and economy of Vijayanagara, the author addresses the central question of the extent to which Vijayanagara, as a medieval Hindu kingdom, can be viewed as a prototype of the polities and societies confronted by the British in the late eighteenth century. The book thus presents an understanding and appreciation of one of the great medieval kingdoms of India as well as a more general assessment of the nature of the state, society, and culture on the eve of European colonial rule.
Concentrating on the later sixteenth- and seventeenth-century history of Vijayanagara, Burton Stein details the pattern of rule established in this important and long-lived Hindu kingdom, which was followed by other, often smaller, kingdoms of peninsular India until the onset of colonialism. Stein addresses the central question of the extent to which Vijayanagara, as a medieval Hindu kingdom can be viewed.
Burton Stein has contributed to The New Cambridge History of India: Vijayanagara as an author. At the time of his death Burton Stein was Professorial Research Associate in History at the School of Oriental and African Studies, London. He had previously held professorships at the universities of Minnesota and Hawaii. His publications included "Peasant State and Society in Medieval South India" (1980) and "Thomas Munro: The Origins of the Colonial State and his Vision of Empire "(1989).
Sunday, January 22, 2012
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